Get Your Act Together

Originally published June 21, 2015

If you’ve been taking classes long enough to know 4 or 5 moves, it’s time put together an act. Do you think that you need more tricks or different tricks or better tricks to make an act that you can be proud of? That will never change. Look at the skills you have, however basic, and string them together to music. You’ll improve your endurance, learn how to move to music, and get to practice multitasking while upside down.

Many of my beginner students (heck, many of my advanced students) are intimidated by their peers who seem to have natural performing skills. What those students don’t realize is that many of these other students have hundreds of hours of experience performing as dancers or actors. They’ve put in their time and it is second nature for them to look out at their audience and put emotion into their movements. These dancers and actors are simply adding a new skill (circus/heights/being-upside-down) to their foundation of performing skills.

The wrong thing to do is to be intimidated by these other students. You should look to them for inspiration and watch to see what they do differently. And most importantly, you need to start practicing yourself! As Arnold Schwarzenegger once said, “You can’t climb the ladder of success with your hands in your pockets.”

Pick a song you love, imagine how your favourite tricks can fit to it, and go try it.