Sitting and spinning: a question of burlesque direction

I often see people posting about a drop in confidence, an uncertainty in performance direction, a worry about getting booked etc. I always try to offer reassuring advice. But now its me experience all these things! Yes, I have come to yet another burlesque cross-roads, unsure which road I should take, and unsure whether I should bother at all.

 I suppose about two years ago I realised I was quite fed up with my burlesque style. People kept telling me how "cute" my acts were. Not a bad thing in itself, except I dont want to be cute, I am not a cute person, so this meant my acts werent genuinely reflecting my personality. But what did I want to do? And as much to the point: what could I do well? I wanted to do something more edgy, more skilled, just generally up my game. So I decided to dare to put old music hall rudeness and singing in my acts.

But then, after working hard on a couple of singing burlesque acts, I realised I was not enjoying them. In fact, I was stressing so much about doing them that I was dreading any show where I was performing them.

Bugger. Something had obviously gone wrong with my "new direction". What to do? *cue hand-wringing and pained expression*

The first thing to do would be to work out what I did not like about the new acts. They were stressing me out, why? Some pondering later, I deduced the following:

• I was stressed because I was not confident in my singing
• I was super paranoid about the radio headset mic not working, because the acts just couldnt be done with a hand-held.
• I felt quite unattractive in my costumes.

Ok. Those are the issues, how to solve them? I am taking singing lessons to build my skill and confidence, and I could always change the costumes. I could reduce the singing so that the whole act wasnt a song but only part of it etc.

But was this going to be enough? What I have realised doing the trampoline act is how important it is to enjoy your act, like REALLY love doing it, because that joy shines through. It is so important to commit to it (see previous blog), to really be in the moment while you are on stage, rather than stressing about words and pitch and microphones. And it has to have specatacle, visual impact, wow factor, which I dont feel those two acts have enough of.

So I have worked out what I am doing wrong, and what I can do to remedy it. But I still dont have a specific idea for an act that puts all these things right! 

"There's a difference between knowing the path and walking the path." said Morpheus to Neo!

I have ideas for new acts, but how to develop them? How to make sure I can actually pull them off? * you know when, in your head, you can do backflips and dance and all that stuff lol. And (this one is a big problem)- how to afford the level of costume that I need if I am to acheive that spectacle, that level of professional visual impact?

And, although it might seem weird after 6 years, I have that fear: "what if I put in all this effort and no one is interested in the new act? What if its crap?" You never know when the burlesque world will just lose interest in you. At least that is how it feels.

So now I am retiring or phasing out all my old acts and building a new repetoire. But considering the level I want to aim for, and the fact that acts seem to take me a year to bring out, I don't know how long this is going to take me. And I am worried I wont be able to make the acts as good as I want. Am I going to be an angry old woman with several expensive mediocre acts that no one wants to book?

I realise all artist people must go through periods of change and transition where they develop their style etc, but I am finding it rather worrying. Because while I am sitting and spinning, trying to work out who and what I want to be as a performer, and what I actually am capable of being, I can't apply for shows like I usually would, I cant advertise my acts cos they dont exist yet etc etc. And then I panic a bit, and that is not conducive to creative productiveness!

I have an idea for a new act. It involves a bit of singing, some physical comedy, a bling costume and a spectacle-filled ending, and I am going for it. Time will tell if it is any good, and in the meantime, maybe I need some pep-talks like the ones I give other people :-S

Commitment Issues

All sorts of things go through your mind when you are onstage. Its a a confusing and multi-coloured blur: what bit is this, is this going to work, are they enjoying it, am I doing it right....

Thinking. Its a necessary part of getting your act right. But sometimes it intrudes, so much so that you lose the moment, you lose the impact, you lost the NOW of your act. And good acts need the NOW.

For years I have tried to work out what makes acts good. Seriously, its a bugger of a question. But the act that is really there, in the moment, feeling it, almost unconscious, that is probably a good act.

