Buskerfest

Where I was Thursday. I’m not very good at writing art review-style critiques using high-flown language, but I can say that I enjoyed Buskerfest a lot. There’s a bit of an edge to the performers. They generally live on the margins. They swear freely, even with children present. (O the horrors!) They’re tattooed and pierced, they are sometimes scruffy, and few are, to be a honest, a little creepy. The festival is not in anyway sanitized, which is why I think it is so successful. Some highlights:

Kate Mior. (Website.) One of the best we saw.

(Kate has already run afoul of His Worship the Mayor. According to Now:

Kate Mior has performed her mime-based living statue act for thousands of people all over the world, but she’ll never forget her encounter with Rob Ford.

Last year in Toronto, then-candidate Ford pushed through a crowd she was entertaining and then joked to everyone that she doesn’t pay her taxes.

“There is a certain stigma against street performers,” she acknowledges, “but in Toronto that’s changing.”)

Comment seems superfluous. More Kate:

Acrobats.

More acrobats.

This guy was quite good too. He had put some sort of shield or mask over his eyes to make them look mechanical. The effect was quite disconcerting.

But my favourite? HERE COME THE BUGS!!!

The bugs were great. We loved the bugs.

And no collection of bugs is complete without a Bug  master, who deserves special mention of his own

It’s a great festival, and if you’re downtown this weekend, check it out.