My 1st grade teacher said I was a natural...it was all downhill from there.

February 24, 2008 2:41 PM

Dear performing Mefites - how do you do that thing you do?

So I've finally realized that there is a gnawing urge within me to perform, but I have no idea where to begin. What are the baby steps to getting there?

At some point I got it in my head that I was automatically bad at all types of performing arts (singing, dancing, acting, etc) and that the best route was just to avoid, avoid, avoid. I won't even try to do these things, or if I do, I have to be drunk, then locked alone in a room with the lights off, which makes getting feedback a little tricky.

It is probably likely that I do suck at these things, considering I have never done them, but I feel like I'm denying myself the chance to explore avenues of self-expression based on a decision I think I came to somewhere around 2nd grade. Anyone who's met me will find this ridiculous considering that when it comes to my general demeanor I'm pretty extroverted and tend not to filter what I say/do very much.

I've gone back and read a lot of old questions about performing, and there are a few good AskMes about dealing with performance anxiety, but I think my question is a little more rudimentary than that:

Can you tell me how did you brought yourself to be able to perform? Did it come naturally or did you have to push yourself? How did you test the waters to find what you're good at? Have you managed to actively pursue things that you know you are not good at, just because you like them? I don't care if you're an actor/dancer/poet/musician/whatever, I just want to know how you've explored your performing abilities and managed to put yourself out there, you brave creatures!

posted by SassHat to media & arts (18 comments total)

I can't answer all your questions, but here's my two bits:

I went to theatre school, but for directing, not acting. However, like many schools, they train you in all disciplines at a basic level. I'm emotionally guarded (some might even venture 'repressed'), and thus am an awful actor.

Still, first year acting cured me of any performance anxiety I might have. Once you've acted badly in front of 25 of your peers, there's very little that scares you. Ten years on, I'm a professional speaker (among other things) and I pretty much never get stage fright.

So, if you're ready to dive in, seek out an acting class. Importantly, not an improv class--it should be serious acting as craft. In particular, pick a class or program that includes a public performance aspect (often as a final project). That ought to beat any stage fright out of you quite fast.

If you're not ready for that, consider Toast Masters or possibly learning an instrument like guitar or piano. In the latter case, you can focus on the technique of playing, which may distract you from the performance fear. Subsequently as you grow more comfortable, you can add singing.
posted by dbarefoot at 2:59 PM on February 24

For those of us in the performing world it isn't really a question. It's just what we do. It comes from some deep place, a bit like an obsessive place, that causes us to want to create, to stand up in front of others, to tell stories, to make beautiful things.

Based on the lack of stability - financial, emotional or otherwise - most of us would rather do something else. But that need to do what we do keeps calling us back.

To get involved: take classes, workshops, anything in the performing that you are interested in. Audition for community theatre. Do something at an open mic. There are all kinds of venues for non-pros. If you are going to go further than that, you'll know what to do. Talent will out.

Sasshat, you're just going to have to get the courage to step out there and do it. Time is fleeting, life is short, and all that. Live with no regret. Get out there and do it. Your heart and the audience will tell you if you are meant to be there.
posted by miles1972 at 3:02 PM on February 24

What specifically paralyzes you about performing? I've found that if I'm all alone and people are focuses only on me, as in reading a lesson at church or singing a solo, then I freak out. But if I perform in a group, a singing group or the violin in an orchestra, then it doesn't bother me one iota. But, I'll bet that if I did solos more often, I'd get used to it.

As for doing something you're not good at, it depends on which part of it you're not good at, and just exactly how bad you are at it. I direct a handbell choir and have some people in it who are not great at reading music, but it's not too bad and I know they'll improve so I don't worry. But we once had a person who had a bad sense of rhythm and just couldn't get any better with practice, and that was a problem. When people come to see an amateur performance they know they're not seeing professionals at Carnegie Hall, no matter how they got there, but they also don't want to be embarrassed or have their ears/eyes hurt. If you're the cause of that, then it's not for you.

