Performance at its Purest

Monica Moore

• OnStage New Zealand Columnist

Recently I was privileged to witness invaluable, authentic life-skills building learning experiences and some of the most fundamental and purist form of performance. A high school individual performance evening that was being graded. 

It’s a HUGE step to be courageous enough to allow ourselves to be vulnerable in front of others, to take risks, to make a piece of art, to stand before our closest, to be judged, to make mistakes and keep going. 

“Hello everyone. My name is (unique important individual) and tonight I am going to perform.”

There’s a big difference between the perceptions of what they, their family, their teachers and peers think they can do, their talent, their work and the actual reality of getting onto a stage to share it.

Alone you present yourself before others, taking risks to showcase what you can, or in some cases cannot quite, achieve.

Each of these individuals stood before a live audience and a video camera. Some more accomplished, more practiced and more talented than others. All of them left that performance evening changed, more experienced and heightened in awareness of self.

They were all courageous stars in their own right.

They notched up another experience of standing before others and performing.

They should all be proud. They took that step. They are heroes.

It’s the start of the journey of confidence. Yes it is about talent but more importantly it’s a statement about self. “This is what I can do and I am not afraid to share.”

Some will continue to perform. For some it will be a career or hobby. For others it’s the start of leadership skill building; for them all, it’s a lesson about self. 

I am left baffled at why performing arts does not get the credibility that it deserves in education.

Monica Moore
www.monicamooreproductions.com

Photo: BMHS Theatre