BRITTANY JOHNSTON
Ottawa Buskerfest, Sparks Street, July 31, 2016
“I’m a living statue and a daughter of Midas. I’m doing this with Julie Malenfant. I just graduated from the University of Ottawa in theatre, and when I’m not doing this, I work for a theatre company in Ottawa that does Shakespeare in the parks, Company of Fools. It’s a great job; the team is amazing and I get to be outside in the park, in the sun.
“This is our first weekend doing this. It came about just by chance. One of my professors, John Lockhart, is the technical director of the festival, and he was looking for mimes, so I thought, ‘Yeah, why not? Why not do something new and exciting?’
“And it is. I would love to keep doing this. I think I could do this every weekend. We started at 11:30 and we’ll finish at 3. We have an hour-long playlist, and then we take a break. I wish Ottawa had more buskers, but it’s really expensive to be a busker in Ottawa, to get a licence. But if it were cheaper I would totally do it.
“The key is eye contact. I can wink with both eyes. And that’s the best; interacting with the audience. And really, my favourite part is the kids. They’re either really scared of you or you’re this fantastical creature and they’ve never seen anything like it. They really think we’re real statues. Real, live statues.
“What don’t I like about it? There are sometimes some real horndogs in the audience, but generally people are really great. You get to flirt with the boys and make the wives jealous — but they love it, too. It’s so much fun.”