The Story of Street Performers in Boston and Cambridge:
Or How Balloon Twisters, Living Statues, One-Man Bands and Jugglers Have Come to Claim Space and Foster a Shared Public Culture

by Warren Hynes
2003 Winner of the Michael Lenz Award for Non-Traditional Research

Abstract:


This paper explores the street-performance scene in Boston and Cambridge by studying the areas of performance space, contests over space, and performance audience. Part I of the paper explores how street performers in Boston and Cambridge use public urban spaces and what they contribute to those spaces. I found that the entertainers add to the variety of uses in the spaces in which they perform, which results in a richer and healthier city space. Part II explores the ways in which street performers in Boston and Cambridge have engaged in contests over urban public space, in their attempts to play when, where and how they desire. I found that such conflicts follow a long tradition of contests over city spaces in America. Part III explores the way in which street performers in Boston and Cambridge are able to draw together individuals of differing class, age, race, ethnicity and gender in their audiences. I found that in doing this, street performers bring together audience members who form a shared public culture, albeit briefly.
The work for this paper has taken place over the span of two years, from April 2001 to April 2003, and it includes the following: interviews with performers and audience members on the streets and in subway stations; lengthy interviews with performers outside of their performance space; books on street performance, urban public spaces, contests over public space, and performance audience; print news articles; and my own observations of performances. The print sources include books by urban planners such as Jane Jacobs, William H. Whyte and Jan Gehl; books on contests over public space, such as Spirit Poles and Flying Pigs by Erika Doss and The Park and the People by Roy Rosenzweig and Elizabeth Blackmar; and books on public culture, such as Highbrow / Lowbrow by Lawrence W. Levine and Drawing a Circle in the Square by Sally Harrison-Pepper.

Who might be interested in reading this work?
I worked very hard to make the writing in this paper engaging, and I believe that anyone with a sense of curiosity about life has the potential to enjoy it. Beyond that, I believe the book would be most interesting to students of American studies, urban planning and policy, urban history, American history, art, music, and popular culture.