Lessons from the Last Performance

(Sounds like a 90s movie title, yes?:-) No? Probably a book on the movie 'The Last Performance?'

I was to do a proper post since my last one was…kinda crappy. Am being honest here. I will stop giving you peeks into my thought-speak, you get to know too much, and I love my privacy. Lemme just type them as they come, even if in bits and pieces.

Performance

This is the first part of a post for the Lelengoma blog. 

Before I continue, the concert went well….naaah, away with modesty, it was AWESOME! Now I will restrain myself and continue.

This was said by one Wangui Githu to her students at the Sauti Academy (I paraphrase), ‘The moment you step on that stage, it’s yours. You own it and you can do almost anything. It is your space.’ Just assume she is still talking and add this to your imagery so far. ‘When at home (or in your room), you decide whether to watch TV seated on the carpet or on the sofa or stool, you name it. It’s your space. The stage should come close to that.’

Wangui.Quaint Photography

Pauline who has a beautiful voice by the way asked me a lot on stage fright. Thum was her first time on stage with Nouvelle the band and she had those moments all performers have at some point or the other.

Once you get Wangui’s concept, performance becomes slightly easier. When you are that familiar with the stage, you can start practicing in front of a mirror and all those other things ‘public speaking’ experts tell you to do.

Similar move learnt from MJ

It is all about creating an illusion of completeness. My own thinking is that performance is a  representation of real life hence anything done on stage should be as full/complete as real life. This is why actors wear big outfits and bigger, more exaggerated expressions when on stage. That’s why choirs at the Kenya Music Festivals arrange themselves in such a way as to cover the whole stage.

Old stuff you say. Well, in today’s technological age, this is why lighting is important to a set. You either have large cameras that keep the eye roving or dancing/confusing/captivating lighting to keep you glued to the stage and…say it, create the same illusion.

Hiphop artists usually jump up and down and move around, changing formations as they perform. Ballad singers a la Luther Vandross and Ella Fitzgerald do the same, but with their voices mostly. The same applies to Operatic singers. Keep in mind their audience though-if you stand at the same place when performing to children/adults with ADD, you will have no concert. I promise.

K.R. Watch Kasiva play the djembe…or Mobutu for that matter.

I was awed the first time I watched her play.Kasiva

Lingala performers prefer to dance, but other than that they also fill the stage with ‘extras’J Not in a mean way, but honestly, you have the sexylooking mamas, about 8 of them on stage, 8 dancers and 8 vocalists, not counting the instrumentalists. What for? Ask one-man guitarist Mike Rua how to cost-cut KQ style and save money for investing in a plot in Kisaju.

The Last Performance

For THUM, we changed our usual performance set up from mic on stands to chordless mics and it worked! Especially for me. I always felt like the stands were limiting. It is based on a simple concept. If dance is not your thing or your music is not hype/pop such that you have to dance throughout the set, then move around and achieve the same illusion.

Either way, if you are a performer, find a way of performing that works for you if the above don't. You could opt to just do dreadlocks and shake them every once in a while. Or not. Experiment and find something that works with your personality. Moreover, research and observe.

And that is how you get carried away doing a blog post for one page and end up writing it up to the end. Oh well, the readers are different and the material suits both. Oh, and copy/paste option was made for a purpose!