Kickstarter

Busking, also known as street performance, is performing arts, skills, and talents in public spaces for, often meager, financial gain as well as self-promotion. It is an age-old tradition dating back as far as ancient Greece. Many musicians, artists, and performers of all sorts do this as their sole source of income. However many of these people are not planning fame and fortune, they are playing music for music’s sake.

Busking is an important part of American subculture, and for those who share this passion like us, it is imperative to record and document this art because without documentation it will disappear completely. Without traditional blues standards there wouldn’t be country or rock n’ roll music today. There are many famous American blues and jazz musicians who still continue to influence music today, such as Lead Belly, Hank Williams (who learned to play guitar from a busker, Rufus Payne), and Louis Armstrong, all of whose careers started through busking.

My name is Natania. I am a photojournalist and I started The Buskers Project in 2008 in order to document the amazing and talented people you see here as well as others. I started this project in Burlington, VT, but have since searched far and wide across the nation to encounter and experience these people wherever they may be found. I was alone on this project until this year when I was able to gather a team and began gaining the support of the performer’s community in which we document at large.

But we’re not there yet.

This is not a business venture. The idea of the buskers’ portraiture project is to photograph and document these musicians, their music, and their stories in order to prevent their loss in the fell grips of time.

In order to achieve these goals we need funding for this expansive project. We need a minimum of $6500 for production expenses, equipment, and to aid in the cost of travel. This will enable us to further gather stories and record these performing artists, be able to connect, document, and keep things on the website we have created…the end result will be archival footage, as well as gallery presentation, tour, and a photo-journalistic documentation book.

This is a critical time in terms of music. This is a crucial point in history. In this digitalized day and age, the world of art and performance is evolving. Fleeting sounds, fleeting bands…I feel as though capturing these faces, and sounds, and stories, keeps them alive. Alive.

 Without taking the time to remember this today, will it be there tomorrow?