I've had a few acts. Most were ok. But two stand out-  Last Temptation and Trampoline. Why? Mainly cos I cant do them without really getting into it, I cant not throw myself there and be in the moment. I enjoy both acts massively. And its shows. Last Temptation is the second act I ever did and it still gets requested 6 years later. Its not a complicated or glam act, its not even that original, its just funny and you cant help but get carried away by it.

And thats the thing, you need to to get carried away by your act. If you dont, no one else will. You need to commit. But how the fudge do you do that? For me, its almost random, except with the trampoline where I have to be in the moment or I might die lol.

How do you commit to committing?

Actually, I don't know the answer to this. I feel my performance, trampoline excepted, is really inconsistent, sometimes I am on, sometimes I am not. But I do know, a brilliant act has to be feeling it, not self-indulgent, not nervous, not self-conscious, not egotistcal, but right there, not even thinking, just doing. Pity its so bloody difficult!

Having it all- growing up vs going for the dream

I can tell you the moment the magic went from my life- magic I would spend 7 years drinking to try and get back before I found writing and burlesque.

It was the day I started my first full-time job.

Don't get me wrong, the job was ok. What got to me was the implacable way it swallowed your life, your time, your thoughts. Get up, go to work, come back, eat, go to sleep, get up, go to work, come back, eat., go to sleep., get up.... Its all my life was, all I could see in the future, grey grey grey.

Where was the person I thought I was going to be as an "adult"? What about the extraordinary things I was going to do, the places I was going to go? That person had no place in the dirge of a 9-5 job.

Right, before I go on, I have to make it clear: I am not bashing anyone who works full time. I admire anyone who can make themselves do this, who can keep a job. And I know some people enjoy their full time job etc etc. This post isnt about you, its about me, so dont get ruffled.

But for me, a full-time job just equaled unhappiness. I could cope for 6 months then it would seem my life had no meaning. How can life just be turning up to this one place and shifting papers or whatever, forever? I've had loads of jobs, nursery assistant, teaching assistant, speech and language therapy, admin, customer services, yoga studio lackey. But every time I would feel this bursting sense of restlessness and claustrophobia.

In 2009 I started my PhD with a view to getting a job which was well paid enough to let me work part time and not be skint. But that didnt work out. PhD fell through and I found myself unemployed and sans direction, again. Last year was one of the hardest and most miserable I have had, but two good things came out of it. I hit a low and had an epiphany:

I WILL DO ANYTHING TO NOT FEEL THIS MISERABLE EVER AGAIN! I CANNOT LIVE LIKE THIS ANY MORE!

The other was, I started working for myself with burlesque stuff, out of necessity, but over 8 months I developed it into a liveable wage, and I realised I need to be self-employed. I realised I had to stop limiting myself with what I "should" be doing. Somewhere along the line, I was taught that jobs had to be at least a bit of a bugger, but that paying the bills was the thing to focus on. I learned to beat myself up cos I just couldnt be satisfied with 9-5. And last year I unlearned that.

I am never more miserable than when I have been in a full time job, in a workplace, for about 4 months. Truth. I hate skintness and uncertainty but I would choose them every time over the above, in order to get freedom, creativity, independence and variety in my work. And boy, have I endured skintness and uncertainty!

But I love what I do, its insane how much I love doing shows. They do my nut in too, of course, and the stress levels can be high, but I am so lucky to do it and earn money from it. A girl at my last hen party commented on my luckiness, and I was really stuck on how to reply. So much of our bonding and identity comes from complaining about work and the idea of the "noble long-suffering employee", if you have a job you love that doesnt involve the usual dirge, you feel a bit stuck!

