The moments between always and never
"… He throws his head back, closes his eyes, drifts. You're only as good or bad as your latest attempt to make some connection with the world…" / The Soloist – Steve Lopez
Five minutes before the show, and the audience is taking their seats. I have always loved performing outdoors; there is a thrill and magic in standing in front of an audience under the stars. I had just finished my warm-up and was looking for a dark corner where the audience wouldn't notice me. I curled up my spine and let the blackness of the night cover me like a blanket. I remembered the scenes and steps of the show perfectly, more than a year of preparation left no room for forgetting. I felt like I didn’t need to become anything special for this show tonight; it felt authentic and real. Strangely, I could just be myself.
I believe that performance is not something we do but rather a situation we arrive at. As a dancer and stage artist, the definition of performance is quite straightforward. But performance is not exclusive to those who act, play, or dance in front of an audience. Performance happens when a teacher stands in front of a classroom, a businessperson negotiates an important deal, or a lonely soul meets a potential partner on a first date. Performance occurs whenever a life event has direct consequences.
It is worthy of spending a moment here to understand the difference between 'Skilled' and 'Unskilled' way of performing. Or according to philosopher Jean Paul Sartre; 'Authentic' and 'Inauthentic'. Sartre uses the example of a waiter in a Parisian Cafe in his book 'Being and Nothingness'. According to Sartre he is observing the waiter and could recognize his inauthenticity because he is 'playing the role' of a waiter. The waiter’s movement, is “a little too precise, a little too rapid,” and he interacts with customers “a little too eagerly…a little too solicitous.” In other words, the waiter is so intent on perfectly acting out the role that his performance feels fake. In his actions he tries to define himself as a waiter and suppresses other parts of himself. I would argue that this waiter is lacking presence or using it in a very minimal amount. He is locked within the predetermined image of a waiter and avoiding existential elements of a free human being.
It is important to develop tools and strategies to excel in moments of performance instead of reproducing an image of action. To find coherence and direction also during pressure and complex tasks. With this goal in mind, I believe we can become more 'ourselves' when we perform, and shed away fixations, limitations and stagnations can create a potent and a long-term holistic practice.
Priming To Fly
Over the years of performing on different stages, I have learnt that working on my presence mid-action is too late. When I try to tune it during performative situation, it has already impacted my movement, actions and reactions. Trying to change it in the middle can bring tension and risk. Because of that, an important aspect of gaining control over my presence became premeditating or priming. Simply put, I've learnt that the way to direct my presence is by "choosing" the state in which I place myself BEFORE the action. You can think of the state of your mind as the surface on which a bird is standing upon before taking off. When this process goes "right," it feels smooth and direct. When the surface is fragile or inappropriate, it feels like there is a lot of wasted movement just to stabilize attention, and the action is jittery and hectic.
How do you know what is the right state? By paying attention and following your intuition. Reflecting on your tendencies can give clues to what needs to be balanced and that should be focused on during the priming. Asking how my own mind operates and where are the usual risks for entropy are the core questions in that sense. With careful and compassionate observation, it is quite clear what personal process should be done and how to set the right goals.
It is very similar to the idea of Quality as described by Robert M. Pirsig in 'Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance': "A person who sees Quality and feels it as he works is a person who cares. A person who cares about what he sees and does is a person who’s bound to have some characteristic of quality." In other words; care for your own mind and the balance that it needs before the performance and you will already begin the process of refining your presence.
The Tiger at Night
The next story will demonstrate what I call 'forced performance'. I think that as a controlled tool it can bring to interesting improvements but without enough quality and care, also to self destructive mechanisms.
An Amazonian folktale tells the story of a native who used to scout the jungle at night near his village. He always left with his two sons, as even Amazonian locals don't wander alone in the darkness. One night, his sons were out, and he decided to make an exception and go by himself. He took his usual route and suddenly heard footsteps creeping behind him. He quickly turned and saw,
about 10 meters away, the terrifying sight of a full-grown jaguar observing him carefully. Carrying only a machete, his mind began racing—he must keep calm because any sudden move could make the jaguar feel threatened and charge at him with no chance of survival. The jaguar stepped away from the tree and revealed its stunning physique, pacing slowly in a big circle. The man mirrored the movement, keeping the distance and holding his machete in front of him so the jaguar would see that a direct attack was not possible. The jaguar sped up, and the man followed, swinging his machete in front and making loud war sounds. "My sons must be looking for me," he thought. "If I manage to keep the jaguar away long enough, they will arrive and save me."
The man and the jaguar continued this impossible tango—the jaguar leading the pace and the man in opposition, swinging his machete confidently so the jaguar knew he wasn’t giving up. After about 15 minutes, the man’s arm began to fatigue, and his mental fortitude started to crack. He wondered how long he could hold on.
"HISSSSS," the jaguar picked up the pace and exposed its teeth. The man quickly switched the machete to his left hand and increased his shouts in desperation. "My left hand will fatigue even quicker," he thought. "I should begin planning my counter-move—maybe if I manage to strike its neck, I will survive." He knew it was very unlikely. His left hand was much less convincing, and he switched back to his tired right hand. The jaguar paced more intensely, and now they were jogging. It felt like the end—the man knew that at the next sign of weakness, the jaguar would charge. He began saying his goodbyes, and the jaguar seemed to be burning with concentration. "This is how it ends, I guess…" His face dripped with cold sweat.
