Japanese busker Kaori Koga certainly has fans in Taiwan. This comment left on the singer's blog by a Taiwanese high-school student in late 2007 is typical: "Hello! Sorry, I don't speak Japanese! I'm a girl in the eleventh grade. I've seen you perform twice in Ximending, and I have to say I was moved both times. The second time was this evening. I'm a music lover, and, like the previous time, once I stopped I found it hard to leave. Watching you sing in spite of the weather, I saw the dreams and determination of a performer. As I listened, I realized that my smiles had suddenly turned to tears. I'm listening to your CD right now. Keep it up!"

Kaori Koga came to Taiwan three years ago at the age of 27 to study. After arriving, she earned her living expenses by busking and selling her own CD. Her loud, bright voice carries well and she never needed a microphone to perform even on noisy city streets. She's known for getting very deeply into her music, often kicking off her shoes and hugging her guitar to her chest as she moves in time with the beat.

When the gypsy-like Koga left Taiwan to try her luck in Central America in early 2008, many who'd seen her perform here in Taiwan and felt a connection to her wished her well in comments on her blog. One of her fans, posting under the name of Ah-xiang, praised the courage she's shown in choosing to drift rather than settle down. Koga replied to the comment in her broken Chinese, writing that she wouldn't find it at all easy to spend all her waking hours at a desk reading or using a computer.

A chance encounter

On weekend evenings during the summer, Mr. Huang grabs a bus near his home in Taipei's Minsheng neighborhood and travels down to the Xinyi shopping district to wander around. He's not out to shop; he just wants to soak in the sea of humanity and see who's performing on the streets.

Huang, a lover of the arts, has long been a regular at performances by top international artists at the National Theater and National Concert Hall. When he retired six years ago, he never guessed that he'd come to love the Xinyi shopping district, an area which he had previously had no inclination whatsoever to visit. As the evening sky begins to darken, Huang "changes channels" by heading towards Yongkang Street, which he says "has greater human interest." This evening, there's a band called Spoon de Chop playing. Led by a young Japanese named Rei who works in the import-export business, the band is a multinational endeavor that performs familiar Taiwanese and Japanese oldies every Saturday night. Spoon de Chop likes to tell its audiences, "Take it easy! It's Saturday night!" and makes an unusual demand of them-no cash contributions, only beer. They repeat this mantra constantly, much to the amusement of their audience.

This evening, Taipei's streets are getting prettier as the hour gets later and even those out alone aren't lonely.

Street performers and their audience create a thrilling electrical alchemy that delivers a vibrant jolt to an otherwise flatlined city. When it's not raining, Isaac Hou (pictured) gives weekend performances on his cyr wheel at Taipei's Ashanti Plaza.

Earning a living in the arts

The history of street performance can be traced back to the jongleurs of medieval Europe. The word, which has its roots in Latin, was a catchall for instrumentalists, singers, mimes, clowns, and other performers. These traveling showmen were practically tramps and first appeared in the late 4th century. They earned their travel and living expenses through dazzling displays of skill on city streets, at festivals and weddings, and at banquets hosted by the royal court or in the homes of nobility.

In addition to leading the development of folk music, medieval street performers also helped spread news. By the 14th century, some of the jongleurs had evolved into minstrels at royal courts, where they received regular pay and helped develop Western wind music. Those who weren't hired by the court remained wanderers with little status.

Travelers and people at society's margins have long used busking to eke out a living. The storytelling and performing of musical comedies in Song Dynasty entertainment districts, and the early puppet shows on the streets of Taiwan (in which the traveling performers had to both act and play the musical accompaniment) are classic examples of busking in Chinese societies.

For nearly 30 years, tourism, technological development and major international arts festivals have allowed the arts to bloom in all their glory on the streets of the West. Young people have come to see the street as a springboard to or a training ground for galleries or the stage.

In Taiwan, more frequent trips abroad and greater access to information, together with the burgeoning of coffeeshop culture and the creative marketplace, have led people here to look at the street with yearning and anticipation, and fostered the birth of new forms of street art. The emergence of the busking scene at Vieshow Square in Taipei's Xinyi shopping district highlights how helpful it is to have people steering the process.