Don't know if this helps, just my experience. Nthing taking classes, lots of them, focusing on what you love the most first. Miles1972 is right on, there are lots of people who need to work in nonperforming jobs to make a living but "live" for those times when then can do their art.
posted by Melismata at 3:22 PM on February 24

This may be more info than you asked for, but it's free and worth every penny.

A good way to get over the hump is, frankly to have a crutch, or something to sort of hide behind. I used to do magic shows, which morphed into a mix of standup comedy and magic. (I haven't performed in ages, though.) Many performers get their start with magic, because it's relatively easy to get booked as "a magic show" for banquets, parties, and other related things. Of course, if you are not good, that reputation will spread, and the phone will stop ringing. But if you are at all decent, and find a niche, there are plenty of opportunities. Plus, you don't have to reply on anyone else to perform with.

Any type of performing requires some guts, but magic has the advantage of giving you somewhat of a built-in script and plot for the effects. Anyone who is any good moves beyond the instructions in the box, of course, but it gives you a way to get in front of audience with a prop to hide behind. Being able to say "let me show you this cool thing" instead of "hey look at me" is a good crutch to get started. Plus, volunteering for charities, hospitals, parties, etc., is a good way to get some time in front of an audience.

(Disclaimer for any self-respecting magicians reading: I do not endorse half-assed performances, or making magic look bad, just giving an example of how it actually does happen.)

Some off-the-cuff (possibly off-the wall) ideas for "novelty" things that might be good in getting you in front of people without the pressure of perfection:

-Story readings at the library or a retirement home or hospital. Pick a few short stories that have room for dramatization and voice changes and keep doing them for different groups until you find your "voice."

-Puppetry. I used to perform skits with 2 puppets at a time, one on each hand, and voicing them both, as well as swapping to yet more puppets during subsequent skits. I had about 6 characters in all. It's quite challenging and fun. If done well, audiences are surprised to find out it was just one person. You can write your own stuff, or re-enact old routines or movie scenes, or "lip synch" to a duet. Giving the puppets emotions and expression through your movements is really magical. Of course, you are not seen during the actual performance, but you still have interaction, and it can be an icebreaker for something non-puppet related. It's a good way to ease into performing without feeling as vulnerable as standing in front of a crowd.

-Paper-tearing/folding. There are a bunch of interesting things you can do with ordinary newspaper, like make a 20-foot tall palm tree, a "jacobs ladder" and origami-type paper folds and tears. With the right presentation and showmanship, these things can be quite impressive. People sometimes gasped when I made my paper palm trees. (If you indeed want to pursue something like this, email me and I'll give you more details and specifics.)

-Ballooon animals. There are tons of books and resources on making balloon animals. Making them is really not difficult at all. Making it entertaining is the challenge. The hardest part of the process is learning how to blow up the balloons. Seriously.

-Quick-draw artwork. I never did this, but someone I knew created a painting in front of a crowd in about 10 minutes, using house paint, regular brushes, and even rollers. It was painted on a piece of thin plywood. He was a talented artist, but this particular performance relied more on just doing things in the right order, the right way, and he ended up with a nice looking landscape with rocks, a river, trees, and mountains. The performance was cheesy fun, and got great audience reaction every time I saw it, and someone got to take the painting home. (Example: his paint cans were labeled "rocks" "trees" "clouds" and the blue said "sky" on one side and "water" on the other. The last thing he painted was a bunch of boulders on the bottom in the foreground. This was because rocks are heavy, and having that much weight at the bottom helps the picture hang straight on the wall.)

-Slideshows / Powerpoint / Keynote. There are many examples of entertaining slideshows which tell a story, or share information in an entertaining manner. David Byrne traveled with a PowerPoint presentation as a form of performance art. Then there's the famously funny Identity 2.0 Keynote presentation. And probably the most-watched Keynote presentation ever is Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth.

