Speaker 1Shut up, and sit down. Welcome to Being On Stage, the only podcast that gives you motivation, inspiration, and confidence to be better on stage. No matter how you entertain, sing, dance, band, comedian, public speaking, MC, drag, burlesque, performance art, or street performer, this is the show for you.
Speaker 2Hey, rock stars, it is your host, Reggie Dawson, and again, this is the Being On Stage podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. I greatly appreciate it. Today, we are talking all about your face. Yes, the facial expressions that you make, how you communicate with your face, especially when you are on stage in front of your audience. Again, this podcast, it does not matter what you do on stage. It doesn't matter if you speak, sing, dance, maybe you're some type of circus performer. You are a drag queen, or a drag king, or a burlesque performer. Maybe you're even a street dancer. This podcast is for everybody that performs, even if you want to perform, and you're not sure what you need to do yet. This is for you. Today, we're talking all about facial expressions, and you really need to know your face. You have to know what your face is capable of. The best way to do that, just cut straight to the chase, the best way to get to know your face, and to know what your face is capable of, that sounds stupid. It's so weird to say out loud. In order to know what your face is capable of, you have to get in front of a mirror, and you have to make faces at yourself. Just like when you were a kid, you know, we, I don't know if you guys did this, but I did this, but I stood in front of a mirror for 10, 20, 30 minutes at a time. Just, you know, blowing bubbles at myself, making faces, turning my face different directions. I know my face very well. I'm very aware of the faces that I make, and when you're on stage, this comes so much in handy. Because your face communicates your emotion. It communicates your thoughts. It communicates your vision. So in order to communicate with your audience, you have to be able to use facial expressions. Now, there was a study a while back, and I don't have the exact year. You know, I'm a Googler, just like you guys. You know, if there's something I want to know, I just type a question into Google, and whatever pops up has got to be the right answer. Because if it's on the internet, it's got to be true and factual. Anyways, I looked up. So I looked up this article, and it said that there are 21 unique facial expressions that have been, you know, defined. And there's six basic ones. It's like happy, sad, angry, surprised, disgusted, and there's something else. But anyways, there's like six basic ones. And then out of those six, you know, and the different combinations, you get 21. But then I also looked up another fact that said there's 43 muscles in your face. So 43. 43 unique muscles. And you know, your muscle is capable of creating movement. If you're able to actually move all the 43 muscles in your face. Now, I didn't do, like, extensive research to see what muscle groups are capable of moving and what are just supporting. I didn't look up any of this. So let's just. Let's even just cut it in half. 22 muscles. Even if you're able to isolate 22 muscles in your face, there are legitimately thousands of facial expressions that you can do. You can make to communicate with your audience. And to get to know that, you got to get in front of a mirror. Think about when you're on stage. Now, when I'm on stage, depending on the song that I'm doing. Now, I'm a lip-sync artist, but I call myself a performance artist. But yes, I lip-sync. Why? I'm not a good enough singer to be a singer. I'm not a good enough dancer to be a dancer. But I put those two things together, and I just perform. You see it in celebrity entertainers. No matter what they're doing, you see it in celebrity entertainers. They have to. They have to have that performance ability and that confidence on stage. And that's what I have. That's what I specialize in, I guess you can call it. Is that confidence to actually perform your vision and your craft and your art. But part of that is your face. You know, it is about what your body does. You know, you have to know how to navigate the stage. But it also has a lot to do with what you communicate during your show. You can use all sorts of different communication methods. You know, there's props. There's lighting. You know, the lyrics of a song. Maybe you're a singer or a dancer. Maybe there's lyrics in the music that you're using. Maybe you're a musician, and there's the, you know, the crescendo and the decrescendo and the different pitches and forgive the lack of extensive knowledge. But you can also communicate this emotion with your face. Watch any performer as the mood of the songs change. And I always use. I always go back to, like, what I consider, like, the pillars of entertainment. One of those is Beyonce, man. Her facial expressions are on point. You know, same with Madonna. As they go through their show, their face changes because they're communicating with their audience. Even if they're collaborating with another artist, even if they're rocking out with their, you know, their guitar player, even if you're dancing in a group of people, your face is still communicating that emotion to the audience. Your audience looks to you to know how to feel and how to react. And based on. And based on what you do and what you