You see a lot of middle-aged male fans when Spoon de Chop plays, not to mention parents with children, foreign housekeepers with the grannies they care for, and even shopkeepers. The atmosphere is friendly and upbeat at the band's shows, which typically last a couple of hours. Rei, the band's soul, handles lead vocals, as well as playing guitar and shamisen. The band's other members, who come from Japan, the US, Macedonia, and Taiwan, include Ai Ezaki (harmonica), Ethan (guitar), Aleksandar (tambura), Akira (guitar), Leon (bongos), and Paco (bass and snare). They only got to know each other in Yongkang Park, and they typically only get together on the weekends.

A pioneer

Taipei experienced its first Noisy Arts Festival in December 2005. Organized by Chang Wang, Yan Chung-hsien, Sean Hu, and Liou Wei-gong and hosted by Vieshow Square, the festival aimed "to give the city some atmosphere and improve its urban aesthetics." That same year, the Taipei City Cultural Department promulgated regulations on busking in Taipei, enabling buskers to perform in public places without breaking the law.

Chang, who was both the organizer of the Big Street Show and director of the Headspring Theatre, drew on the living statue technique that had been popular in Europe for more than a decade when he assembled a group of performers he called Meander for the festival. "I wanted to break free of the respectability and the bitter sorrow that goes with being an artist," says Chang "I also wanted to encourage people to relate to the city in a more playful manner."

In its earliest incarnation, Meander members played 20-some roles in four categories: Star Clusters, Aliens, Mountain Forests, and Souls of Objects. The character designs, the costumes, and the training of the performers were all handled by Chang. Interestingly, the group's membership included not just theater people, but also ordinary city residents who'd joined after hearing about it on the radio or reading about it in on a flyer. The walk-ins even included a rugged-looking taxi driver with dreams of performing named Dashun whose thuggish appearance when he came in to apply scared the daylights out of the company.

Meander lived on after the curtain fell on the Noisy Arts Festival. In fact, the group's regular weekend performances at Vieshow Square and on Shinkong's Ashanti Square have attracted audiences from all over the island and helped make these spaces the most cosmopolitan of Taiwan's arts plazas.

Discussing the development of the Xinyi shopping district arts plaza, Liou Wei-gong, an associate professor in the Soochow University Department of Sociology and one of the plaza's instigators, observes that the area had a kind of modern feel about it to begin with. After all, it's home to a number of high-end department stores and near both the World Trade Center and Taipei 101. But, he says, "It was the addition of street performers that really changed the nature of the window-shopping and strolling that went on there. It transformed the area from a shopping district piled high with goods and skyscrapers into a cultural garden that brings laughter and stirs emotions in city residents."

Led by Chang Wang, the living statue performance group Meander provides the most compelling scenery in Taipei's Xinyi shopping district. Clockwise from the facing page are the silver Thunder, whose face-to-face meeting with a corporate mascot makes for an amusing scene, Grotesquilian, and Music.

Going all out

Street arts evolve with the times, and different districts have their own distinctive vibes.

Take Ximending, for example. During the Japanese era, it was Taipei's most fashionable entertainment district, and older Taipei residents remember it as the city's movie district. But the area went into decline when the city's center of development shifted eastward. It was only with the establishment of pedestrian-only areas and the construction of the subway station in the 1990s that it began to revive, evolving into a hotspot for urban youth culture. Singers, graffiti artists, hip hop dancers, and skateboarders have all come to see it as a great place to strut their stuff.

Husky, a 24-year-old rapper, has been performing solo in Ximending's pedestrian zone for five years. Before he can perform, he has to first tote a "heavy as hell" speaker and battery from an alley near the Taipei district prosecutors office (where he can park his car for free after 5 p.m.) to the crowded pedestrian zone. One he's set up, he performs his intimate, playfully risque raps for three or four hours. Husky does it to express his passion for and faith in rap music. "Rap isn't limited to criticism and profanity," he says. "And it doesn't have to involve nightclubs, drugs, and sex. It's just a kind of music that gets you up and makes you feel good."

