When I step onto stage, what am I? In truth, I wish I knew the answer. From the first age I remember, stepping onto stage was an outlet for emotion and, I suppose, a therapy of sorts. However, the one thing I recall from childhood, which has proven to be everlasting, is that sense of self. Always there in the background is that niggling reminder that we can be knee deep in our portrayal of any character, but we will always have the conscience and soul that belong to ourselves. For me that's both a blessing and a problem: a blessing in that I can perform in different guises in spite of myself and a problem in that I sometimes wish my inner channel would just back off!
I mean, it's not a lot to ask right? When poised to deliver an emotionally charged monologue about War and suffering, the last thing you need is an eternal conversation asking 'did I turn the straighteners off?, am I really 35 and still single? Should I have had that extra glass of wine on Wednesday?' It really is most distracting! Yet somehow all performers such as myself manage to have that conversation with themselves with any spectator absolutely oblivious! It's the same in an audition situation where nerves present themselves but must be covered...your face is smiling and you're saying the right things, but your mind appears to have turned into quivering mashed potato with no recollection of any preparation for the moment upon you.
Actors and performers are like un-medicated schizophrenics with unspoken permission to be different from other professions in society and class themselves aside from other career paths..'Different, weird and special' are not uncommon words I've had thrown at me when I'm describing my artistic practises. WE ARE NOT WEIRD, nor even eclectic in my opinion. We are just in some kind of minority who have the mental capacity to accept that no two jobs will be alike and that our work colleagues are a breed of their own: we embrace our idiosyncrasies (if that's what they are) and we use them to our advantage!
It has often been put to me that being any form of Artist is a waste of time or is not a reputable form of occupation, which riles me to volcanic proportions! Do people in 'normal' jobs not watch TV or listen to music? Do they not admire a humble street performer or a voice over in an advertisement? People are so blinkered to how diverse the term 'Art' can be that they are missing the very things around them that they love. I absolutely urge people all the time to give new experiences a try and see how it makes them feel! Sometimes the right form of Art taps into our emotions at exactly the right time and makes us understand things we could never comprehend previously.
Recently, I did a performance in London. The performance involved some graphic violence between a man and a woman; it was the culmination of 8 months' hard work and based on the autobiographies of myself and my gay best friend. The piece of work touched on social expectation about relationships and how to place yourself socially if you cannot belong to the expected norm. It was about how love takes many forms and how my love for my best friend is absolutely unbreakable, yet me having a partner was not something I had wanted when the work was made.
In the end, my partner of 3 months attended my performance and watched as another man hit me brutally around the face. The audience were shocked, aghast, almost moved to tears - we had a queue of people waiting to speak to us. Their conclusion was that our piece of work was brave and had connotations of men abusing women. None of these messages had been considered within our intent when making the piece, and we were fascinated by the interpretation. My partner who watched, was proud and understood the piece and never felt angry or upset about seeing me so hurt. Three months later that man hit me. Two months after that I was in a musical. I stood on stage singing and dancing with a big cheesy smile and nobody could have ever known that my entire life is like a performance. If I repeated my London performance now, it would mean something totally different to me!
Such is the beauty of The Arts. Art mutates before your eyes; it cleanses and purifies, it disturbs and disconnects and it awakens things inside us which we weren't aware existed. We as performers are not irrelevant or conceited for wanting to use our minds and bodies in our careers - we are brave souls who strip ourselves to the very bone for others to scrutinise! When I am on stage, I'm not the scared little fool I am in real life, I'm not the woman who works in two jobs, runs a business, works for charity and raises 4 children - I'm a strong person, because I'm giving myself to the audience. Admittedly it is easy for the 'performance' to spill over into home life as it becomes so normal to have to play for an audience.
I'm not a Drama Queen, or a mental case, or a waste of space. I'm a wave in a big ocean of people who do the same as me every day and fight for their right to be an Artist! If your house is burning down, you call the fire brigade, if you're sick you ring the Doctor... So what do you do when you're happy, looking for entertainment, looking for solace??? You look at, listen to and breathe in something beautiful of course! Just imagine a world without music for one thing; musicians are like the epicentre of our world in such a technology fuelled society. Who makes those little noises when you press remote controls on a button or log onto websites? All these things are designed by 'weirdos' like me and my friends.
'Get a real job' I was always told! Well guess what? I did!
outcryarts@gmail.co.uk
Tristesse James
Lady Gargoyle
Outcry Arts
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