Buskerfest Day 1

Bex In Motion and Witty Look.

I met up with Peter to go to Buskerfest on Friday night a couple of weeks ago. It was the first time I've actually shot it extensively. In past years I've gone for an hour or two shooting only two or three acts.

Since I have Fridays off work I got a head start. I walked down a bit earlier arriving a little before 5:00. Yonge Street was closed off from College to Queen with a number of stages for the performers set up in between.

The first performer I came upon was Bence Sarkadi with his marionettes on Stage 9 (on the east side of Yonge south of College). He was almost finished when I arrived so I didn't actually see much.

A bit further south Catana Chetwynd from Saratoga Springs, New York was creating a piece of Chalk Art on the sidewalk. I believe it was inspired by the TV show Game of Thrones.

I was snapping a few shots of her working when I noticed a young, art-student type, come up and start sketching her. He had a long sheet of paper with sketches of other people he had done. With his big green headphones and backpack adorned with colourful buttons he became my new subject.

Next, on Stage 8, was Hercinia Arts Collective. The trio of acrobats performed a show called The Flying Machine. One girl, the inventor, walked around on stilts and narrated the show while two others performed on the trapeze suspended in the air above Yonge Street. They weren't too bad.

Peter arrived around 7:00 p.m. just after the trapeze artists performed. I walked back up to College Street to meet him.

We walked back down to just south of College Park and took a few shots of the guys playing chess on the large plastic set there before moving on to catch Nathaniel Rankin and his show Borderline Madness. He had replaced the girls of Hercinia Arts Collective on Stage 8. Nathaniel's act was a combination of magic, juggling and comedy. It was all right.

Continuing south to Stage 7, we caught the last part of Bex In Motion's Fire Show. We saw her Hula-hooping a number of hoops. Then she did the same thing with some hoops that she lit on fire. Since it was dark by this time anything on fire looked kind of cool.

We also caught the last 10 minutes of Zap Circus' Purple People Show at Stage 4 tucked away on Edward Street. They're an Australian duo of acrobats. They too had a fire component to their show spinning lit batons while the girl stood upon the guy's shoulders.

Though I understand the need to ask for donations, these guys dragged it too far. The girl droned on and on and on about it. Have a bit of dignity. You only need to prod a little. The audience understands what's going on.

After their performance we took a break for late dinner. We split a medium pepperoni Pizza Pizza for $4.99 plus tax (for walk-in orders). Freshly made, it was pretty tasty.

The last performance of the day that we caught fully was the best. It was the unicycling duo Witty Look from Japan. They consist of unicycle world champion Daiki and an acrobatic clown Cheeky! Cheeky is over-the-top hilarious. So funny. It was more than just tricks on unicycles. That's what made it one of the better shows.

After their performance we walked a bit further south on Yonge past Dundas. It was getting late by then so we headed home not long after.