(TAIPEI) Busking is a thriving art in Taipei - a city that is busy promoting Taiwanese street performances featuring modern and traditional elements. In Taipei City alone, there are 59 public places now open to street performers including parks, commercial plazas, and a number of metro stations.

Besides Vieshow Square, the Ximending area in western Taipei and the Tamshui Metro station near the northwest coast of New Taipei City are also renowned busking sites.

Born from this success, the Taiwan Buskers Development Association was created whose mission is to fight for more street performance space, advocate buskers job rights, and keep the traditional arts alive.

The talents of these street performers range from portraiture, singing, acrobatics and juggling to posing as living statues, magic tricks, street dancing,...

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(THE NETHERLANDS) An article at TheCityAtEyeLevel.com in the Netherlands has published an article portraying busking as a viable means of rejuvenating city streets. Some city's methodology include Glasgow, Melbourne, and Singapore."Busking is at risk of being licensed out of existence, with permit systems, auditions, fees, written application processes, equipment bans, scheduling and branding making the spontaneous, surprising art in public spaces a thing of the past."

The article goes on to discuss street performing policy, proposed permit systems, and a starters guide to encouraging busking in your city.

Many buskers prefer to be self-regulated but there are always a few who abuse this type of system. This can lead to public disputes where there is strong disagreement.

For more info,...

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(PARIS) Some 1,000 people are expected to compete for 300 prized permits to busk the Paris métro. The auditions, which started Tuesday, are organised by the Paris transport network, the RATP. The 300 successful candidates will be given permission to perform in the underground passages of Paris's underground stations for the next six months, although many more do so illegally.

Interested musicians can apply at 102, rue de Charonne or by emailing RATP at musiciensdumetro@ratp.fr.

Métro busking has sometimes marked the beginning of distinguished musical careers. Keziah Jones, Manu Dibango, Ben Harper all started as buskers.

The auditions continue until the end of October.

www.rfi.fr ...

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(BOULDER) Exit Through the Gift Shop is a film by Banksy who dares not reveal his face. He's a wanted man for destroying BT property all in the name of streetartThe film involves 5 street artists that have discovered Kinko's copy shop can print huge pieces of whatever art they design. One of the artists, Shepard Fairey, did the Barack Obama print "Hope" - a disputed work that is still in the courts today.

The film shines with creative ideas of street art captured by Banksy and others. It makes for a fun time with laughs at the absurdity of filming all the action in London, New York, and L.A.

Spray-painting "I just messed up your wall" doesn't seem to serve any useful purpose. But through this, we learn that all grafitti is temporary. It is usually painted over or removed although at someone's...

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(VANCOUVER) Once a bustling tourist mecca, Vancouver is rapidly gaining a reputation as the "No-Fun-Allowed" city.Granville Island has recently revamped their busking regulations with a dizzying array of almost impossible requirements.

Included is having to pass not one but two auditions by a non-qualified jury, a doubling of license fees, arbitrarily banning popular performers, and for good measure, an unbelievable 15 pages of rules.

And they're just getting warmed up. Forget fire and circle shows. Even with insurance, these are out. Want to change a line or joke? It's not allowed once the license agreement is signed. It's the most preposterous, cockeyed, idiotic conception Busker Central News has ever reported.

License fees were doubled because they "hadn't been raised in 5 years."...

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