Portsmouth's second annual Busk Till Dusk festival this weekend

This weekend, the sidewalks of Portsmouth will be hosting more than the usual window shopping with a cup of coffee. On Saturday, July 21, and Sunday, July 22, from 1 to 7 p.m, the sidewalks will become stages. The second annual Busk Till Dusk festival, a grassroots gathering of artists in downtown Portsmouth, is designed to get art and music out on the streets and in the face of the public.

“There are so many artists in this area, and fewer and fewer venues for them to perform in, and even less venues for artists just starting out,” said Denise Wheeler, co-organizer of the festival. “After the RPM Challenge, I was so impressed with the diversity and the variety of new artists that got involved that I wanted to help create more opportunities for them. Busk Till Dusk is one of those.”

Starting midday, designated areas throughout the downtown area will become miniature performance venues for all artists who sign up. Each participant will be given one hour to perform any sort of act they please, as long as it complies with the city’s rules for sidewalk performances.

“The festival is part of a campaign to promote the fact that the city encourages street performers, that it’s a First Amendment right, and as long as you adhere to the city’s guidelines you can perform on the sidewalk,” said Wheeler, who hopes the event will help artists feel comfortable setting up on the streets on a regular basis.

The first day of last year’s Busk Till Dusk event was rained out, but local singer-songwriter Lowell Mason played through the rain on both days. “People want to listen to music while they’re driving somewhere or eating dinner or having a beer out in the bar,” Mason said recently. “This is an opportunity to show that this is local, and this is where it comes from.” Mason intends to sign up for this year’s event and is anticipating a great weekend filled with all kinds of art. He remembered the belly dancing in last year’s event, which he “never thought would be so cool.”

Equally eager is performer Chris Elliott, a hardened veteran of the first Busk festival who is returning for round two this weekend. Already an accomplished trumpet player, Elliott said the festival’s main draw was the chance to test out new material. “I’m an insatiable ham,” Elliott said. “I love an audience, I love public speaking, I love to entertain, and this was an opportunity to do so in a new, unusual setting.”

Elliott does most of his gigs on trumpet with small horn sections playing older R&B (think old Chicago tunes). But as a practicing comedian, he sees Busk Till Dusk as a chance to get some laughs as well. “I go to the open mike at the Comedy Connection down at Faneuil Hall, but this was a chance to try out some comedy in front of a live audience on the street.”

Having previously participated in poetry slams and readings, both in clubs and on street corners, Elliott has considerable experience busking. “It’s a slightly elevated form of begging, really,” he said. “Overall I think I did pretty well though. I made like $27 in one hour.”

Elliott was the first act to sign up for this year’s festival, and he’s already got high hopes for his routine. In an effortlessly sarcastic voice, undoubtedly perfected by years of comedic practice, he lists off his dream for the weekend: “maybe fire-breathing, or knife swallowing,” he says, “or, actually, just tell people to watch out for my standing back-flip while rolling a cigarette in each hand.”Hopefully, Elliot is not serious about the fire-breathing act, especially in light of last year’s street performance fiasco that ended in the arrest of a well-intentioned fire-dancer. “She said she had called beforehand and asked and thought that she had done everything right,” said Portsmouth City Councilor Ned Raynolds. “I think after that confusion there was some kind of widespread notion that street performers in Portsmouth had a high probability of being hassled, and we did a lot of work on this last year trying to clarify the rules so the police knew what to allow and what not to allow, and so the performers knew what was OK and what wasn’t OK.”

In response to the festival and the revised performance rules from last year, the City of Portsmouth has posted a new page on its Web site to inform buskers of their rules and rights while on the street. According to the site, the city does not directly regulate sidewalk performers such as magicians, musicians, dancers and mimes. Unfortunately for Elliott, the city does not support the use of “flame, knives, hatchets, or other potentially dangerous objects” as part of any act on the sidewalks. Regardless of your expertise in the area, such props may still be inadvertently harmful to careless passersby, the site states.

