Back again! This time with the commencement of the Fremantle Street Arts Festival series, held between 7-9 April this year. I went on 7th and 8th April, and wanted to go on the 9th but overslept. Anyway I've got sooooooo many pictures - and saw most of the performances anyway!
The festival started at 12pm each day and ended at around 6:30pm or so. Here's how the streets of Fremantle normally look like.
And here's how the streets look like with Kate Mior entertaining the crowd. Kate Mior's one of Canada's leading mime artists, and she's hilarious! More on her in another post.
Walked around some parts of Fremantle before going to the performances.
Featured Performance #1: The Fat Matt Show (Australia).
What attracted me most was his hot pink outfit. He must have had LOTS of courage to wear something so skimpy in public. Anyway I caught about half of his performance, but he was amazing - showcasing his acrobatic stunts, his spontaneity, and his smile. He did balancing acts on precarious-looking stages, and of course, his "politically incorrect" jokes caused uproar within the crowd - but they were good!
At the end of every show, the performers would encourage people to donate - to allow them to maintain their livelihoods.
Featured Performance #2: Dans (Spain)
Juan is a multi-talented clown, entertainer and performer, who has won many awards. In this show, he was desperately searching for his soulmate - supposedly called Lucia, but in the end he found someone who was NOT called Lucia!
Juan came in right after Fat Matt, and he even interacted with the audience a little before he started his show proper.
Setting up the stage just as Fat Matt was leaving.
Best part about Juan's performance - he labelled me as Press! :D He drew this massive box on the ground, wrote "Press" in it and let me sit in there - apparently the best seat amongst the crowd! Of course, he rearranged some other people in the crowd, as part of his show.
Juan never failed to impress us with his cookies (which he made volunteers eat!), his Pleyer piano and his funny facial expressions.
He did manage to find a soulmate...for a short while. And danced with her and had fun with her, before she gave up on him (in a way).
He then chose other people from the crowd for his next stunt.
The biggest highlight of his performance was fire! He performed lots of stunts with fire, including sticking the burning rod into his.....pants.........
Like all other peformers, Juan also requested for donations...
Featured Performer #3: Flochard (France)
Lots of miming and slapstick comedy here, inspired by Charlie Chaplin, including drunken behaviour, disorientation and of course, more drinking! Which made the crowd laugh a lot.
His facial expressions were super epic too!
And he even made a balloon out of a goon sack...just for laughs.
More proof of his silliness - where he engaged with audiences in the crowd. He picked a random dude from the crowd, and pretended to get him into trouble.
And that's what I mean by trouble - trying to free the boy from chains using the MOST unconventional but dangerous methods....which obviously never worked. These were all part of the show.
Boy got freed! And received a free poster from the man himself.
And here's some other "footage" of his silly antics.
Well I guess that's it for part 1 of the Street Arts festival series! Part 2 will feature Une Femme Exposee (UK), Lee Nelson (Australia), a little bit of Anthony Livingspace (Australia) and a little bit of the Blackstreet Boys (USA).
Stay tuned!