The Black Suited Poser by: Wendy Garcia

On the south bank of the river Thames, past the London Eye, there are various street performers. If it were any other occasion, I would pass them ignoring their tries of catching my attention. However, on this particular day my friend and I noticed a man with dark sun glasses wearing a black suit; next to him there was a small amplifier and a small box opened for money donations.  His amplifier was playing music that sound like it could have been from the movie The Matrix, and this made his persona more pronounced. We could not but help and see what he was all about.

 As he stood there with his Matrix music playing in the background, he pointed at the crowd and asked for a volunteer. A young man went up to meet him and the performer proceeded to put on similar dark sunglasses on him. He then started to position this young man; he grabbed his leg and put his foot a step behind him, the front foot was also positioned to be bent forward. The man signaled for the boy’s hand and made his hand into a fist. The boy’s fisted arm was then extended.  The boy’s free hand was then tucked next to him also in a fist. The suited man worked quickly around the boy tweaking the position of the boy until he was happy with the result. All along the boy would smile and glance over to his family and friends that were watching him become a part of the show. It was interesting to see what this man was doing. One did not really know what he was trying to achieve by placing the boy in a certain stance. However, once the suited man was happy with the stance he proceeded to position himself in front of the boy and in a blink of an eye one saw a still shot that could have been from a movie.  The suited man had one foot forward and the other bent back; his face was up against the boy’s extended fist with his sunglasses off center. His face was contorted and his arms were extended out as if trying to block the boy but missed. The still shot was one of the boy punching him in the face and this position was held for a few seconds so that the audience could get a photograph of this stance. He then broke away from the stance and the boy did also; the audience applauded and he then proceeded to call another volunteer. As the crowd of people got bigger so did the line of young men waiting to have their turn with the suited man. People were happy to place money in his box that was located on the side of his performance circle.  After the crowd died down he came over to my friend and I and made some small talk with us. He said that he could be out doing performances as a professional dancer but that he got paid more for doing his street performance. He was doing something that was unique and that a lot of people had not seen before.  He wanted to inspire people to think of their bodies especially when taking photos; in a major touristic city such as London many carry cameras to capture themselves next to attractions.  He wants people to try to think creatively as to how they take photographs and that their photographs can be diverse and interesting. The suited man engaged with his audience and the audience was eager to see what he was going to do next.  His performance was something I could see being done for movies because the stances he was doing were those of fights scenes. His “set” was the river and city background which was perfect for what he was doing making his performance believable.