Welcome!Please explore this internet research and information center on the Street Arts and Buskers traditions. The index above will lead you to historical references, court cases, regulations, performance locations and links. Also, there is an artists data base listing street and vaudeville artists in the Greater Boston area and the world. There is a detailed index at the bottom of each page.The Street Arts & Buskers Advocates publishes model street performance ordinances, court decisions on street artists' rights, lists of traditional street performance locations throughout the world, maintains an internet web site and provides educational workshops, artists referrals and street festival production consultation.
The streets arts are dynamic and constantly changing. This site is only one gateway to this world. Please forward comments, corrections, and ideas back this way. The information is only as good as we share it.
This information has been published for over three decade now. Many copies are sent to national news organizations, libraries, arts councils and legal clinics free of charge as part of the advocacy to expand the public support of the street arts. Please support this effort by becoming a member or making a donation on form below or online through the secure site at Wainwright Bank on the link below. Many thanks.
Stephen Baird, Street Arts and Buskers Advocates Statement of Purpose
Street Arts and Buskers Advocates cultivates ongoing fundamental relationships between artists and communities by celebrating self-expression as a basic human right essential for the healthy growth of youth, individuals and communities.Street Arts and Buskers Advocates is a program of Community Arts Advocates, Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to expanding public awareness, participation in and support of the arts through performances and festivals, exhibits and workshops, publications and publicity, educational forums, nonprofit arts management consultation services, and collaborative projects.
Background on Street Arts and Buskers Advocates
- In May of 1973, a small group of street artists formed the Boston Street Singers Cooperative to legalize and legitimize street performances. A letter writing and media campaign resulted in new laws permitting street performances in Boston. New laws permitting street performances were also passed in Cambridge in 1976. The members also started cooperative bookings of colleges and clubs.
- The street artists reorganized in the spring of 1978 as the Street Performers Guild to negotiate performances at urban pedestrian malls being developed in Boston.
- Street Performers' Festivals were developed with the Cambridge Arts Council and Faneuil Hall Marketplace in 1983 and 1984 with support from foundations and corporations.
- The Subway Artists Guild was formed in 1986 to negotiate performance spaces in the Boston subway platforms.
- The Street Artists' Guild was formed in 1988, as a street artists advocacy organization under the umbrella of the Folk Arts Network.
- The Street Arts and Buskers Advocates was formed in 1996, as a international advocacy organization under the leadership of street artist, Stephen Baird. It became a program of Community Arts Advocates, Inc., a nonprofit organization founded by Stephen Baird, in 2002.
- The Street Arts and Buskers Advocates have consulted with city officials and artists in Chicago, Saint Louis, Hartford, Worcester, Cambridge and numerous other locations to develop ordinances and street performing programs.
- Street Arts and Buskers Advocates led the battles to stop the supression of street performances on MBTA subway platforms in 2003, through media, petition and legal campaigns.
- The Street Arts & Buskers Advocates and Stephen Baird filed a Federal law suit and repealed archaic and restrictive laws curtailing street performances and art exhibits on Boston sidewalks and parks in 2004.
- Street Arts and Buskers Advocates developed this internet research and information resource center web site in 2002 which receives 500 site visits from 70 different countries daily.
Street Performers Festival at Faneuil Hall Marketplace in Boston,
created in 1984, with consultant work by Stephen Baird
founder of the Street Arts and Buskers Advocates
Background on Stephen Baird
Stephen H. Baird is the founder and director of Street Arts and Buskers Advocates and Community Arts Advocates. He has over three decades of performances, arts advocacy and grassroots arts administration experience.Stephen Baird restructured Club Passim, the historic folk music venue in Cambridge, as a nonprofit organization in 1995-97. He co-founded the Bread & Roses Festival in Lawrence in 1986, founded and directed the Folk Arts Network from 1982-96, published the New England Folk Almanac and New England Folk Directory from 1982-1996. He produced Jamaica Plain Open Studios and directed the Jamaica Plain Arts Council from 1999-2001.
Stephen Baird has been featured in Time, Newsweek, People, National Law Review, American Bar Association Journal and many other national magazines, a PBS documentary, a Discovery Channel documentary, and at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, DC.
Visit these web pages for video clips, media reviews and appearance list, plus lectures and performance programs for festivals, universities and schools: Stephen Baird's Home Page
"Stephen Baird is the national authority on the history of busking" - Patty Campbell, Passing the Hat: Street Performers in America
"But none has honored his roots--or his audience--
as fondly as the man street players now call
'the Dean.' Good show."
- People Magazine
Stephen Baird in "Street Art" from documentary film series America!
Black Light Films, Louis Schwartzberg, 1999 Services
The Street Arts and Buskers Advocates publishes model street performance ordinances, court decisions on street artists' rights, lists of traditional street performance locations throughout the world, and provides educational workshops, artist referrals and festival production consultations.
- Donations
- Street Arts and Buskers Advocates
- Angel $25,000
- Advocate $10,000
- Busker $5,000
- Clown $1,000
- Mime $500
- Juggler $250
- Jester $100
- Pass The Hat $_________________
- Consultations & Workshops
- Corporate rate @ $1000/day plus travel expenses
- Nonprofit rate @ $800/day plus travel expenses
- Street Arts Festival Production and/or Coordination
- One to two day event with 5 to 30 artists/groups, $2,000 to $25,000
- Seven to ten day international festivals, $50,000 to $500,000
- Lecture/Performance on the Street Arts and the First Amendment
- Corporate rate @ $1000/day plus travel expenses
- Nonprofit rate @ $800/day plus travel expenses
- New Orleans Artists and Musicians Relief Fund $_________________
Name:_________________________________________Address:_______________________________________
City/Town:_____________________________________
State____Zip Code______________________________
Country _______________________________________
Telephone:_____________________________________
Email:_________________________________________
Web Site: ______________________________________
Artist members should include a performance description, rates and a photograph or jpg image for inclusion in the artists referral files. Make checks payable to Community Arts Advocates and send to:
Community Arts Advocates, Inc.
P.O. Box 300112
Jamaica Plain, MA 02130-0030
Donations can also be made by credit card at the on line secure site of the Wainwright Bank (Click on logo)
For additional information call:
617-522-3407 or email:
info@communityartsadvocates.org
THANKS!
Street Arts and Buskers Advocates
Community Arts Advocates programs are supported in part by grants from the Boston Cultural Council, Cambridge Arts Council and Somerville Arts Council, through the local cultural council grant programs which are supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.
Copyright © 1999-2011 by Stephen Baird