The good news is that permits are not required for performances that do not require tables, chairs or other stationary props. Permits for performances with props can be acquired at the City Clerk’s office, along with forms that must be filled out before selling merchandise during a street act. Sidewalk performers are subject to various city ordinances regarding noise, sidewalk obstruction and vending rules. A link on the street performing page takes users to the full text of the noise control ordinance, which lays out rules for acts that typically produce high volumes of sound, as well as some fairly obvious regulations for other sound-producing paraphernalia.

The city’s noise ordinance essentially restricts sidewalk acts to an unplugged set list. Use of amplifiers, loudspeakers, PA systems and all related equipment is prohibited without a special permit. Drums are also not allowed in any public sidewalk spaces. However, the Vaughan Mall stage, which is used by Busk Till Dusk and other festivals downtown, can be used as a place for bigger bands to set up amps and drums, provided they alert the city beforehand.

Noises prohibited during evening hours include pile drivers, locomotive steam whistles and many forms of hydraulic equipment. Singing, whistling and hooting are also forbidden during any hours at which they might disturb the “quiet, comfort, or repose” of anyone in a local dwelling.

The language of the ordinance may seem prohibitive, but Carol Coronis, another former festival participant, has been busking on Portsmouth sidewalks almost every week for several years, and she hasn’t had any conflicts with authorities so far. Her one regret from last year’s event is that she was placed in a somewhat out of the way piece of sidewalk, making it harder to draw an audience. “Last year I was by the Connie Bean,” said Coronis. “There was very little visibility but eventually a crowd did gather. The good news is that they won’t be doing that location this year.”

Coronis has been playing music since her early school years, but it’s music that most listeners won’t immediately recognize. “I’m, like, really old, and I’ve been playing since I was 14,” she joked. “I’ve played rock, Santana, alternative, percussion—a bunch of different things. Last year I played Greek and Middle Eastern music, which most people don’t typically play. I’ve played mostly Greek and Turkish music in my dad’s band, kind of underground stuff, similar to the American blues genre—music of displaced people.”

For this year’s Busk Till Dusk, Coronis plans to play a set featuring some Irish songs and a few improvised tunes with extended solos. Her instrument of choice is the cittern, a guitar-like contraption that she describes as “a ten-string mandolin on steroids.” Despite the foreign nature of her repertoire and equipment, Coronis said audiences typically appreciate her unique music, and she has high hopes for the upcoming performance. “It’s more fun to be with other people, but I really just like to make people smile and be happy,” she said. “Sometimes kids and even older people will just start to dance to the songs, and it’s really a riot.”

This weekend, listeners can expect to hear performers from last year’s Busk, as well as some new performances, from improv comedy theater to snake charming (and, of course, the slight possibility of a cigarette back-flip maneuver). Wheeler said the event has been streamlined in light of feedback from last year. “This year it’s more compact,” she said. “We have less spots, but we’ve extended it to two days, and the locations are primarily in Market Square. It’s also the same weekend as the Prescott Park Folk Festival and the Bow Street Fair, so we’re hoping that will bring even more people to come listen.”

Wheeler believes the pilot Busk Till Dusk event has succeeded in its mission and will continue to be a great opportunity for performers and listeners alike. “It makes me proud to look at the Square and see all that talent happening at once, and I really think it helps reinforce Portsmouth’s position as a cultural center in the Seacoast,” she said. “This festival for street performers, it’s kind of like the Wizard of Oz giving the tin man a heart—he already had one to begin with.” Indeed, these buskers are not lazy people. They are motivated people coming out to play for essentially nothing more than a few dollars in change. They just needed to know they could do it.

For a schedule of acts and some tips for participating buskers, visit www.busktilldusk.com. For rules about busking, visit the city’s Web site at www.cityofportsmouth.com and click on “Sidewalk Performer Guidelines.”