For Performers - dancers, singers, musicians, actors
If you are a ballroom dancer, please visit my site: Better Ballroom with Bette where you will find my weekly blog full of helpful tips and my free e-book "10 Steps to Competition Greatness".
Many performers come to me when they have reached an impasse in their work and don’t know what to do. In singers, neck tension can prevent the vocal mechanism from operating freely and the same goes for actors.
Performance is a culmination of practice. But often, habits are strong and interfere with our desire to make changes, even when we know we need to change. Instead of ‘perfect’ practice makes perfect (what is perfect anyway?), ‘efficient’ practice makes for efficient performance. Merriam Webster defines efficient as “capable of producing desired results without wasting materials, time, or energy.” It seems that Webster and Alexander were on the same page!
Looking back on my ballet career, I know I was expending 30-40 per cent more muscular energy than I needed - the very definition of inefficient. Ballet culture embraces the line or form of the dancer over the organic production of the form. Often, dancers push to attain a certain physical snapshot and proper mechanics are sacrificed and then repeated over and over again causing discomfort, pain and often injury.
F. M. Alexander, a reciter of Shakespeare, discovered through years of self-observation that he was most definitely wasting energy by contracting his neck muscles and shortening in stature every time he thought about speaking. It was only when he figured out that the way to solve this was to become aware of the habit, pause and then direct himself differently, away from his habit. The different way is what I can teach you.
Many performers come to me when they have reached an impasse in their work and don’t know what to do. In singers, neck tension can prevent the vocal mechanism from operating freely and the same goes for actors.
Performance is a culmination of practice. But often, habits are strong and interfere with our desire to make changes, even when we know we need to change. Instead of ‘perfect’ practice makes perfect (what is perfect anyway?), ‘efficient’ practice makes for efficient performance. Merriam Webster defines efficient as “capable of producing desired results without wasting materials, time, or energy.” It seems that Webster and Alexander were on the same page!
Looking back on my ballet career, I know I was expending 30-40 per cent more muscular energy than I needed - the very definition of inefficient. Ballet culture embraces the line or form of the dancer over the organic production of the form. Often, dancers push to attain a certain physical snapshot and proper mechanics are sacrificed and then repeated over and over again causing discomfort, pain and often injury.
F. M. Alexander, a reciter of Shakespeare, discovered through years of self-observation that he was most definitely wasting energy by contracting his neck muscles and shortening in stature every time he thought about speaking. It was only when he figured out that the way to solve this was to become aware of the habit, pause and then direct himself differently, away from his habit. The different way is what I can teach you.