Opening yourself up to a room full of people you didn’t know just a few months prior is a very vulnerable thing. Acting in front of them and performing in order to portray a belief, a part of yourself is a vulnerable thing--it’s scary. Whilst sorting through my opinions, namely, my beliefs, that I wanted to present to my classmates, I decided to pick something I was very passionate about. Thinking about what I believe in, what I know to be true, many things came to mind: the gospel, my family, friends, but I eventually centered on one overarching theme: the ability one has to choose, to create. In other words, I believe in self-expression.
With media I compiled and edited, I made sure there was a certain flow and pattern to it. I wanted the first part to, in a way, reflect a sort of uniform sameness and limitation the world and society places on us. So, I showed things that reflected that idea. In my live presentation, I dressed up in a business outfit and wore my hair back. I had a mirror placed in front of me and I had people call out expectations people had for them personally, for the perfect personality, for the perfect person. I wrote these things on the mirror. For the second section of my media and presentation, the music changed--the lyrics representing a type of thought change. I then began maybe the most scary thing to me in the whole presentation: showing my classmates what I believed could represent self-expression. I am not public speaker or performer, so this part of my performance was particularly nerve-wracking. I proceeded to take off my business attire to reveal a white gown underneath. I untied my hair. I cut the gown and oozed colorful paint over myself. I even went as far as cutting a piece of my hair off. At the end, I was supposed to break the mirror of expectations to pieces, but because I was so nervous, I forgot this vital part.
Learning to be vulnerable was probably the hardest thing for me in this activity. While I did learn much about this, not only my performance but my classmates as well, I learned that I do need to open up and share things about myself more. Sharing beliefs is a way for people to come together, to unite, and really this performance was all about the way vulnerability can help as a link in that process.
HERE'S THE MEDIA I USED FOR MY PERFORMANCE:
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