34
Have you ever imagined standing on stage in front of hundreds of people for a performance,
and right after you start on your first line, your tongue literally decides to stop functioning and your head goes into a blank.
Your heart rate starts escalating, your mouth goes dry, you purse your lips tightly together.
You clench and unclench your fists again.
You take a deep breath and begin again, only to hear yourself stutter once more.
You are on the verge of bursting into tears.
You hold it together, and coax yourself to breathe.
Breathe.
Breathe.
You are telling yourself to breathe.
All eyes are on you watching you breathe.
You give a little apologetic smile that roughly translates to "Give me a moment".
And then all of a sudden, someone in the hundreds of people starts clapping.
And then there were a few more, and all of a sudden everyone starts clapping for you.
So you breathe deep once more, exhale and let out the first word.
Followed by the second and the third and the fourth and on and on you went.
The lines delivered right through your diaphragm out into the audience who watched you stumble thrice but had faith in you to finish your lines.
That happened to me today.
Right okay so many of you probably have no idea but I am in something called 朗诵 ( lang2song4) which is basically Chinese Literature/ Speech and Drama in Chinese.
I don't do it as an academic subject but more of a y'know, hobby or artsy fartsy thing like how some people do theatrics.
I've been going for classes on a regular basis since I was uhmmmm maybe 12? But I stopped in the past year or so due to schoolwork and all.
And also, I kinda lost touch a little with Chinese while I was in SA hahaha.
Anyway, besides going for classes, I do performances a few times a year for events and sometimes productions.
For these performances I mostly do poetry readings with a team, whether a big or a small one really depends on the stage director and her vision for the showcase.
Sometimes we do get to do theatre/acting for a little bit as well and singing if it's a musical.
But as yall may know i'm not exactly much of a singer so it's mostly poetry readings hahaha.
Okay back to today's performance.
We had to do this 快板 piece for some lovely elder folks during a cny banquet.
I figured most of you wouldn't know what a 快板 performance actually is so here's an example of one.
It's actually a Chinese traditional art that's losing ground especially among the younger generation so there aren't many videos around but I found one featuring two american siblings and it's pretty good if you understand them so here you go.
Btw, i'm no where as good as them in playing the little kuaiban.
I can only manage the basics so yeah hahaha.
But yeah uhmm can i call that classical rap???
Hahahaha ohmy i really don't know the english version of this.
Okay i'm skewing off topic.
I was doing an opening line (Prologue??) for the performance this time round,
and while I was at backstage, I was freaking out.
I get nervous really easily.
and it's a problem that I'm still learning to cope with.
I use essential oils and yoga to manage my mind these days and I think it does help a bit.
Anyway so the above scenario thingy really did happen a few hours ago.
With an audience of 590 people per show.
I did two shows.
Thank God I only messed up the first one.
The shows were consecutive so after messing up the first one I was in pretty bad shape, anxiety wise.
But my friends ran through my lines with me backstage pre second show and when I was sent out there it was better.
Whew.
But man, what an experience.
I've never received an opening script and perform it all in the span of one day before so I guess it's an achievement for me.
on a small scale at least.
Still feeling a little jittery so i'm gonna head to bed now.
What a day it has been.
Also, dear friends, I hope you're not too surprised that I do Chinese lit.
Y'know in all honesty I think i do keep a lot of what I do to myself.
But then again, i'm mostly a listener among my friends.
I listen, try to understand and I provide advice.
Mmmmmm...
ok off to bed to think about my relationship with the world around me.
ciao.
35
36
37
38