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The Performer Prepares: Lighting Up the Audience Becoming an Artist: Interpretation, performance, and a lifetime of singing

Is it possible to transform performance anxiety into stage presence?

Performance anxiety is something people usually want to get out of their system, but as author Robert Caldwell describes in The Performer Prepares, performance anxiety is often the call to a heightened state required by performers. "Lighting up an audience requires more than simply walking out on stage with everyday inner experiences. To excite an audience to a rich experience, a performer's mind, body, emotions all begin naturally to rise to lead that heightened state, which can shake up a beginner who isn't expecting such huge inner transformations. These dramatic changes can become unpleasant or scary, sometimes intensifying into stage fright, but anyone can learn to transform even the worst of these sensations, using them to propel an artist into his or her own heightened state, allowing them to lead an audience somewhere magical.

Caldwell shows, through systematic exercises, that performers stricken with performance anxiety and stage fright can learn to use their subjective experiences, where they become guides on their artistic journey. "Its about knowing how to work with the plethora of sensations we experience, many subtle ones," he says, "knowing precisely what to do if anxiety begins to creeps into their inner world."

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