STREET ARTISTS IN EUROPE - Fondazione Fitzcarraldo

ANNEX 2 - SECTION G:
STREET ARTS IN EUROPE: MEANS OF PRODUCTION
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Street Artists in Europe
Contribution by Anne Tucker – January 2007 – in the framework of the study “Street Artists in
Europe”
1. Context in which street performance/installation artists are working
1.1. The History
Street performers have existed throughout history, in public spaces where people gathered for
commercial, social or religious purposes. Street performance was used for entertainment, for
education, for political proselitising and for marketing/selling. Performers were highly skilled at
holding their audience, at disguising themselves (using masks, puppets and costume) in order to
examine controversial or dangerous topics in accessible ways. The history of street performance
has been catalogued by social historians across the world.
Styles of street performance have varied according to economic and political circumstances
Commedia del’Arte developed as a radical form of communication in Italy, where archetypal
characteristics became recognisable simply by their marks/costume, without needing to say a
word! Across the catholic world, Carnival, masquerading (now known across the Caribbean
simply as ‘playing mas’ ) became a tool for oppressed people to break out legitimately for one
day a year and mock their masters, using giant puppets, masks, stilts, wild dancing and music.
More recently, in Spain, the Franco dictatorship prevented regional languages (eg Basque and
Catalan) being used by people - the tradition of street performance in these two (now)
autonomous regions is far greater than in other parts of Spain. Additionally, puppetry for adults
has always been very popular – an excellent and imaginative way of communicating with people
– puppets can be thrown quickly back into a suitcase if danger lurks and the manipulator melt
back into the crowds. It was only in 1975 that Spain and Portugal emerged from dictatorship to
take their place with other democratic countries in Europe.
In the Communist East European countries, the street theatre that started to emerge from Poland
seemed very identifiable - highly visual, often working with topics of desperation, violence, war
and isolation. Stilts were frequently used, and an atmosphere generated of humans being very
‘tiny’ in comparison to authority, trying to capture a few moments of humanity and intimacy.
In Great Britain, a thriving outdoor theatrical tradition was whittled almost entirely away with
the exceedingly Conservative Government of Mrs Thatcher. Funding cuts forced companies to
collapse entirely or move to France, Holland and Belgium, where street performance was
welcomed and encouraged. There still remain a large number of performers of British origin in
and around Amsterdam, (working alongside Dutch and Belgian artists) and in France (working
around Footsbarn, a Cornish company who ‘dramatically’ left England in the 1980s). The first
revival of street arts in England in the current ‘festival’ tradition, did not emerge until Stockton
in 1988 - and remained almost unique in England until the mid 1990s. The vast majority of
street performance companies that survived between 1980 and 2000 were small and/or designed
to work as busking entertainment
Today, however, the situation is evolving steadily.
PE 375.307