Crossing Lines: Believing In Your Talent And Being Real On Stage.

As an artist, you can spend your entire life letting directors draw lines in your performance and you can also allow yourself to perform within those lines OR you can choose to cross them. Whenever you think “this is too big, too fast, too much” or when you are letting a director convince you of such things, that’s drawing a line. However, they chose you. You showed them something that brought life and light to a simple idea and you are the one who is or will be, on stage doing that show, displaying both strength and vulnerability by opening yourself to a new audience night after night.

Every single person in the audience, every director, every technician will have their opinion on your performance.

Regardless of those opinions, you can still make your performance your very best, each better and more solid than the night before, whether it be your first, 20^th or 158^th time in that make-up and in those shoes.

Just take a moment to focus on how you are feeling right there and then, before going on stage, to feel those emotions and the inspiration going through your senses, with a hint of a reminder of why you love to be up there. Do so and they won’t have any other choice, but to see YOU, who you really are, today, in that light, not a character, but your very own soul standing on that stage.

You have the passion for shows and a deep love for the stage that no one can take away from you. Just because they are telling you to frown or to act very tensed, doesn’t mean that you have to do it the exact same way every night.

You are giving life to a story, a character, each time that you walk on stage.

Every step you take and every eyebrow you raise is just as important as the song you are about to sing or the flips that you are about to make.

WAY MORE IMPORTANT than those opinions. However, you can’t watch yourself performing, so an outside eye is valuable and shouldn’t be ignored. Regardless of how tired or out of it you might be feeling, you and only you shall be able to draw the line as to what you can and cannot do on stage, so why stop there? You might as well cross that line, now that it has been drawn.

Remember, no challenge is too big, no step is too high, you’ve got to believe in yourself, in your ability to share your passion for performing arts and life through your songs, steps, and smiles; THAT will touch the audience and nourish their souls.

Allow yourself to cross the line today and to be your wonderful artistic self when the curtain rises up.

Also by Martin Frenette:

Performance Nutrition – Feeding Artistic and Physical Needs

Walk In The Sky: Art Or Stunt

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