Grego and his musical puppets have been performing in various venues and public spaces since 1975. The following is an interview with Grego about his experiences as a performer living and busking in Tokyo, Japan.

Grego as a guerilla performer circa ’90 in Ueno Park


1. What first attracted you to the form of art you do? What is your motivation for doing it?

Music came natural to a kid in a house full of instruments. Mixing it with theatrical elements doubles the fun, so in my adult years I worked with dance, mask, mummery, blabla. When I wanted to travel the world I focused on puppets; small, mobile, expressive, with broad appeal. Why do birds sing? Volumes have been written on the subject. In the end, we sing because we’re birds.

2. What steps did you take to come to your present form of performance?

Playing solo or with buddies for tips on streets and in cafes led to working with groups of folks in festival situations. That began to involve not only performing with mask and movement, but also construction of props, sets, and musical instruments. When itchy feet got me hankering for global adventure I used my established festival venues to invent and break in a solo performance style. At the age of 35 I distilled the sum of my foibles down to a mobile mini-cabaret of musical instruments collaborating with puppets, a traveler’s suitcase-sized  perpetual motion machine.

 

3. How do you feel public spaces lend themselves to your type of performance? What’s the difference between performing on the street, or in parks or subways, and performing for private functions or events?

Public spaces taste of hardcore reality, sweet and salty. Vehicles roar and fart as they pass, weather, cops, drunks, thieves, buskers, hustlers, gangsters, and every brand of fanatics out there are all in your face in 3D. The crap chips away at you until unpredictability either turns you into a pushy jerk or hones your reflexes down to a lean mix of “what me worry” and social aikido. But the joy of the bright side of that reality, the smiles, the angels, the heart to heart connections, and the fact that this involves direct interaction with every conceivable type of human (and a good few dogs), that you are directly engaged with a world in the raw, makes it a grotesquely beautiful carnival of life.

Nuance and subtlety can play well in indoors, in controlled venues. This encourages focus, allows depth. But amidst the noise and chaos of the street, where you sometimes have to compete for attention, you learn to punch harder, perhaps going bigger, louder, brasher.

Grego posing with painter Endo San in front of an award-winning portrait of Grego busking with the dreambird puppet, Mazja. The painting hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in Ueno park, Tokyo.


4. Who is your audience? What do you feel you give your audience?

Who isn’t? That’s exactly the point. If you can’t appeal to everyone, you’re clipping your own wings. That said, while the more popular shows soak up the broad base of lowest common denominator with hustle aimed at the bottom line, my work is a bit more nuanced, with a folksy, cultural spin. Alas, this approach boarders on financial suicide, and is not recommended for anyone trying to make a living.

5. What are the most difficult aspects of the street performance lifestyle? Any stories about particularly negative experiences?

You shlep, like, a lot. I could tell you which European city has the most amateurish street thieves, and the ugliest hookers. Shlepping. Shake-down for protection money by Japanese yakuza (their mafia). More shlepping. Beat up by neo-nazis in California. Bloody shlepping. Endlessly squashed by the massive amps of mannerless performers who use that artillery to bully their way into pitch ownership. Broken eardrum shlepping in search of another spot. And then there are the aviary art critics, the birds on the wires just overhead…

6. Any stories about particularly positive experiences?

Material: Hundred dollar bills in the hat., come-ons from TV people and booking agents. Sublime: kid’s faces going from tearful to giggling, invitations to the sides tourists never see. Personal: Met a woman that up and married me.

Grego as a licensed performer posing with Mazja

7. How would you describe busking in Tokyo? What are the laws/restrictions or attitudes of government or people in general?

When I first came to Toyko over 20 years agao, in the “economic bubble” era, the streets were lined with gold, and the livin’ was easy. Street performers were uncommon, almost all foreigners. We had to teach people who weren’t used to tipping how to do that, but they got pretty good at it. Like so many peoples of so many countries, despite the rudeness of their governments and power brokers, they [Japanese] tend to be lovely, curious, generous, and friendly people. Busking was all independent, guerilla, but a gig circuit built up around it.

There are now licensing formats, both public through the city gov, and private at corporate-owned mega-shopping/amusement areas. Guerillas still do what they have always done, playing cat-n-mouse with authorities. But this gets tougher as hard times crimp attitudes and cameras monitor our streets. We are, as always, low on the pecking order, leaves in the wind. We survive on talent, wits and charm, and by the good graces of those who are still willing to stop amidst the madness long enough to smell the flowers.

Fast-forward to bubble-less, post-tsunami, nuke-contaminated Japan, and you can imagine a rather different environment. There was no use even trying to busk during the first half of ’11, the Spring-that-never-was. Thousands dead and homeless, economy in ruins, the terror of a nuclear triple meltdown. Our gigs all canceled, our streets enshrouded in a pervasive darkness, those performers among us lucky enough to have any savings lived on that, and are still clawing our way back out of that hole. Yet  at a charity show in a school gym on June 19, a good handful of veteran world-class street performers had an opportunity to give back to communities that have supported us, bringing cheer to after-shocked locals in Tokyo, and financial aid to victims of tragedy on the stricken north coast. It was just one of so many such charity events.

I can’t stress this hard enough:  there is much more to what we do than just tips for entertainment. There is art, culture, bravery, love. There is a community of humanity. Time and time again you have heard about how a baby can have all the food and environmental necessities, but without a loving touch will perish. We are a loving touch.

http://www.gregoland.com