An only son, he ignored his parents remarks about "going out begging on the street," and began busking five years ago while still a junior college student. His aim was to rap to a larger audience. "Besides, black people's hip hop culture originally came from the streets!" he says. Busking is Husky's way of living life flat out.

Husky used to be in a group, its members drawn entirely of people he had met busking. Though they had great respect for one another, the group fell apart within a year as members moved away or had to leave the group for work-related reasons. Left to carry on alone, Husky was able to structure the shows to please himself and focus on his interactions with the audience.

To date, Husky's largest take from a single performance has been nearly NT$10,000-money he tucked away in a music fund. Now signed by an agency, he continues to use the street as a platform for inventing himself.

Led by Chang Wang, the living statue performance group Meander provides the most compelling scenery in Taipei's Xinyi shopping district. Clockwise from the facing page are the silver Thunder, whose face-to-face meeting with a corporate mascot makes for an amusing scene, Grotesquilian, and Music.

Casual, recreational, mobile

When you consider the cost of admission to an indoor venue, it's easy to see why street performance appeals to audiences. Performers like it too.

First, those who enjoy a performance can hang around and reward it as they choose. Those who don't can keep walking, saving themselves from disappointed expectations and the aggravation of suffering through something they aren't interested in. It's precisely the unpredictability of the audience and the spontaneous interactions that arise in street performance that make it playful and loose.

For example, the Meander member who goes by the name of "Firefly" was once accosted by a little boy who kept poking him with his hand during a performance. Firefly himself has a mischievous streak. Far from stopping the boy, he made as if to shake his hand, then jerked his hand back, picked at the nose on the mask he was wearing, then offered his hand to the boy again. Satiated by the attention he'd received, the boy withdrew, while the audience, having enjoyed a good laugh, showered Firefly with coins.

Wang Qianru, the assistant director of Headspring Theatre (and a ballet instructor in her other life), still remembers a chance encounter she had during her first performance on the street: A little girl kept pulling her mother to a spot in front of Wang until the part of the performance when the moon rose into the trees. Wang, who was playing the Moon Spirit, couldn't help but ask the little girl, "Do you like me?" The little girl nodded, answered a few more questions, then departed as happily as if a fairy maiden had whispered secrets in her ear.

When the little girl turned up again the next day, this time wearing a beautiful outfit and a bright smile and pulling her father behind her, it helped create a warm connection between the performers and the audience

In addition to these kinds of one-on-one interactions, street performances also often send a wonderful energy coursing through the audiences.

Rei, lead vocalist for Spoon de Chop, says the feelings running through the crowd are different every time. "Sometimes, you've got a lot of people and they're feeling good and someone will jump in and dance in the middle of us," says Rei. "Other times, the weather's stifling and people are quieter. And other times for reasons I don't understand the audience is happier than we are, which excites us and makes us feel almost high."

Rei, who has been asked to play in nightclubs, says he prefers playing on the street to indoor venues with their stages, lights, and sound systems. "Without a stage to keep you separate from the audience, you're on the same level as they are and get to enjoy the performance with them," Rei explains. He says that in Japan, audiences tend to first stand at some distance from street performers, then, after watching a while, gradually move closer. It's different in Taiwan. "People are standing as close as they can get after the first song, and are very direct in expressing whether they like it and their enthusiasm," says Rei.

Husky, a rapper who doesn't use profanity or try to act cool, brings his beloved toy dog with him when he performs, moving audiences with the sincerity and playfulness of his style. Before he performs, he always tells himself, "I am creating myself. I have to work as hard as ever today."

Resistance, conflict, tension

Since the Taipei City government established rules for street performance in 2005, 11 other counties and municipalities have followed suit. Taipei City has seen the greatest numbers of applicants, and has issued almost 1,000 licenses.

Some performers have bounced back and forth between North and South to apply for these licenses, seeking somewhere to pursue their dreams. But others argue that licensing has done nothing to make busking any better. They note that police can still compel performers to move on by saying that they are obstructing traffic or are without a license. The police also don't necessarily help mediate disputes that arise when, for example, retailers turn their stereos up so loudly that it disrupts performances or when performers steal one another's turf.

