AUTHENTICITY? On Passion in Performance

AUTHENTICITY IN PERFORMANCE?

"Trying is only emphasizing
the thing we know already."
F.M. Alexander

We shape the world and the world shapes us.

Passion in performance is priceless; it is part of
the movement of what we might call a transcendental
spirit-energy, an energy which carries us up and over
our prosaic petty state of daily isolation to some wild,
unknown and wonderful place.

Passion in performance is the heart and soul of real
artistic excellence. And yet, what is evidently so
difficult to grasp is that, passion, like humility or creativity
generally, always is and must be unaware of itself.

In its place, a kind of style or species of faux or fake
or inauthentic and self-conscious 'passion' has become
something of a cultural norm. And this is not just true
on commercial TV and in the films of corporate Hollywood,
but it also has come to dominate the Pop and Classical
Music stages of the world. It is but a cheap imitation, a
kind of 2nd-hand projection. Like Love for sale. We can
pay for sex, of course. The outward movements are much
the same. But we all know the difference, and this difference
is perhaps all we can know. In other words, it is a very
great mistake to try to be passionate. All we can see or
observe is, as in the Alexander Technique‚ the fact that
we generally are not passionate. The miracle of learning
is that, in the empty space thereby created, something
vastly more authentic may begin to unfold and, perhaps,
fully flower.

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