Practice + Performance
How do we get better at sharing what we make?
Over the weekend our children wrote and performed two plays. Hours of watching household objects disappear to be cast as extras and become parts of costumes, overhearing lines being workshopped, and a few pushed back curtain calls later, we eventually were given our tickets and enjoyed their shows. Tall stories taking us on imaginary journeys fighting with giants, discovering gold, and mazing through lost plot lines.
As we sat in the kitchen, the captive audience to their West End Saturday matinee extravaganza, I began to wonder about how we make and how we share. One of the shows was practiced and one of them was performed. They were both valuable and entertaining but they had been made and shared very differently. One crafted. One created. One displaying expressions of thought deliberately pieced together. The other sharing a gathered moment, allowing the story to stall or explore a narrative cul-de-sac. One was the end result of practice and the other only coming into existence when performed.
Should practice stake the pressing claim on our time or should performance receive the larger portion of our attention?
We all definitely have a preference for practice or performance.
You’ve either quit an instrument or skill because the rudiments were ‘boring’ only to find a performance space and come alive making it up as you go along. Or, fell in love with honing and refining the incremental improvement of something new which you cared for in private.
“Practice makes permanent” is a contentious axiom in our household. My mother-in-law claims to have never declared it over her children and grandchildren, despite their collective memory recalling otherwise. As guardians seeking to encourage burgeoning talent, a common presumption is repetition will develop skill, and skill will eventually move from entry-level displays of enthusiasm to new heights of expression and, ultimately, love. Stockholm Syndrome; but with musical instruments.
The flair of improvising or public problem solving seems to make more people nervous and meets us in a collective weird spot. The skill, talent, and effort to create in front of others can be diminished in comparison for apparently lacking the dutiful unseen hours which communicate value. A cultural wrinkle in our need for performance. We want the spontaneous magic of an extraterrestrial performer to take us somewhere we can’t get to but perhaps prefer the wrapper of a knuckle-down practicer.
The awareness of the two types sharing space can improve life for all of us. If clarity gives us confidence which becomes the fuel for decision making, our predilection for practice or performance becomes really helpful.
Imagine a situation which requires you to deliver something ‘on the spot’. Are you now covered in hives or filled with adrenaline? There are clues to our practice or performance wiring.
Knowing where we start from helps us make and share more. The threat of method can become a head start in chasing ideas, bringing thoughts to life, and sharing brilliance.
Practice people giving us the ‘how’. Performance humans showing us ‘why’.
Life can sometimes tempt us to simply declare, “but I’m not creative”. We might not consider our work to be of the arts, but we should be comfortable knowing we are all creative.
We all make and share.
Our every utterance is art - anything made and shared, practiced and performed is. Every kitchen is the West End even if what we’re practicing and performing is simply breakfast.
Depending on who you ask there are 4, 5, 8, or unknown types of creatives. Categorisation can be a useful tool in project delegation, and the benefits of self-discovery are well covered in the age we live in. Thinking about how and why we make and share is often too big a stumbling block, and we can struggle to see beyond it. An obstructed view of a project can generally be enough to give up on it. Instead of feeling blocked out from the work we are compelled by, having healthy possession of practice or perform could see abandoned pieces finding a way to being made and shared.
Clearly practice and performance are codependent. There is no understanding of practice without a performance and performance never possible without a form of practice. Practice won’t make you perfect but it will make you better. Performance shouldn’t validate your existence but it might help others see a world they didn’t know was there.
There’s a better creative space of completion when we bring preferences together.
A friend recently worked with a colourist to audit and understand their wardrobe. The feedback, from 10 outfit choices, was “8 out of 10 of these are right for you”. My friend had used performance to achieve 8 out of 10. 8 out of 10 is a nice place to be but do you know what’s better? 10/10. Working with the right practice person gave access to a 10 out of 10 decision.
Combining instead of feeling threatened. Making and sharing to come together and improve output. Head met heart. Instinct working with information.
Our family kitchen plays were a glimpse of a way to make and share. The work made it out. The obstacles were overcome and something was made and shared. If practice is what we need to craft and sculpt something then invest as is required. If performance is the mode to get the best find the space required. Figure out the preference and then find a way to use it to make and share.