Another issue is the signup systems the authorities have instituted at some particularly busy (and therefore valuable) sites. (Performers are required to register up to seven days before they propose to use the location, to sign in when they arrive, and to leave on time.) Such measures have taken some of the fun out of performing for those used to the old way of doing things.

Another issue is that passing the licensing exam is no guarantee of making a living from busking. Some buskers have gone out on the street after getting licenses only to find themselves utterly bewildered. The Taipei County Cultural Affairs Bureau (CAB) reports that it often gets calls from performers asking what to do when the audience doesn't leave any money or even whether the government can offer them training.

Nonetheless, Taipei has seen two years of steadily increasing numbers of license applications as a result of the downturn in the economy. (This year, Taipei County has had 177 applications, and Taipei City has received 365.) Zheng Lihui, an employee of the Taipei County CAB, says that this year the evaluation committee has looked at an especially large number of applications from senior citizens who sing along with old karaoke tapes of nakasi tunes in scratchy off-key warbles. "It's heart wrenching," says Zheng. "When they don't pass, you have to think up some way to console them."

Looking for paradise

A proponent of systematizing busking, Chang is nonetheless a little disappointed in the way the government has handled things. He would like to see city and county cultural bureaus shift their focus from license examinations to space planning and site management, and to have performers take turns using busking spots. In addition, he believes that spurring buskers to further develop their skills and improving the quality of street performances in Taiwan will require creating the kind of rules that bring professional performers, domestic or foreign, out onto the streets.

Liou, the cultural scholar, argues that the competitiveness of cities doesn't derive just from the modernity of their buildings, but also from their charm. "Creating urban charm doesn't necessarily take huge amounts of money or giant construction projects. Street arts provide an extremely low-cost tool for making cities more engaging."

Street performers provide harried urban dwellers with the opportunity for a moment's respite and release. They help us find the strength to laugh and get along, and in so doing bring paradise almost within reach.

Seven Fan, an art school graduate born in 1979, blends painting with music, light, and shadow and to create dynamic performances easily appreciated by all. In the photo, a painting completed in four minutes elicits cries of delight and recognition from the audience when he flips it around at the last second. Seven Fan spent more than a year building a reputation by performing on the street. He currently gives 3-5 commercial performances each month, charging up to NT$30,000 for 10 minutes.

Led by Chang Wang, the living statue performance group Meander provides the most compelling scenery in Taipei's Xinyi shopping district. Clockwise from the facing page are the silver Thunder, whose face-to-face meeting with a corporate mascot makes for an amusing scene, Grotesquilian, and Music.

You see a lot of middle-aged male fans when Spoon de Chop plays, not to mention parents with children, foreign housekeepers with the grannies they care for, and even shopkeepers. The atmosphere is friendly and upbeat at the band's shows, which typically last a couple of hours. Rei, the band's soul, handles lead vocals, as well as playing guitar and shamisen. The band's other members, who come from Japan, the US, Macedonia, and Taiwan, include Ai Ezaki (harmonica), Ethan (guitar), Aleksandar (tambura), Akira (guitar), Leon (bongos), and Paco (bass and snare). They only got to know each other in Yongkang Park, and they typically only get together on the weekends.

Seven Fan, an art school graduate born in 1979, blends painting with music, light, and shadow and to create dynamic performances easily appreciated by all. In the photo, a painting completed in four minutes elicits cries of delight and recognition from the audience when he flips it around at the last second. Seven Fan spent more than a year building a reputation by performing on the street. He currently gives 3-5 commercial performances each month, charging up to NT$30,000 for 10 minutes.

Seven Fan, an art school graduate born in 1979, blends painting with music, light, and shadow and to create dynamic performances easily appreciated by all. In the photo, a painting completed in four minutes elicits cries of delight and recognition from the audience when he flips it around at the last second. Seven Fan spent more than a year building a reputation by performing on the street. He currently gives 3-5 commercial performances each month, charging up to NT$30,000 for 10 minutes.

Husky, a rapper who doesn't use profanity or try to act cool, brings his beloved toy dog with him when he performs, moving audiences with the sincerity and playfulness of his style. Before he performs, he always tells himself, "I am creating myself. I have to work as hard as ever today."