Attending the Texas Renaissance Festival over the weekend, I had an alarming realization about live performance. It’s awfully strange for me to be remembering this now, after so many years, but it makes sense; I’ve been studying and rehearsing more than actually performing since I moved to Austin, so live performance has gone slightly out of my experiential sphere for the moment. But it’s a good feeling to have it come back in this particular way — the presence and vibration of live musicians, dancers who are maybe only a few meters away. It reminded me that Austin Lyric Opera must be explored, and soon; it reminded me that there’s a school of music down at UT whose performances I might take advantage of. Time’s a-wastin’!
The performances at TRF this year were sort of astounding to me; there isn’t anything like good live performance. No recording media, no matter how advanced or intricate, ever lives up to the real thing. It’s easy to forget if you’re watching something sub-par (whatever that means) and being confronted with something incredibly skilled and excellent makes you really remember what you were missing.
It got me wondering what “par” my own performance really was, or is. And of course, I can’t know that… except by the reactions of my audience. (Which has always made me indubitably grateful to be alive, and doing what I do!)
Recently Brooke Slanina posted an entry to the Oakland Stage blog about art, and the appreciation thereof. In Youngstown it’s particularly important for us to remember the art community and the contributions its members are making, but it’s easy to forget, wherever you are, what an impression this thing can make on your self, your spirit. I don’t know how to explain the feeling I had watching those performances at TRF — the live music and the dancing that was so close to where I was sitting. It’s sharing space with something amazing… instead of listening to something a little less-than-real on a CD, or watching a flat, run-of-the-mill video of something that, in person, might have been breath-taking.
It makes you think. It makes me think!
Anyway — despite these inaccuracies inherent in recorded media — there are photos of my experience in my Flickrstream, here. Feel free to take a look. ;}
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