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Authentic
Performance In Public (2002)
There is an anonymous poem that goes:
A
kite on the ground
Is just paper and string
But up in the air
It will dance and sing.
A kite in the air
Will dance and will caper
But back on the ground
Is just string and paper
Do you know how to get
up into the air? Is there anything that stops you taking off as a performer
now?
There may be any of
a number of things, but perhaps for you as for many others they could
all be summarised by the word, 'Fear'. True, technique is important too,
but the biggest single factor preventing us from achieving our desires
is fear. And we are afraid of a lot of things! When 3,000 Americans were
asked, "What are you most afraid of?" they came up with fear
of heights, deep water, insects, financial problems, sickness, death and
much else besides. But the most common fear of all was speaking before
a group. Public speaking ranked second in a similar survey carried out
in the UK
More good creative
ability is wasted due to fear than anything else I can think of. People
with good voices are afraid to sing. People with artistic talent hide
their paintings rather than risk ridicule. People who love to write are
too embarrassed to show their writing to anyone"
Being nervous does not
seem to bear much relation to the amount of talent you have. Many famous
people have been famously frightened. Before the legendary ballerina Anna
Pavlova gave her first important performance,
she was physically sick. A magazine article only this month about one
of the Spice Girls quotes Emma Bunton, the former Baby Spice, at the height of her fame as
saying: "Just before the first ever gig I did on my own at GAY (a
London Club) I was so nervous I felt sick". The comic actor, John
Cleese, confided that before the Frost Show, which used to
be transmitted live, he could not possibly have been more afraid even
if he had been in a bull ring with an angry bull. Go back in history,
and you discover that Gladstone
So fear seems par for
the course, but great performers still manage to produce great performances.
So the question is, how could you learn to perform in a way that is not
inhibited by fear? Some things seem easier to learn than others. Overcoming
fear clearly does not belong to the same order of learning as finding
out what to do with the mouse on your computer or following the instructions
for using a new microwave. Such instruction is straightforward because
it can be carried out consciously. But an emotion like fear does not respond
so readily to a simple instruction, as it is controlled largely by the
sub-conscious. If you merely tell yourself to feel self-confident
there is little your conscious mind can do to make it happen.
In the absence of an
answer, our conscious mind tends to use coping mechanisms. We make conditions,
we bargain with the gods. Most of us are affected to a certain extent
by circumstance when performing, and our criteria can be very idiosyncratic.
"I can perform fine as long as I'm wearing my red dress." "I'm
fine as long as I don't know the audience". I'm no good in auditions:
I need to be performing in front of friends." "I can perform
to a few people, but I'm hopeless on big occasions." "I'm all
right as long as there's no one too important in the audience", "I
can't run a course if I know people have been conscripted", "Things
go well provided I've got my rabbit's paw in my pocket." Our beliefs
about performing can be extremely idiosyncratic. And beliefs of this kind
put the cause for the fear on the outside, on the environment, on place
and time. If the cause is on the outside, it is largely out of our control.
If we are to be master or mistress of our fate, we clearly need to effect
change within ourselves rather than on the outside.
Those of us who have
studied any particular performing art usually have experience of learning
that takes place at the level of behaviour. Many of us have spent years
with teachers being told what to do in order to play our instrument,
to act, to dance or to speak. "Do this!" "Do that!"
"Look, this is what you have to do!" "Breathe!" "Move!"
"Point!" "Sing!" If only instructions alone were sufficient!
A considerably smaller
number of us has been shown through teaching how to do what we
are asked to do. We have been given a technique, skills, that we can use
and adopt in different situations. Even so, some performers who are exceedingly
proficient at the 'how' still fail to give great performances, as knowing
how to do something is not sufficient on its own to produce great
results. 'How', at the level of behaviour and skill, may produce
performances that are mechanical or slick, however accomplished. 'How'
needs learning at the level of heart and soul before it creates a great
performance. Moreover, even knowing how to do something well doesn't
guarantee that it will happen if I have internal blocks, or limiting beliefs.
I may know what to do and how to do it, and still not feel able
to do it. I know how but can't. Fear may certainly be diminished
through having a sound technique, but it takes more than that to ride
above it.
To 'be able' I need
self-belief. "What do I believe to be possible for me?" "If
you think you can and you think you can't you're right", said Henry
Ford. We tend to make reality fit our beliefs and not vice versa. For
example, when I go through the world believing it to be a hostile place,
I act as if I am ready to defend myself against an enemy. Other people
react to my aggressive stance by acting in a less than friendly manner,
and thus I prove to myself that other people are indeed hostile. If I
think people are friendly, my thoughts affect the way I act, the way I
act affects the way that they respond, and I find them friendly. So my
thoughts about myself, my capabilities, my audience, my performance, affect
my world.