Hope this helps. Good luck.
posted by The Deej at 3:27 PM on February 24 [2 favorites]

I'm a musician. A couple of things that got me into performing: I recorded myself, and I busked (played in the street for money).

Instead of believing that you're automatically bad at all types of performing arts, pick one, learn the fundamentals, and record yourself as you progress. Recordings not only show you your strengths and weaknesses, they also show your progress. If you get stalled in your development, just pull out one of your early recordings and you'll feel better immediately.

Busking is a low-pressure way to get used to an audience, and because your audience interacts with you, it's a great way to figure out what they like best. The audience also has a short attention span, so you only need to work up about 15 minutes' worth of material at first. If you need to, you can even busk far from your usual hangouts, so there's little risk of anyone recognizing you.
posted by PatoPata at 3:39 PM on February 24

Heya Sasshat. :D

I perform a lot, I guess. I'm a musician/preacher/historical blacksmith educator. (the last one actually gives me more anxiety than the first two).

Growing up, I played classical violin. My parents really pressed it on me and as such I was forced to compete and play solos quite often. When I was a boy I sang in a choir as well, so being in front of groups of people is something I was used to from a young age.

Later, in high school, I started attending and competing in poetry slams. I believe this did more for me that anything else. I mean, you get a score, ffs. If you want to win, you really have to learn how to perform, even badly. I won a lot. I don't think I ever wrote very good poetry, but I was completely obnoxious and loud and really tried to grab the audience with my voice. I would highly recommend poetry slams as a method for learning how to share in public. Don't substitute open mics. Open mics can't hold a candle to getting ashtrays chucked at your head during a less-than-stellar recitation at the Green Mill. You will learn how to perform.

Today, I play in a bluegrass band a couple times a week. Our audience is often loud and very rude. They yell a bunch. Everyone dances. I have the benefit of being the fiddle player, and damned near everyone loves a fiddle player. If you play guitar, you sometimes have to deal with buckets of other guitar players giving you a hard time. But I've only once met another fiddle player at a regular bar gig who gave me shit, and he was about a million and a half years old so I was cool with it.

I usually drink whiskey when I play my fiddle, because it causes my arm to hurt quite a bit less (we play really fast music at impossibly high volumes.)

Church. Church was really, really hard to get into. Worship is super important to most Christians, and for about the first year as the liturgist I felt that everything I said was shaky and uninspiring. That really just took practice. Now I can really relax during the service, I feel fine just picking up a microphone and making announcements or praying with a 500 member congregation. That really has more to do with relationships, though - I have a strong relationship with the parish - we all deeply care for one another and we're a pretty lovey bunch so now it's more like giving a toast at a family reunion. Same goes for some bars that I play at all the time.

But sometimes I have a hard time presenting 18th century blacksmithing techniques to groups of sixth graders. I have absolutely no idea why this is. Maybe I'm afraid that they won't believe a word I say. I don't know why I'm afraid of this - maybe it's because I so badly want them to be interested in blacksmithing... I desperately want heritage arts to survive and thrive, but I'm failing at communicating how completely awesome this stuff is.

So, in short, I think it's something you have to do a bunch. A whole bunch. Write some comedic diatribes that you can read with a loud voice, rapidly, and take them to a slam and just sort of get up there and shout them into the mic. Whatever. Don't introduce anything, and never, never apologize. Apologies on stage are a huge insult and waste of time. I absolutely can't stand it when a band / poet / artist gets up in front of paying people and says something like, "I just wrote this, this is new stuff so bear with me," - terrible. Get up there and be in the moment and just completely let loose. It's also best to completely memorize whatever you're going to perform - don't read stuff off the pages of a journal or looseleaf - completely unprofessional and lazy. Like musicians (non-classical) who use sheet music or read lyrics off a sheet. I mean, if you cared enough about your artform to inflict it on an audience, couldn't you at least rehearse it to the point where you don't need a crib sheet? Seriously?

