Stage Presence

I’ve been on stage many times. As a child I went to dance class, did pageants, sang in the school choir and was in the Christmas play. I can’t remember what my character was in the Christmas play, but I have a feeling it was something inconsequential to the plot. Similarly at my dance school there was a routine titled “Jolity Farm” which was performed every year by the younger students. The first year I was in it I performed the crucial (sarcasm) role of a tomato….and nailed it. The following year I was promoted to crow…and fell down. Strange that I was able to maintain more grace in a red foam ball which encompassed me from neck to knees than in a spandex bird suit.

I also suffer from wildly unpredictable stage fright.  The first instance of this debilitating happenstance I can recall was when I was around the age of 7. My mother had entered me in to a pageant of some kind or another. I was used to these events, having walked runways like a tiny, curly haired (not naturally, mum had perfected the artificial white girl fro styling) professional on many occasions in my small town. The difference on this particular occasion, was that more than a few dozen people were in attendance.

This event was held somewhere by the beach, and the runway was a huge (huge to a 7 year old anyway) stage with an attached catwalk which was set up for what I assume was some kind of festival. There were bands, dancers, and an overly dramatic MC.

I was entered in this runway competition with a friend of mine from school. Her mother was very ‘Real Housewives of Tanning Beds’ so I can only imagine she had the upper hand on the situation from the beginning and had been training since birth. I on the other hand, had never seen a crowd this size in my young life, despite all my extra-curricular performance based activities, and my penchant for singing Christmas carols on boats (see ‘The Toddler and the Sea’).

I remember clearly my friend taking to the runway right before me. She did a vibrant, fun filled model walk down to the end involving some freestyle swim moves and that 60’s dance where you hold your nose like you’re diving. After a few more bits of flair and pizazz she skipped back up to stage with enthusiasm and high fived the MC. The crowd went wild for this confident, happy little girl.

Then it was my turn. I held back the urge to soil myself as my name was announced, took a deep breath and started my walk.

The only way I can really describe my runway walk at that time, was if a primitive robot and Lurch from the Addams Family had spliced themselves together and projected the external image of an extremely curly haired, blue faced child.

I say blue faced because I did not breathe for the entirety of my runway. I lock stepped, arms pinned un-moving to my sides, all the way to the end of the catwalk. When I did reach the end, I didn’t stop for a second. I spun 180 quicker than a politician after being elected. My vision was blurred and my ears were buzzing, possibly from the lack of oxygen reaching my brain, and I marched right on back to the main stage convinced if I did not leave it immediately my heart would explode out of my chest.

I ignored the MC’s out reached high-fiveable hand and barreled down the stairs to meet my furious waiting mother. Evidently she had spent a fair bit of time, money and effort to enter me into this competition, and was under the impression that I was just being lazy. Once she saw that my face was rapidly turning purple and I hadn’t said a word since leaving the stage, she realised I was, in fact, absolutely petrified. She convinced me that oxygen intake was a necessity and Alien was not going to burst forth through my tiny rib cage and I eventually calmed down.

Needless to say, my friend won the competition. I didn't place.

This was not the last time stage fright played a role in my young life. Around the same age I was given a tap dancing solo to perform at a dance recital. It was an extremely simple little jig, tap from one corner of the stage to the other, tappa tappa tappa, tap over the other side of the stage, more tappa tappa tappa, tap off stage. It wasn’t a very long song, but when you fuck it up, any song feels like Bat Out of Hell.

I was performing my aforementioned tap from one corner of the stage to the other, which was at the very beginning of my routine, when I slipped, and fell on my ass in my sparkly green leotard. Luckily, the leotard had an enormous padded bow on the back of it which cushioned the fall.
(Dance fashion is the shit). Determined not to cry on stage, but also practically shitting myself, I pulled myself up and tried to continue to dance.

The problem was my mind had been wiped completely blank, either from the impact of my ass hitting the stage or from the fear of all the judging eyes staring at me from the depths of the dark theater. Instead of continuing my rehearsed routine, I did the same tap move over and over again moving a few feet from one side to the other at the front of the stage for the remainder of the song. It wasn’t even in time to the beat. I just tried to make as much noise with my shoes as possible in the hopes that no one in the audience would know the difference between good tap dancing and bad tap dancing. And let’s be honest, at a 6 years old’s dance recital, it’s all bad tap dancing.  

Once I got off the stage this time however, I was praised by my teacher for being brave and continuing the routine instead of just bailing out then and there. My internal response to that was: “Bitch, if I had known just walking off the stage was an option I would have done it.” My tiny 6 year old brain didn’t know any better. I was under the impression that I HAD to stay on that stage until the song was done. I didn’t know what was keeping me there exactly, but I had a distinct fear of snipers.

Stage fright continues to haunt me sporadically to this day. I never know when it will strike. I can go from one performance with absolute killer confidence, acting/talking/dancing up a storm in front of an audience, to being paralysed with fear, unable to open my mouth, and even on one occasion during high school, shaking so violently from head to toe I was told to not worry about finishing my presentation and to go to the sick bay. (That one kind of worked in my favour – I got an A out of pity).

I now tend to avoid speaking in front of crowds unless I am intoxicated, in which case the whole world is my stage. And incidentally, my toilet.