I am so tired. I got into my “office” on Monday to find 10 messages from a customer. Their new Chief Exec is starting, and they forgot to ask me to link up his blackberry to email. Do I really care? The last Chief Exec barely used the computer, let alone a blackberry. Other panics from customers take me to mid-afternoon, and I’ve yet to get music equipment up the stairs. Eventually good friend helps.
Tuesday, on site with customer until 6, then partner goes out, so I deal with bedtimes. Wednesday same. Thursday, partner at interview in London, bedtimes again, then working until 3.00 am. Friday up early to install software for another charity. Friday pm, collect daughter from school, then weekly food shop, clean studio and re-assemble music equipment. Finish 10 pm. Saturday, end of month accounts. Partner suddenly wants to attend ‘no kids’ party in Southampton, leaving me babysitting yet again. Hey – why can’t we all go? Nasty argument ensues, partner leaves and goes to party anyway. Sunday, kids play in garden while I go back to sleep, neighbour takes pity and entertains kids. Sunday pm partner returns, I spend rest of day learning to transfer video of performance to youtube. The simple transfers and edits take hours. Video uploading, will probably take all day and night.
Why perform? We all like to be the centre of attention from birth. My son, age 3, used to play thrash metal drums on whatever was around. My daughter enjoys improvised movement to Miles Davis. She prefers a tight structure, and begged for ballet lessons. Ballet lessons are for the bourgeoisie to impose stifling discipline on the unspoiled creative spirit of a vulnerable child. Apparently not.
My son hated his sister for years, until he was able to explain: “When I was little, I walked into a room, and everyone looked at me. Now, I walk into the room with my little sister, and everyone looks at her.” Totally true. Totally unjust.
My son got a handycam last year and spent his birthday videoing his party; at the end, complained: “When I’m videoing, I’m not doing – just watching”. He’d rather be ‘doer’, performer, than reporter, audience.
Performance is a form of ritual – Psychologically, it’s a way of moving the emotions around a group, enabling people to be heard, expressing and solidifying subtle changes in relationships. Socially, it’s a way of expressing and resolving social tensions, re-ordering roles within a group.
There are 2 ways of doing it:
Specialise: polarise between “artist” and “audience”. The artist as spokesperson, representative, and thereby powerful broker of social expectations and realities.
Or Democratise: the artist as facilitator, teacher, enabling the personal development, participation and emancipation of the observers.
As parents, we have to make the same choice: Do we bring up our kids as receivers of our authority, confined in our realities, expressing our expectations? Or do we facilitate them to explore their realities, define their own ways to participate in society?
