meditation

The seventh and last Deadly Sin in this series happens right where the rubber meets the road - on stage.  After everything else has gone right, losing focus can still snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.

Great performance depends on the audience to participate - they must be present in the moment, they must focus their attention on what's happening on the stage, and they must suspend disbelief, that is, allow themselves to be caught up in the reality being portrayed, ignore all the limitations of the medium, and fill in all the other gaps that might otherwise distract them. When you watch TV, you let yourself believe that the action is real rather than staged, and you restrict your attention to the bounds of the television screen, blocking out the rest of your visual input.  The audience's great gift to you as a performer is their willingness to do that for you!

But audience attention and suspension of disbelief can be pretty fragile.  If I'm watching a play and someone's cell phone rings, suddenly I am back in the theater, no longer immersed in the reality on the screen.  Even worse would be to have my attention drawn to something on screen that doesn't fit with the reality, like recognizing scenery from Hope, BC while watching First Blood, which was supposed to take place in the US.  Another pet peeve of mine is when someone asks me about the actor instead of the character while I'm watching a movie.  "Hey wasn't she in that other movie we saw?"

In a live performance environment, what distracts me is when the performer has a lapse of attention, when their eyes glaze over for a moment and they cease to be in the story, or lavishing the audience with their communication and attention.  Generally this happens when the performer gets distracted by something in their own mind, like worry about a difficult passage, or recognition of a mistake they just made.

I believe that the audience will think about whatever is on the mind of the performer.  There are a million reasons why this is true, beyond the scope of this article (hey, another article idea!), but it seems to hold true.  If the artist is thinking technically, the audience will evaluate them on a technical level.  If the artist is really in the moment and immersed in the authentic expression of their story, as long as their skills are adequate to the task, there is really nothing to evaluate at a technical level, and that's when really great performance can take place, the kind that can really move the participants and keep them coming back for more.

If you want to be able to keep focus throughout your performance, half the battle is in the preparation.  If your story is clear and decorated with vivid images and movies that evoke the proper emotions in you, it has a great chance of holding your attention while you perform.  If you rehearse enough to remove technical distractions from your own attention, you're setting yourself up for success.

The other half of the battle is akin to meditation, and learning the discipline of controlling your own thoughts.  When you first learn to meditate, of course it's extremely frustrating, because no matter how hard to try to empty your mind, stray thoughts keep popping in!  And if you let yourself get frustrated and angry about that, a state of inner peace is not in  your immediate future.  Better to acknowlege the stray thought, and allow it to go.  It's the same on stage - if you sense a distraction, don't beat yourself up.  Just let it go, and find the images in your story again.  With practice, you will find that your mind will interrupt you less and less, until eventually you will be able to maintain a state of absolute presence in the moment and in the performance story from beginning to end.  Then you will wonder where the time went!  And you will probably be mobbed by fans telling you how much they loved it.

This concludes the Seven Deadly Sins series!  There are more sins, of course, I've never heard of the Eight Deadly Sins or the Eleven Deadly Sins, so we'll move on.

Many performers have learned to manage their stage fright issues with relaxation techniques.  This is especially useful if your big problem is how you feel before you go on stage, but some people also report that a relaxed body and mind beforehand will carry over to the performance as well.

Try some muscle relaxation.  One standard method is to lie down on your back in a quiet place, and tense and relax each muscle in your body.  Start with the toes, and move up, tensing each muscle group for a count of ten, and then relaxing it.  Breathe deeply.  Work your way up to your shoulders, neck, and face muscles.  This should get your body and mind completely relaxed, and at the very least it will take your mind off your imminent stage performance for a while.

Meditation can also be a great help.  It takes practice, but you can learn to empty your mind and find peace, even right before the big show.  I’m no expert on this topic, but a quick google search should turn up hundreds of useful books.

Many veterans of the stage report that they experience peak anxiety just before they go on stage, and then get more calm and focused when they actually perform.  You might find that as your gain experience on the stage, you develop this habit as well.