I couldn’t be happier to be able to say that my performance is all done and everything went smoothly and to plan. It always a nice feeling when all of your efforts and hard work seems to end in the way that you hoped.
I have never been so scared before a performance, due to the fact that I had literally put my all into all aspects of my piece. I hand made my own set, I made my own video, I wrote the script, it felt like I was about to be judged on everything and the fact that my piece was based around such a personal and difficult experience that I went through only made it worse. I got through it though, the technical aspects went perfectly and I didn’t forget any of my script or freeze up on stage when it got to the emotional section. As a whole I am extremely proud of how it went.
One thing that I have found over the process of creating my solo performance is how difficult it is to not have the security of a group. I’ve doubted myself a lot during the development of my piece and before the performance I literally had no idea how the audience would react to it. However the audience reactions that I received after my performance made me ridiculously happy and I couldn’t have asked for nicer comments. One of my main worries for the performance was the changes in atmosphere and I was concerned that there was too much of a drastic change from being funny to being serious. I thought the humour may have affected the emotion behind the piece, however the audience did seem to be really touched by the performance. They laughed in the earlier comedic section which I couldn’t of been happier about and the atmosphere in the room at the end was hopefully really powerful.
I made myself extremely vulnerable within this piece which I am extremely proud of and I can only hope that it paid off.
“The thing about performance, even if it’s only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities” Sydney Smith
Works Cited
Smith, Sydney, (1771-1845) Sydney Smith Quotes, Online:http://thinkexist.com/quotation/the_thing_about_performance-even_if_it-s_only_an/219814.html (accessed: 16 May 2013).