BOOOOM!
A shot was fired from behind him, and the jaguar quickly disappeared into the darkness. The man’s sons had come looking for him and fired a shot into the air to scare off the beast. Their father collapsed, curling into a ball on the ground. He began weeping like a child.
We have much more mental capacities inside of us than we think. When our backs are against the wall, we are capable of truly amazing concentration and endurance. But tapping into a mental state that we're not prepared for can crumble even the sharpest and toughest of us. This does not mean we are not forced sometimes into harassing all our presence capacities into an intense event. However, it is important to remember that internal resources are not endless. Going over the edge will mean fatigue, and recovery will be necessary. When building our ability we need to do our best to increase it gradually, attentively and periodically.
The Double-Edged Sword
Bruce Lee presented a philosophy that connects the quality of the mind with physical quality. Bringing them together, he argued, results in enhanced presence. A recurring challenge is finding ways to make this process constructive rather than destructive. Just as pilots begin training on simulators before taking the risk of flying a real airplane, premature exposure to performance can degrade the quality of presence rather than enhance it.
Not so long ago, I was asked to pitch at a professional conference. In front of an audience of programmers and curators, I had to make a spoken presentation describing the benefits of buying and presenting our artistic work. The challenge was interesting, as I am used to being on stage, but this was a very different type of performance. We (the pitch was done together with my partner and wife, Roser) were guided by Sergi Manaut, a professional coach for public speaking.
One thing about his method that struck me was his insistence that we work on the pitch for merely 10 minutes a day rather than a full-blown 2-hour session. We barely performed the whole 20-minute pitch during the training process. He explained that the goal was to create easy and daily consistency rather than pushing us out of our comfort zone. "You see, if you manage to crave doing the full pitch rather than HAVING to do it, you are already on the right path." The result was that we found a very interesting state of mind—something between relaxation and tension. After a few months of work, whenever one of us would say a word from the pitch, the other would be ready to fire off the whole thing effortlessly and naturally. We were not afraid of interruptions and were eager to perform with intention and confidence.
The Double-Edged Sword
Bruce Lee presented a philosophy that connects the quality of the mind with physical quality. Bringing them together, he argued, results in enhanced presence. A recurring challenge is finding ways to make this process constructive rather than destructive. Just as pilots begin training on simulators before taking the risk of flying a real airplane, premature exposure to performance can degrade the quality of presence rather than enhance it. Not so long ago, I was asked to pitch at a professional conference. In front of an audience of programmers and curators, I had to make a spoken presentation describing the benefits of buying and presenting our artistic work.
The challenge was interesting, as I am used to being on stage, but this was a very different type of performance. We (the pitch was done together with my partner and wife, Roser) were guided by Sergi Manaut, a professional coach for public speaking.
One thing about his method that struck me was his insistence that we work on the pitch for merely 10 minutes a day rather than a full-blown 2-hour session. We barely performed the whole 20-minute pitch during the training process. He explained that the goal was to create easy and daily consistency rather than pushing us out of our comfort zone. "You see, if you manage to crave doing the full pitch rather than HAVING to do it, you are already on the right path." The result was that we found a very interesting state of mind—something between relaxation and tension. After a few months of work, whenever one of us would say a word from the pitch, the other would be ready to fire off the whole thing effortlessly and naturally. We were not afraid of interruptions and were eager to perform with intention and confidence.
It's All About the Practice
"Art is not freedom from discipline, but disciplined freedom. " / John F. Kennedy
I see life as a constant process of learning with moments of performance that are registered in our bodies/minds as meaningful events. The moment we begin investing conscious time and effort into refining and improving them, we are free to live more fully and less habitually. In that sense, training our presence is waking up from the neutrality of everyday life.
Dogen Zenji, the Zen scholar and poet, claimed that practice is enlightenment itself. Years later, contemporary Buddhism began researching how to live after enlightenment or after several enlightenments. In simple terms, consistent training is the objective, but it is not the end goal. The synergy can be explained if we metaphorically think of this process as the art of navigation—doing the work of directing the 'self' in an ocean of external forces that influence its sailing path. We can't guarantee smooth sailing, but the training provides us with the tools to deal with the hardships and challenges that come our way. The destination is merely temporary, a moment of ease before embarking on the next journey.
The key is to understand that presence training is not about dealing with the bigger picture or changing the large course of the things we can't control. Presence is all about micro-moments. Every experience can be broken down into little fragments of successful performance. When we begin to care for the quality of the microseconds of our lives, many things appear differently. If we tie this idea back to Sartre we can use his statement that "Existence precedes Essence".
Improving presence is existing differently, and it is not something that 'improves' our essence but a way to create (or recreate) our essence and consequentially our experience of the world. In the end, the quality of our presence is what shapes the details of our lives. By cultivating awareness in the smallest of moments, we can navigate challenging circumstances with grace and intention. Through consistent training of this idea, we not only improve our performance but also awaken to the deeper, more meaningful aspects of our everyday lives.
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