So basically, I think you can have it all, if you really work at it. It might not be exactly what you envisaged, and it may be harder than you thought, but you can have a creative job that you love. You just have to have balls of steel regarding cash flow and future plans. I have fought for years with the ideas forced on me about work, and only now, out of professional and financial catastrophe, do I rise like a self-employed phoenix to give a flaming finger to everyone who suggested to me that I should just get a crappy job and find my fulfillment outside of work hours. When you are sitting in your house watching Strictly, I am gigging, when you are having a Saturday afternoon pint at the pub, I am teaching borderline hostile and lary hens, when you are tucked up in your bed, I am enduring a god-awful road trip on the night-time motorway, when you are commuting to work, I am desperately seeking my next paid job, and when you are watching your savings grow and planning your holidays and your house purchase, I am worrying about how to pay the rent cos my latest invoice hasnt come through. But I love it, I was born to be self-employed, and its right for me.

On selfishness...

A friend asked me the other day, how I manage to balance thinking of myself with trying to please other people. My response was that I am inherently selfish and I have to actively remind myself to think about other people's wants. Now that is true to a point, I do get a bit petulant sometimes, but I also know that I am pretty kind and compassionate, so I let myself off with the occasional paddy cos I cant go the restaurant I want or something.

I constantly weigh up the consequences of what I say and do. Its exhausting sometimes, to be honest. I think about how the other person/people might interpret what I say, how they might react, how they might feel, what the consequences will be for me, for them, in general.... Its a wonder I say anything at all. It  is hugely important to me not to hurt someone if at all possible, and not to force my point of view on someone, being of the mindset as a post-modernist thinker, that nothing is absolute. I know I can be wrong. And even if I think someone else is wrong, do I have the right to aggressively hound them for their opinion? Just cos I dont like someone, does that give me the right to tell them that and hurt their feelings? I dont think so.

The truth is, whilst my initial reactions to things are normal (ie impatience and a desire to tell people they are being idiots), that is quickly followed up and dominated by a need to make sure people are ok. I understand that people have it hard, feel shit about themselves, are having a bad day, bad year, feel inadequate, defensive, useless, scared.... So how can I be anything but understanding myself? I actually get berated for being too kind, but what else would I want to be? A massive hard arse bitch? It would be easier but actually, no.

Its about outcome, too. I sometimes get the sense that some people who claim to be activists or whatever, are more concerned about "having their say" than about facilitating change*. More concerned about hearing their own voices shouting THE TRUTH than actually getting people to change their minds. This idea that "I am saying the truth and they should all capitulate to my correct viewpoint". Dont get me wrong, I feel like this often too. But for me, I am more concerned with getting my own way. I will do what I have to do, say what I have to say, to get people to listen to me, and hopeful go on to see and agree with my viewpoint. And this mostly involves being calm, nice and seeming balanced when I want to shout "you massive dick!!!". But I want results, not just to shout my opinion. I suppose this could be called self-serving- but I mostly employ this when talking about feminism or mediating an argument so is it? I prefer everyone to get along, or at least behave with integrity, so maybe it still is.

*NB I do think that real social change comes from a tag team of shouters and "reasonable-seeming folk".

Not burlesque related, but hey!

Fraud syndrome & being a bit sh*t

Recently someone asked me for my opinion about why we get bullying in burlesque. The obvious (and age old) answer is jealousy (natural, understandable and something we have to acknowledge), but the other key things are people just feeling really worried and crap about themselves and their ability as a performer, feeling inadequate, feeling like you have * snuck on stage and someone will eventually realise and scream "You! Get off the stage!! You are not a proper performer!"

Fraud syndrome, I call it (and yep, I have it).

I think burlesque is unique (except maybe for stand up comedy??) in that it allows people with no background in performing arts, no training and no skill to get on a stage in front of paying audiences and perhaps build a career out of this. And thank god for that cos if it didn't  I wouldn't be doing what I am doing 6 years later, for I was one of the "No training no skill no background" new performers.

What do I mean by skill? People often get very uptight when this is said, I assume cos it isn't clear what is meant by skill. To be a skilled performer, you have to have a skill, and usually you will have trained for a long time to have that skill, circus school stage school performing arts qualification ballet school etc. You will be a dancer, a juggler, an aerialist, a singer and so forth. However, by saying "not a skilled performer" I don't mean the performer is crap. Saying someone is not skilled is NOT AN INSULT!!. Nor am I saying you cant learn to be skilled at burlesque without having trained in a specific discipline. So you can be a good performer, an entertaining performer, without being skilled, trained etc.  I am not particularly skilled, though am more so 6 years later than I was at first.