In one way, this particular
thought is reassuring, because changing myself might seem more within
my gift than changing many aspects of the larger environment. But changing
our beliefs means changing our very selves, our identity, and identities
have a built in resistance to change. After all, what I believe is an
important aspect of me, and if I am different, will I still be me? Maybe
it's better to carry on doing things in a way that doesn't work because
at least in this way I remain me. Crisis of identity!
Yet, over time, our
beliefs do change. Do you still believe in Father Christmas? Beliefs can
be changed at any period of your life. It does not matter how many years
you have perceived yourself and your own possibilities in a particular
way. As Albert Einstein said, "Knowledge of what is and what has
been doesn't tell us what's got to be." Our beliefs don't tend to
make a lot of noise; they even change while our attention is elsewhere.
If we have an intention to change them we need to tread gently and in
the right place. We do not inhabit reality, we inhabit our own idea of
what reality is. What has to change is this 'idea', our personal map of
reality. Change at this level can in fact be remarkable easy when we are
ready. And when it happens in a positive way, our whole internal world
changes and becomes a better place to reside, and full of new possibilities.
If changing the way
I perform or present is to be achieved at the level of my beliefs, I need
to focus on the 'me' that holds particular beliefs. Actors often like
to look away from this 'me' to the comparative safety of 'the role'. Quite
frequently, an actor can give a fine performance within a role, where
acting him or her self would be an agonising experience. Stepping into
a part means stepping, often literally, into a different set of clothes,
and it means stepping into a different state of being.
I remember, from my
childhood, the exciting experience of playing the part of a witch in Purcell's
"Dido and Aeneas". I had no trouble in stepping into the role
and taking on the energy and spitefulness of the character. A few weeks
later, I had the opportunity to sing a solo at a Christmas Concert, and
this time my knees shook and my voice trembled. Finding the witch's state
of being I could perform with ease, but I didn't have an equivalent resourceful
state for 'being myself'.
The role is absolutely
appropriate when I am acting a part in a play; it is no substitute in
arenas where it is appropriate to be myself. The role can be a suit of
armour that once donned protects me from my vulnerability by keeping the
naked me safe, at one remove from exposure to the audience. At the same
time, it divides me from my audience. Parker J. Palmer describes this
process in his own field, in 'The Courage to Teach'
To
reduce our own vulnerability, we disconnect from students, from subjects
and even from ourselves. We build a wall between inner truth and outer
performance, and we play-act the teacher's part. Our words, spoken at
remove from our hearts, become 'the balloon speech in cartoons' and we
become caricatures of ourselves. We distance ourselves from students and
subject to minimize the danger - forgetting that distance makes life more
dangerous still by isolating the self.
If I can find a resourceful
state for my naked self, I need hide no longer.
Who is 'my naked self'?
Various versions of 'me' emerge when I ask this question. There is the
'me' that I think I am supposed to be, which is coloured by all my ideas
of how I think performers and presenters ought to be. There is what I
want people to think I am, which involves an attempt to hide bits of myself
that I don't want other people to see, and to persuade others that I possess
qualities I don't really believe I have. There is the 'me' I pretend to
be, which means stepping into a role, called 'Performer' or 'Presenter'.
Putting on this 'performance armour' enables me to feel less vulnerable,
but has its downside. Its rigidity can rob me of my authentic humanity,
and of the possibility of making a real connection with the audience.
Someone in armour cannot hold hands with any sensitivity!
The 'me' that I think
I am supposed to be uses the language of necessity. I 'ought' to be a
particular way, I 'should' do this, I 'must' do that, I 'have to' do the
other. These 'shoulds' and 'have tos'
of how I 'ought' to be also put me outside myself as I worry at the response
of other people. All my thoughts are of outside issues, of the effect
I am making, of other people's expectations, of their anticipated judgement.
I hand over all my power to my audience. And this produces self-consciousness.
Being self-conscious is exceedingly tiring and saps the energy that might
go into an inspiring performance. At its worst, the 'shoulds'
and have tos' turn into an ideal of perfection
that I cannot possibly ever aspire to live up to, and this consistent
inability to match up to the ideal can cause shame, with an inner voice
of, 'I'm not good enough'. The audience, for its part, is always aware
at some level of self-consciousness, and finds it anything from slightly
uncomfortable to downright irritating.
