Why do you perform? Students, Professionals, Armatures... music, dance, acting...?

Question

Why perform? Have you performed? Why did you perform? Share your experience and thoughts.

Answer 1

Truthfully...performing gets me high. It's better than any drug or alcohol and better than (almost :-) any sex I've ever had.

The problem for me is that I don't get as excited when I perform with a group...I really prefer performing solo. The best night of my musical life was performing my junior solo recital in college as a percussion performance major. Unfortunately, I didn't take stick with college long enough to perform a senior recital.

As most people would imagine, it's difficult to have a performance career as a solo percussionist, although there are a couple of notable exceptions (Evelyn Glennie and Terry Bozzio come to mind, but they're extremely rare circumstances). A few years ago, I discovered what is becoming possible with electronic percussion, so I bought a TrapKAT and later the smaller, but more powerful DrumKAT and I one day hope to perform (if even only locally) as a solo percussionist.

Answer 2

We were just talking about this today in my "auditioning for commercial" class. My acting coach insists that somewhere in the genetic mix the gene for talent took the place of the gene meant for logic. There's a lot of value in that observation. Who in their right mind would make a career out of an occupation that had a 90% unemployment rate. Why would anyone want to be in an industry that would reject you for a job because of what you are.ie, too thin too fat too tall too short not related to the producer. All of these things happen and are business as usual. It is, in many aspects, unfair. The most talented person doesn't always get the job. Sometimes it's the guy that looks more like the character than anyone else. Then again, there is that producers cousin that really just wants to get his SAG card for bragging rights. All of these things are, at one time or another, true. If you can't live like that and be happy. Find something else to do! If, however, you can deal with the unfairness, the sharks in the waters, the endless smoozing for that five minutes of film time that lets you really live, go for it. Get training, get an understanding how the system works and do it to it. Remember you're self employed and work at it everyday. You might have to take another job to pay for shelter, taxes, food and phone. Don't stop. Persistance is more important than lazy talent.
I've gotten off track a bit. Sorry. That's my passion speaking. The best reason I've ever heard by an artist as to why he did what he did was given by the writer Truman Capote. He said, "It's like there's a grain of sand in my mind and the only way I can scratch it is with a pencil."

Answer 3

Honestly, I can't see myself doing anything else. I have come to grips that this is what I was born to do, no matter how I escape it. Everytime I want to take the easy way out and just teach, the universe somehow calls me back into performing. It sound crazy, but it is true. I love what I do. I love being different people in performances. Even socializing and fraternizing with people who have the same passion fulfills me so much. I love being able to use notes to relay feelings into words with passion, regardless of what it is. I love listening to others with the same passion. I have been a amateur, a student, and now a professional. Even when I didn't know what the heck I was doing and my nerves would entangle me, I knew singing and the gift of music was "ordained" for me. Some people work restlessly for years trying to find their purpose. I feel blessed to know I can use my voice to guide me to my purpose. It is a beautiful thing.

Answer 4

I perform because it is, for me, when you are on stage and convey the feeling behind the piece, the only time when I'm truly alive. I feel that rush of the audience, and I feel like I can, at that moment, take on the world and win. The music transforms me, a relatively grounded person, into someone who dreams and believes in those dreams. Into someone who can experience feelings and hopes but still be the person I was before. There is a light inside of me, and I can let it out on the stage.
For example, I was fortunate enough to be selected for my state's all state choir. I learned the music but felt really strongly that I couldn't do it. There was no one to take my place, so I had to finish, and when we began to sing the Russian Creation hymn, I felt so filled with light and truth, that I knew that this was right, that I was meant to do this.

Answer 5

it's a showcase of hard work of what you've accomplished so far. It's like a child bringing a coloured picture to his parents. You love it and you know people love it also. You know you serve a purpose, and it's a purpose that satisfies you and all those who are listening. Even when I'm practicing it's like I'm performing for myself, and it's the exploration of the voice that is fascination, you always discover something new and find yourself getting better, it's so rewarding.

http://www.AnastasiaSongs.com

Answer 6

I say use some solid ol strip club song, like paradise city. Whats extra powerful than eco-friendly grass and particularly women? no longer something! I even have in no way given a table dance, yet many a lap dances. Saturday to a chick.

Answer 7

I'm a trombonist in a high school band and a pianist at home and I absolutely love it!!!!!! Jazz band is my favorite, because in solos you have to think fast, and challenge yourself (and all the attention is focused on you) I listen to broadway musicals and i have absolutely fallen in love with theatre (especially the works of Andrew Lloyd Webber). My new dream is to become a broadway composer/performer. music is what i love, so i would be so happy to make it my living.

Answer 8

I perform because I love it. Best high in the world. And it helps that I get paid doing what i love!

Answer 9

I have performed spoken word in both English and Spanish, under the following names: John-Peter Creighton, jean-pierre, and cafegroundzero. Some of my venues have included the annual poetry contest at Western Illinois University (Honorable Mention for my poem "Hello" in 1978); Memphis Tennessee's Babylon Cafe, 1989, as "jean pierre" where I read selections from my yet unpublished chapbook, Rasgos; The Last Elm, in Burlington Vermont, in 1990, where I read out loud also from Rasgos (means in Spanish "Traces" or "Tracks" as in what you use to track an animal or human being); by the statue of Garibaldi in Washington Square in Manhattan's Village, both poetry and improv comedy, in Savannah, Georgia, at The Sentient Bean by Forsyth Park, where I read from recent and older poems, including "Attic of the Mind" (which appeared recently in Blue Collar Review out of Norfolk VA), and last but hopefully not my final performance, at the Slam! event at The Cherry St Brewery in Galesburg, this last May in 2007.

For me, performance is an excellent way to both connect and share with other people. It helps me to come out of my "shell" that is to say, to overcome my syndromes of Asberger's and attention deficit, to heal from a dysfunctional childhood, and to delve further into the exploration of what is spoken word, what is theatre, what is communication, what is community.

Performance bonds members of the audience with each other and with the performers, also with support personel such as stage hands, ushers, hosts or hostesses, even with sponsors and ticket sellers. Performance is not just a way to make a living but a way to enhance the experience of life, to open your heart to life and love and the life of the mind, soul, and body.

As they say in show biz, "The show must go on!" So let's get back to it, people. Curtain up! Enjoy!

Answer 10

I create art & music because it is part of me and what I live for. To go to an deserted island and still be able to create both would fulfill me. I suppose it is an inner drive that keeps the need going, much like the desire to eat & sleep.
The only person I have to answer to is myself, and I can be my worst critic, but nothing gives you the greatest rush more than hearing applause from singing or seeing someone love your artwork!!

I live to create, I create to live.