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Performance Anxiety – AKA FREAKING OUT
Tomorrow night I will be performing an aerial hammock piece in front of what will likely be 200+ people (maybe more). I have performed 2 other times, once on lyra and another time on hammock, both of which were in student showcases and went well. This performance, however, is considered a troupe performance and is open to the public for our city’s annual Zombie Walk, a downtown festival.
I am a nervous person by nature, part perfectionist and lifelong anxiety sufferer. There has been a fair amount of nerves surrounding previous shows, but the larger audience and the fact that this is a performance for not just family and friends of myself and classmates but people seeking entertainment is completely FREAKING me out! I’ve been having dreams about scary, large crowds or making a mistake in my choreography.
My stomach is in knots and during our last dress rehearsal I sweated so much I had huge armpit stains. Not to mention, a weird fluke happened during my finale drop and I ended up with fabric draped over my head! I’ve ran my piece multiple times and that has never once happened, but the fact that it happened in my very last dress rehearsal has me completely horrified it’s going to happen again.
Any suggestions for these intense pre-show jitters? I’m in desperate need of some wisdom!
PS Any ideas how to ward off pit stains in a long sleeved, lycra dance unitard? lol
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7 Replies
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I don’t know if you have these in the states, but in Germany you can buy adhesive pads to put in the clothing in every drugstore. If you can’t get something like that, you could just take thin panty liners and cut them in the right size!
Good luck & I bet you’ll do great!
Keep in mind that the audience doesn’t know your routine and probably has no clue about hammock so as long as you’re not falling onto your head they will be impressed! -
That’s what they look like!
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Tacha, thanks for the feedback. I actually just got back from buying a similar product. I hooped in them for a few minutes and the area they covered had no sweat but just below it was a small dot. Hopefully I can figure out perfect placement tomorrow! Thanks for the words of encouragement too!
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I actually find performing in front of strangers easier than performing in front of classmates and pole people.. The general public will not even notice if you mess up whereas I can pretty much spot every flub in a performance. People outside of the arts just see a person doing some really cool tricks.
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Issues with anxiety, as well as performance anxiety, are both things I’ve been dealing with, as well. There are a LOT of tricks to help you!
First, breathe. Seriously, if you don’t breathe deeply into your belly, slowly, as if things are completely fine, then you’re sending signals to your brain that it’s freak-out time. And it’s NOT freak-out time! It’s confidence time.
Second, practice your performance, and keep practicing it. Let yourself go into that trance, let your body move to it. Honestly, if you get a feeling for what you want to convey with your dance, and you understand all the moves in a sequence and outside of one, if you mess up your choreography, it’ll be much easier to recover. And, practicing your choreography till your brain hurts and you’re dreaming about it means that you can put your body on auto-pilot, and it’ll do it. Knowing your music really, really helps, too.
Thirdly, take care of yourself. Eat. Sleep. Have some relaxing time in the shower or bath. Take time out of your day to journal about your fears and how you really want to feel. All of this stuff will help you to combat the anxiety. Food and proper sleep will make sure that your body isn’t sending further signals that there’s something wrong (we’re starving, or we’re tired!), and giving yourself time to relax will help that relaxation bleed into the rest of your life.
Taking time to write, and journal, and discuss with myself how I’m feeling and why, has been the single most amazing thing I have ever done for myself on the front of anxiety. I express through writing, so it comes fairly easy… but learning about yourself, and being able to talk yourself down out of these crazy fantasies where you imagine yourself failing, is huge. All of those “What if” questions that go through your head go unanswered for the most part, and you leave it up to a nebulous, fear-driven answer, and that will keep you up at night.Seriously, I doubt many people would notice if you failed, because THEY don’t know your choreography! As long as you keep looking good and keep with your feeling, you can pull it off, and perhaps even do something amazing! I’m sure it’ll be great!
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Try to avoid having this pre-determined discussion with yourself. 🙂 If you tell yourself you will be super nervous, you will be. “Nerves” are neither good or bad until we respond to them either positivey or negatively. “Your Past Is Not Your Prison” – just because you have been nervous about performance in the past does not mean you have to be freaked out about every performance going forward. 🙂 Focus on the process rather than the outcome — if you are busy thinking about what “might” happen, it takes your focus away from what you need to actually be doing to have a good performance. Just take each move one at a time… and after it is over – focus only on the things that went RIGHT… allow yourself to have fun and enjoy the moment. PS – most of these are suggestions I’ve learned from the book With Winning In Mind… good stuff for any competitor/performer.
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Thank you Chem, Runemist, and dancingbeagle (thanks for the book suggestion),
The show went great. Unfortunately the crazy fluke happened again but I rolled with the punches and very few people noticed, those that did knew my choreo/heard me stressing about it after my bad dress rehearsal. Honestly, I think just posting this discussion helped clear my chest. Kind of the whole “release it to the universe” thing, except in smaller measures “Release it on SV” hehehe
I am trying to find a way to post a video, everyone’s footage is on Facebook and I, of course, wasn’t filming 😉
Either way, thanks for the advice, I’m bookmarking this to reread when I do it all over for my Christmas show!
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