So It has been a while since I wrote a blog, especially one which is more about my own personal experiences.
I have been out in the realms of Rainbow Serpent Festival this past week; miles from signal, internet and grown-up things.
Actually, in honesty, I did do a few grown-up things while I was there…. no no no… not like that! … I mean I was WORKING. I had the pleasure of sharing 2 sets on the Fiasco stage as well as having been invited to host a Rainbow Serpent Poetry Jam on the Speakers Stage.
I am not going to lie, I was feeling vulnerable, and all my self-shame came up… what if no one came to watch me, what if I was not good enough, what if…, what if…, what if…
It was my first time being officially booked for a large festival (a festival with more than 2,000 people). The tickets were capped this year at 17,000 people plus all the crew. A little back info on Rainbow Serpent, It is primarily an Electronic Music festival with a large pay-trance following. There is also a focus on visionary art plus a workshop/inspirational speakers area. I didn’t even know that outside of the tiny little cabaret stage at the chai tent there would be any booked spaces for non-music based performance. I applied to perform at a whim and also put in an application to hold a Poetry Open Jam in the workshop area as a back-up mostly believing that I wouldn’t have a hope in hell of being booked as a performer (due to the nature of the festival) and I may, possibly, be accepted to run an open mic space in one of the smaller workshop spaces.
How elated was I to find that not only was I booked to do TWO sets on the (now rather huge and elaborate circus tent style) Fiasco Stage but that I had also been accepted to host the Rainbow Open Poetry Jam on Monday morning in the largest of the speakers/workshop areas. By “elated“ I mean… half excited and half shitting myself.
It is easy to see a performer on stage and forget that they are humans too, with fears and self-doubt that they have to battle with every day.
The performance on the Fiasco stage was an amazing affirmation to me of so many elements of the work I do in Speak Up… firstly SAFETY. As performers, we must look after our safety and the safety of the audience, it is something we I look at as we delve deeper into the Speak Up course as it is integral to the work, however what came up for me is the huge difference between performing to a silent and sober audience in a dedicated space compared to performing heart and soul vulnerability up on a huge stage with massive lights to an intoxicated audience who you can’t see or hear, with 5 other banging sound systems in the aural backdrop.
As performers, we must look after our safety and the safety of the audience, it is something I look at as we delve deeper into the Speak Up course as it is integral to the work. However what came up for me was the huge difference between performing to a silent and sober audience in a dedicated space, in comparison to performing heart and soul vulnerability up on a huge stage with massive lights to an intoxicated audience who you can’t see or hear, with 5 other banging sound systems in the aural backdrop.
WOAH the rawness of it, the self-judgement and self-shaming I put on myself in moments… Before I went on I looked at the other cabaret acts with their glitter and tutu’s and felt so bland in my earthy browns (I had actually de-glittered to get ready to perform). Then when I was up there and realised I couldn’t SEE any of them, I froze… my deep desire to be liked, to be LOVED, to be seen, heard and witnessed rose up in a pained realisation that I would have to give my heart and soul to the void with no promise of ANYTHING in return. FUCK!
So I began with one of my most vulnerable pieces, why not?! Why not start in the depths and see what happens. My biggest issue here was I couldn’t Let Go. I couldn’t let the audience have their own authentic experience of me because I was so intent on needing something from them. So in effect, I was unable to be present fully in my dialogue with them. I felt shitty, and small as I left the stage, blocking out the applause and watching myself and asking the question “Why?!”.
However, to counteract that whirlwind of self-judgement, I did have something going in my favour… the level of awareness I had of that process in me, the ability to breathe into it, to notice how I felt unsafe..to step away at the end of the first set and DO things to make me feel safe. Because the truth of it was, I didn’t have a CLUE what the audience was feeling or thinking because I was so wrapped up in my own experience I couldn’t begin to feel into theirs.
I walked out to the (quite large) crowd, I connect with them from being AMONGST them… I connected with the vibe and I got right back up there on the stage and was fully present with them. No longer spending my whole time in a dialogue with my inner self-saboteur but fully engaged in the dialogue between myself and the audience. I reminded myself that my role wasn’t to receive some hit of ego-affirming “likes” and applause… my role was to give passionate, powerful, vulnerable and honest stories. To be MYSELF, and in being myself allow whoever was sat out there, the opportunity to connect with that in whatever way they needed to. My role was not to judge myself but to love myself. To stand in the truth of my experience without trying to weigh myself down, getting caught in a story.
I stood up there and I connected with them, ACTUALLY connected with them. I felt heard, and I saw that they, in return, felt heard by me. We danced. I loved it. They loved it.
Of course, no one noticed I was in such a process (except the people backstage who I found myself chattering to in the midst of it…who were of course also going through it all themselves) and the feedback I got was all wonderful, but the key for me, this time, is not their feedback, it’s my feedback to myself. How can I make sure that my experience of sharing my heart and soul is safe for me?
By Listening to myself.
By Returning to myself.
By Remembering Connection, to self, to space, to other… in that order.
And by Letting Go of my need to be loved, to receive love, for one moment, for just long enough to actually be someone who can give love.
Bless.