Over the past weekend, over 60 street artists stepped in turn onto the stage of Daning Music Plaza in the downtown area. In the coming week, the 2020 Shanghai Street Performance Festival will sweep the city’s shopping malls and pedestrian streets.

More than 20 venues this year have been set as stages of the festival, which kicked off on Saturday, October 17. Apart from classic Peking Opera and traditional artworks by intangible cultural heritage inheritors, citizens can also enjoy musicians playing guitar, the matouqin (horse-head fiddle), the African drum and singing acappella.

This year marks the opening of the sixth Shanghai Street Art Festival. It is also the sixth year since Shanghai began to regulate street performances and give performers more legal spaces to present their shows. The city has, since then, become a “mobile theater” for the artists.

The street artists in Shanghai blazed a trail. Originally, there were only eight certified street performers. So far the group has expanded to more than 300 people, and the duration of their performances has been extended to 90 minutes. The artists have grown from imitators to composers who even can do orchestration, make original pieces, release albums and garner fans of their own.

The group members are from more than 50 cities across China, most of whom were born in the 1980s and 1990s. People born after 2000 are also now joining the ranks. One third of them are approved as full time performers.

“On the platform, they keep pursuing fineness and excellence. Regulated, disciplined, professional and enterprising, these are the spirit of Shanghai street art,” said Wei Zhi, president of the Shanghai Performance Arts Association.