Entertainers busk the streets
If you’ve been hanging out downtown this week, chances are you’ve noticed it’s been hard to twirl a fidget-spinner without grazing a busker.
Be assured the antics of the 20 buskers here for the inaugural Downtown Victoria Buskers Festival are more entertaining than those trendy devices the New
York Times recently termed the hula hoop for Generation Z.
The allure and athletic benefits of bona fide hula hoops, those gyrating toys from the 1950s now enjoying a comeback, is one example of what you’ll find downtown during the festival.
Guests at a launch event Monday at Fort Common got a sneak preview of Bex in Motion, an astonishing display of hula-hoop prowess by Rebecca Zelewicz, 31.
The Toronto-based professional street performer dazzled the crowd gathered in the revitalized brick courtyard accessed by an alley off Blanshard Street between Starbucks and BeLove Restaurant.
Given the nature of the six-day event that ends today, the outdoor urban venue was the perfect setting for a preview of some of the street acts.
Bex, as the hula hooper, dancer and fire and glow performer is nicknamed, proved as adept at working the crowd as she did spinning multiple hula hoops on every part of her gyrating body.
“Bex rhymes with hex, and other things too,” the quick-witted performer declared before recruiting two spectators as part of her act — a fellow named Greg, and Victoria city councillor Jeremy Loveday.
They were good sports, suppressing laughter after being asked to do some silly moves and stand face-to-face, their arms folded as a human pedestal she would leap onto before doing more hula hoop tricks.
“Did you guys pass kindergarten?” she deadpanned when she sensed they weren’t getting it.
She cranked up the pressure by casually noting: “Guys, the mayor’s watching.”
Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps was there with councillors Geoff Young, Pamela Madoff and Charlayne Thornton-Joe, part of a crowd that included Greater Victoria Harbour Authority CE0 Ian Robertson.
Helps was introduced by Kerry Milton, manager of the Downtown Victoria Business Assocation, which presented the festival in partnership with Tourism Victoria, GVHA and the Hotel Association of Greater Victoria.
“It’s a pretty bold move to reinvent something,” Helps said. “Sometimes it takes a lot of courage and that’s what is being shown by the DVBA reinventing the buskers festival [formerly founder John Vickers’ Victoria International Buskers Festival] in the spirit of the community and the future of downtown where we all work together to get things done and to unleash our potential.”
Zelewicz said such festivals give professional street performers a chance to showcase how much preparation and hard work it takes to craft and present playable acts on the spot.
“To get to the level of something like this festival you have to be pretty put together and put time not only into your act, but your practice and things like costuming,” she said.
Although she was into juggling and did gymnastics and trampoline as a child, it wasn’t until she attended teachers’ college that Zelewicz got into hula hoops bigtime after joining a hula-hoop club.
“I think of performing as similar to teaching,” said Zelewicz, who has two university degrees, including one in kinesiology, and planned to teach sports and yoga before specializing in hula hoop dancing and circus hooping.
“I don’t feel so much like I’m going on stage. You’re working with your audience, and that’s what I love about it.”
Australia’s Beat the Streets also entertained the crowd with a taste of their high-energy comedy and signature dance style, a fusion of break dancing and tap dancing.
“This is the best festival I’ve ever done, and I’ve been doing this for about 15 years. It’s pretty damn amazing,” said Bronx-born founder and director William Sanchez.
Sanchez and his fellow dancers — Casablanca-born BBoy Bison; New Yorker Joe Bananas and Sydney, Australia’s Nathaniel Hancock — said there’s more to performing these street shows than meets the eye.
“It’s tough. It’s a skill being able to control a crowd watching you for 35 minutes,” Sanchez said. “It takes a while to get it. You can’t just go up there and do it. I can’t say I pulled it off my first year.”
One of the rushes, he said, is that every show is different.
“You never know what’s going to happen,” he said. “It took us a while to pull together and now we can confidently go out there and say, ‘We’re gonna rock this!’”