The 'shoulds',
'oughts', 'musts' and 'have tos'
are limiting beliefs about my performing. Once I get in touch with my
authentic self, such limiting beliefs become easy to dismantle.
Behind the structure
of how I ought to be lurks another part of myself that I don't like to
acknowledge to others: the 'me' that I fear that I am. I put great energy
into hiding it from my audience. It consists of all the things I don't
want the audience to find out about me, for if people knew what I was
really like ... Here resides the nameless fear of what people might discover
if they did see my naked self. This is the place for all those negative
thoughts of inadequacy that run through my mind such as, "They'll
find me out", and "Who do I think I am". These are limiting
beliefs about our own worth and value, and these too produce self-consciousness.
We need only witness the many unnecessary phrases in presentations that
stem from this thinking, from "Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking"
to "I expect you will have heard this before" and "Of course,
I'm no expert". In performance, this kind of fear of failure thinking
is diminishing, and reduces our impact.
These two places of
self-consciousness are responsible for many of our inner conflicts, between
what we believe people are expecting and what we dread they are going
to get. Such conflict keeps us stuck, and prevents us from producing the
performance we want to give.
We make earnest attempts
to hide the self we don't want people to see, because we think it is our
real self, but we are wrong. This self is itself a shell. Our real self
resides within. The real self is creative, spontaneous and magnificent.
It is an expression of how I am now. It is as it is. "A rose is a
rose is a rose". It is openness, flow, breathing and joy. When I
allow my real self space, there is no room for fear, for there is nothing
left to hide.
Being myself, being
the real me, is to be a free-spinning top, the colours blending with balance
and harmony. When we add the weight of expectation to one side of the
top, it lurches from side to side and is impossible to spin. When we add
the weight of our attempts to hide our vulnerable self on the other side,
again imbalance is created, and inconsistency is the result. When I accept
my vulnerability and allow the inner me the space to be, all manner of
spontaneous connections come into play, and I perform with subtle magic
that I could not possibly plan or predict, in my full magnificence.
We all possessed some
magic once upon a time, for a time. When we were very young, we had no
self-consciousness. If you watch a baby or a toddler, they are absolutely
captivating because they just are. We are delighted by their concentration
and lack of reference to us, as it is something we have lost, and will
gain back only through much self-knowledge. By 5 years of age, a child
has learned to blush, and has lost that blissful centre in non-self-conscious
self.
My real self is unlike
anybody else's real self. It is as far as can be imagined from 'how I
ought to be' because it delights in its different-ness. It is unique.
If we think about artists and performers that we admire, they are all
very different from each other. Bach does not sound like Beethoven. Bach's
music does not look like Beethoven's either. When you see their
autographs, Bach's writing is flowing, confident, heavily penned, while
Beethoven's is scratchy, disjointed, violent even: different to the core;
both magic.
Great performing artists
have their own unique sound. A fascinating study completed recently by
James Beaumont on the Stradivarius and other prized violins revealed that
differences in sound depended more on the player than on the instrument.
In his experiment, different violinists played a Stradivarius and other
violins behind a screen, and expert listeners attempted to identify the
expensive violin. When a talented violinist played the instruments the
listeners failed to spot the Stradivarius as he made all the violins sound
wonderful, and wonderfully his own.
Great artists are unique
because they listen to their own demons. They are self-referral. There
is a story told in China of a man who lived near China northern territories
And the story has no
real ending. The man will continue this roller coaster ride through his
whole life if he continues to refer to outside events as reference points
for his emotions. Being self-referral is the opposite of this. It is tuning
in to your own feelings and emotions and listening to the voice of your
own heart. It is allowing your body, emotions, mind and spirit to be in
harmony. In this way, we become authentic, and far more powerful.
We are more powerful
and more vulnerable, for we are now naked. Then the gift that we are offering
in our performance becomes both more precious and more fragile. We perform
from our inner being: "If we are transparent, with nothing to hide,
the gap between language and Being disappears. Then the Muse can speak".
At the same time, we lay ourselves open. "I have spread my
dreams under your feet," says W B Yeats. "Tread softly because you tread on my dreams."
When we are authentic,
we no longer say about our gift, the performance,
"I know it's not much," "It's all I could get," "I didn't know what you wanted," "You can change it if you like," because the gift is ourselves. The voice of spontaneity says, "this gift is for me and I want you to share it." Or," this is for you. It's a gift from me." There is no grander gift we can give, but there is no way we can any longer escape the responsibility of its being our own.
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