This has been kind of rambling... I hope it helps. Also, I still blush and shake and sweat when I'm "performing" something out of the ordinary - getting asked to do the blessing at a wedding, playing my violin in church (this weird combination of my two distinct lifestyles cause me to almost have a seizure) or reading scripture from memory in front of my classmates during our practicum class.

Also, one last note:
I absolutely sucked at the violin as a boy. I fell behind everyone in my age group. Like, years behind. I practiced and practiced but the learning curve seemed like a vertical wall. But I simply never quit. I've been playing for 20 years, and I'm probably where most people would be at 12 years, but that's pretty damned good and I'm proud. Could have quit at any time and people would have sympathized, but I had a stubborn desire to see it through.

Be stubborn! Never give up!
posted by Baby_Balrog at 4:06 PM on February 24

Also:
Seconding PatoPata (duckfoot?) on the busking thing. Busking really boosts your performance confidence.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 4:07 PM on February 24

(I teach acting classes.)
TAKE A CLASS!
(I work as a professional actor on stage and in TV shows and movies.)
GET YOUR HANDS DIRTY!
(And I'm really proud of all the thoughtful and encouraging suggestions made by those above.)
DO THIS BEFORE YOU TALK YOURSELF OUT OF IT!
(I apologize for shouting, but life is tooooo short for "I wonder if...")
GOOD LUCK!
posted by Dizzy at 4:31 PM on February 24

I've been involved in performing arts with audiences since I was 7 (theater, chorus, dance and film). Read flyers and find something to attend or audition for!

The most life-changing experience I ever had was taking a serious film acting class, though I never intended to be a film actress, and I recommend it to people in lieu of therapy sometimes, so be forewarned: it's emotionally challenging. That's an understatement. But, it's wonderful for discovering and exploring your basic performative instrument.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 6:05 PM on February 24

depends on who you are, sometimes you need to force yourself, sometimes not. Just do it and if you need to force yourself, do it, if it comes naturally, let it flow.
posted by Ironmouth at 6:06 PM on February 24

Just do it. And tell yourself that you're better than all the people who are NOT doing it. Good luck.
posted by davetill at 6:25 PM on February 24

Honestly, sass, it is something I always did, and while I still do it, but not as a primary source of income, it strikes me as another not entirely functional thing I do. That does not mean I think your urge to perform is dysfunctional, but yes, I do, I think you are born into it, or not.

Go for it, do whatever you want to do, but do it because you enjoy it. If you enjoy it. There is no way to tell that untill you try, so try. But please understand it's not going to be a thing that changes who you are.
posted by rainbaby at 7:08 PM on February 24

It depends a lot on what particular difficulties you are trying to overcome.

If you're using your belief that you aren't any good as a rationalization for not doing something, then start yourself off with something where you're not expected to be fantastic. There's a whole range of opportunities for performing as an amateur in public, from community theater to open mic nights, and there's bound to be something where the audience's expectation is close enough to shut up that particular voice in your head. Heck, you can start with karaoke if you have to.

If you can get yourself on stage but find yourself freezing up, then you probably need some encouragement. I second Dbarefoot's Toastmasters and acting class recommendations. However, if you're actually freezing up on stage, then I think that an improv class (or one that uses improv exercises at the beginning) may actually be a good way just to get yourself used to being the formal center of attention (which, as you've no doubt discovered, is a completely different animal than an informal center of attention). If you're past that stage (or when you pass that stage), you really should do as Dbarefoot says and take a class that culminates in a public performance. You can find classes like this for just about any type of performance art.

If you're ready to go on stage, but you just don't know where to start, then there are lots of good options on this page, including classes, open mic nights, community theater (just getting rejected at a few auditions can help overcome anxiety), volunteer work, public speaking groups, etc. Pick one that lights your fire, and go for it. I would avoid trying to book yourself as a paid entertainer at first, not because you aren't good enough (I have no idea), but because confidence problems are usually exacerbated by the knowledge that one is being paid to perform.