So many of us come into burlesque without any background in performing arts. It doesn't mean we aren't good or that we wont do well, but we will be aware of the gap between us and those that are trained and skilled.

I remember vividly the first time I performed in a theatre (theatre lounge but still), the Royal Court in Liverpool, back in 2008. It was for Retrotease which pre-dated the Martini Lounge. As I sat in the dressing rooms, looking at the actual lights round the mirrors and listening to the stage sound being played to us through speakers, I could not believe I was there. And in part, that has never gone away. Perhaps for those of us who don't have the theatrical background, we will always feel a bit like we have snuck in the back door and shouldn't really be allowed. Perhaps trained people feel that too, I don't know.

Anyway, there is a point to this, here it comes: if we have fraud syndrome we can be very sensitive about receiving anything but positive feedback. I know that it took me 4 years to work up the courage to seek out brutal, honest feedback from an experienced person. If anyone had given me that before that point, I think it would have knocked my already-fragile confidence to the point I would have given up. Because I felt I shouldn't really be there. 

So there is something to be said for the supportive nature of the "oh you were great" burlesque culture. It allows us to build our confidence in an area where usually we would not even get a look-in. 

But all the support is not necessarily good either. With constructive and honest criticism, we can grow. An act that 2 or 3 people have advised you upon to WILL be better than one you create by yourself. Without this kind of feedback, we risk not giving ourselves the opportunity to develop and improve as performers. 

(not sure I agree totally with this Bambi pic but you get the gist)

Why is it so hard to be honest with ourselves about the times we are shit? We are all shit sometimes. No one, hardly anyone anyway, is consistently brilliant. Fraud syndrome is key, I think. I also think that because our routines are created by us, our inspirations, creations, our babies, part of who we are, it all becomes extremely personal, difficult to be objective about. It is too easy to create a couple of good acts and think that means we are good all the time. Some acts work, some dont. Some acts draw on your strengths, some dont, etc. 

If we got to a point where we weren't afraid of constructive advice, but valued it and sought it out from the very beginning, we would be better all round, more honest and more realistic about our abilities, and we would feel more confident. No more fraud syndrome, no more defensiveness, nicer community. Maybe. 

But how can we get there? How to combat that fraud feeling, without making burlesque less accessible to people without the performance training? Its probably a whole culture change- and not just for burlesque- we live in the "some people get everything without working for it/being good at anything" culture, thank you reality TV... 

And we need to recognise the distinction between skilled, professional, amateur etc. Its confusing cos you may enjoy a small show in the back of a pub with new performers just as much as a big show with professionals. But its recognising that you can be entertaining without being skilled, and that there is a difference. Yes, we want to be entertained by burlesque shows, but once you get to professional level shows, you also expect to see people doing something you couldnt, to see people who are clearly skilled. If you put that rip roaring fun newbie show from the local bar on an opera house stage, you would get complaints- from people who would probably enjoy it in the bar! 

So I keep saying to people, dont be afraid to be shit. It doesnt mean you will always be shit and you should sack it all in, just work on it! Its advice that, I admit, I struggle to follow myself. I get really despondent when I feel I havent performed well. 

And fight the fraud feeling. Never feel you dont deserve to be there. Successful promoters arent stupid, although they do have their own preferences, they pick you cos they think they will at least break even with you on the bill, and the audience will enjoy your performance. And if you really think you got in on an epic show cos your mate runs it and chose to sacrifice the quality of their show and their own money and reputation just to give you a break *, well, start working harder on your act so next time they do you that favour, you can feel you belong there. 

*snuck is a word, right?
*We all know that people sometimes get booked for reasons other than or supplementary to their ability, but only to a point- see above point about money and reputation.