Karen Jensen wrote: I'll pick up on one of the points you mentioned: Alma Thomas' statement that "as performers, we have to perform for ourselves, not the audience, or any other reason, and we need to take ownership of our performances by not giving anything away". I can see where it is important not to 'give away the performance' if that means giving up artistic responsibility, personal self-worth as an artist, the ability to judge how the performance went, etc., but I would disagree with the statement that we perform for ourselves. A spirit of generosity, giving, wholeness, and of sharing my slice of human experience, to me is an essential part of performing.(Just one 'take' on that particular point.)
I agree with this too Karen, but Alma did say that even though we perform for ourselves, we can and should share the performance - but we can't forget why we're doing it in the first place. It is for ourselves, because it gives us enjoyment, and it's who we are. She talked about giving the performance away, as opposed to owning it. And I think as performers we do forget sometimes why we do this thing we do and make it all about giving up ourselves for the audience. If we do that, eventually, we lose who we are and why we perform.
Lisa
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