Whatever you pick, do it for fun, and do it as soon as possible.
posted by ErWenn at 7:24 PM on February 24

Take lessons, practice regularly, go to open mics, have a drink or three before you go on.
posted by ludwig_van at 7:46 PM on February 24

Yes to acting classes - even if you end up going in to music. I've only a tiny bit of experience with film acting but I'd recommend theatre classes as the most effective, since the practice in ensemble work isn't the sort of experience you're really going to get anywhere else, and has implications well beyond performing. A theatre program at a school is ideal, but there are plenty of good private-market classes as well. But to paraphrase David Mamet, people who want to perform, perform. People who want to make a valiant attempt to perform before becoming bankers, go to theatre school. ;)

But what is it you want to perform, exactly? Whatever your flavour, there are open mics to suit it, and you can take heart that the audiences are mostly made up of other wannabe performers, so they're likely to be sympathetic (and even if they're not, they know being judgemental will bite them in the ass).

Where to go depends on what you want to do - poetry? Theatre? Music? Comedy? Your best bet might be to find a poetry slam, since they tend to attract people who blend multiple styles and genres. Some folks you'll love, some you'll hate, and you probably won't want to hit the stage yourself for a while, but it's a great way to get inspired, and to find out about related events and lower-impact open stages. And luckily, according to your profile you happen to reside in a city with a thriving slam scene.

Find comedy nights and improv nights as well. Improv nights - especially those which are open to people from the audience - are a great way to watch people put themselves through the process, and to imagine yourself doing the same. And consider auditioning for community theatre.

Other than that:

- Perform for a tape/digital recorder. Then listen to it. This will build up resistance to the fear of being listened to when performing, and of hearing your own performing voice. It puts you in a different headspace than just mumbling/whistling to yourself, but without a bunch of eyes on you.
- Remember that there is no failure, only learning - mistakes are your friends. If you bomb on stage, well, now you know something that doesn't work, or something that needs improving.
- Remember that every polished performer was once a talentless, terrified hack. The only thing that makes a difference is getting up and doing it again and again.

You've recognized the urge, and that's the first step.

Have fun.
posted by regicide is good for you at 8:35 PM on February 24

Karaoke!
posted by GPF at 6:30 AM on February 25

dbarefoot's suggestion of Toastmasters is a very good one. I'm a musician, a drummer, and the nice thing about being a musician is that you have a prop with you when you are onstage. This presupposes that you can play a musical instrument and that that is what you want to do in terms of performing. I've been playing and performing for about 45 years, give or take.

I've also acted (stage productions). Acting is good because you can vanish into the character. I don't have any problems with stage fright, never did. What made me nervous about acting was forgetting my lines. I was once in a scene in a revue in which all three actors on stage forgot their lines, me being one of them... it took us about 5 minutes of improvising and floundering to find our way back to the script. The director later told us he produced a large rectal brick during that time. That was far and away my worst experience on stage as a performer.

I also agree that you have to Do It. Maybe have a drink before hand, but don't overdo that; you run the risk of making a far bigger ass of yourself by being sloppy and drunk than you do by merely being incompetent. Trust me on this.
posted by Guy_Inamonkeysuit at 12:18 PM on February 25

I'm an art teacher, which I consider to be a bit of a performance every day... but when called upon to do something outside of that realm, such as singing in front of a large audience, or giving a talk to parents rather than students, my brain is calm but my body freaks out in an adrenaline rush. I get the shakes and I feel like I've downed about a gallon of espresso. To get through this I like to remind myself of previous success I've had taking a risk at performing or any other scary task. Generally this process will calm me down enough to get on stage and begin.
posted by evalenza at 7:28 PM on February 25