Perform: Respect Fear
I read a lot of well-intentioned fear bashing out there. It goes something like: "Conquer your fear" "Don't let your fear defeat you" and a recent favorite: "Fear wants to take away your faith" FEAR IS NOT AN ENTITY! Fear…
Performance – Play to Your Strengths
We are circus people. By that I mean, I am suddenly spending time in a circus school while my child learns circus things. While observing a particularly graceful and terrifying maneuver on aerial silks, I stated, "I don't think I'd…
Performance: Don’t Know Mind
In Buddhism, there is a concept of don't know. It doesn't mean that one lacks knowledge, it means that one accepts the unknown-- without comment. In so doing, one becomes knowledge, because one simply recognizes knowledge. When we present, we…
Performance: Stop the Lean (In)
Presentation is an interesting craft -- You are sending information and intention out into a room, hopefully with enough energy and flair that it has the desired impact. It is difficult even for those of us with years of acting…
Perform: Lift Weights
We've talked about hands before, notably what to do with them as you perform. One of the problems is that our arms and hands are perfectly willing to telegraph our emotional state. So, if you are feeling frenetic your hand…
Perform: You Gotta Have a Gimmick
In the musical Gypsy by Jule Styne, Stephen Sondheim, and Arthur Laurents, the title character Rose finds herself in a Burlesque company and is advised by three of the dancers that "You Gotta Have A Gimmick!" It is a fun…
Perform: The You-est You
I recently saw a speaker enter the room with a set of tools so specialized that there was no possible way for anyone else to have given that talk. It wasn't that he was speaking about ideas that had never…
Perform: What If I Build It and No One Comes
I teach a lot of workshops. Among them are self-created snapshots of my process which I run from my offices in Boston or Cambridge. These sometimes lead to future business but are mostly a way for me to share a…
Perform: Connect IRL
When you are working on improving your speech or singing most of the work happens in private. Hours upon hours can be spent on disrupting a stubborn habit or learning how to craft this or that phrase, just so. You…
Perform: Connect the Dots
What if there was a system of electrical currents that created a network throughout your body? What if those currents had the power to activate movement and expansion through the body? What if breathing fully into your body provided your…
