First authorized buskers appear on streets of Shanghai

Eight street artists with an authorized performing license, the first of this kind in China, performed at a central square in East China's Shanghai municipality on Saturday, thepaper.cn reported on Sunday.

The artists, who obtained the licenses issued by Shanghai Performance Trade Association (SPTA), performed a wide range of art forms, such as playing a musical instrument, doing acrobatics, performing magic and making handicrafts. They will launch a pilot performance along Anyi road in Jing'an district of Shanghai for the following month under the "licensed performance at appointed time and area" Regulation.

"Street art as an urban landscape is an indispensible part of building Shanghai to be an international metropolis, but it must be strictly regulated", Wei Zhi, president of SPTA, said. "They are neither tramps nor beggars but art professionals whose cultural cultivation should be in line with the metropolis' image."

The SPTA took one year to pick the qualified eight from more than 100 buskers and sent them to professional institutes such as the Shanghai Theater Academy, where they worked with coaches tailored to their needs.

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