communicate to them, you get a reaction. How do you think artists are able to bring the audience to tears? Yes, the lyrics may be emotional if it's a singer, but how does a dancer or someone singing in a different language than you understand, how does that bring someone to tears? How do you communicate that emotion if there's no words? With music, it's through the highs and the lows of the music, but with the artists, it's through their. It's through their face. Look at comedians are a great example. Look at comedians. Most of their audience reaction is based off the faces that they make. If you don't believe me, watch Kevin Hart is a great example. He will tell a joke and there will be literally no reaction until he stands there and makes a face for like two or three seconds. And then they laugh hysterically because of the faces that come out of the performance. So you've got to get to know your face. So when you're standing in front of the mirror, you know, first of all, look up these facial expressions. You should obviously be able to do the six basic ones. But from those six basic ones, instead of going off, trying to do those other 15 of the 21 uniquely defined facial expressions by science, take those six basic ones and just start moving them around. You know, you ate a sour grape, you're lonely on the subway at night, you're a little nervous walking into the ice cream. Parlor because the girl you like works at the counter. Instead of making these different facial expressions by the expression or even by the emotion, think about what would cause the emotion. So if you're trying to communicate to the audience that you're a crazy psychopath and I actually funny story. So I actually have a person that I used to coach an entertainer that I used to coach and he he struggled in a lot of areas. Let's just say, I mean, he struggled in walking, carrying himself. How he presents himself. But one of the biggest areas that he struggled with facial expressions, anytime he was trying to look confident, he ended up looking like he was like a squinty duck face smile is weird. And anytime he tried to look happy or angry, he looked like a maniacal crazy man that was going to like climb through your window with a frickin hacksaw in the middle of the night and hack your legs off. Like it was scary, happy face and he didn't know his face very well. You know, that's one of the things that I had him do. I had him get in front of a mirror and sometimes even a videotape. And listen, I'll walk you through this. Here, here's the, here's how you do it. You can go to a friend, you can go to your girlfriend, your boyfriend, your parents, your grandparents, anybody. You can get it to get ideas off the street. That actually is a good way to get your confidence up, walk up to random people and ask them to give you a scenario. Any scenario doesn't matter what it is. Just give me a scenario, come up with different scenarios. Put them all in a hat and hit record, pull out a scenario, say what it is, make the face. And the best way to do this is to make the face while you're reading it, because then you're actually reacting to the thought of the scenario. Go back and watch these faces, see what your face is capable of. Once you know that, you can begin to communicate the emotions of your song even better than you already are. A lot of performers, they focus on those six basic ones, even if they don't even think about it, like everybody makes faces. You don't even have to think about your facial expressions, one just kind of, it just kind of happens, like it's a natural, normal thing, but as you get to know your face and as you work those muscles and teach those muscles, what you want them to do, just like any other muscle group, think about when you work out and trust me, I'm not like an expert on working out, I went through like a short stint, like a year or so where I did this high intensity CrossFit, but I'm not an expert on working out, but think about when you work out. Think about when you work out, to build muscle groups and to teach them responses. Same thing with your face, you have to build the muscles, you have to teach them responses, you have to teach the muscles what you want them to do, so you have to work out your face when you're an entertainer. I kind of derailed there for a little bit, but the bottom line of this entire episode, if you take nothing else away, when you're communicating with your audience on stage, your face and your facial expressions are such a huge factor into your audience engagement. I have a huge, huge focus on engagement. I believe that your audience should feel invested in your show, and it's your responsibility to make them feel that way, and your facial expressions is one way to do it. Head over to beingonstage.com. Click on the link to get the free book. When you sign up to get that free book, you're also going to be subscribed to the Rockstar Lounge newsletter. Little bits of information go out after each podcast. I'll be sharing something through the newsletter after this podcast. I'll give you a couple of days to get in there. So let's say like Sunday, June 17th, I will be putting some information out there in the newsletter. So you want to get subscribed to that. Also, don't forget our Facebook group, beingonstage.com slash group. I will see you in there, and there'll be more information about your face and my face and what our faces are capable of. So get in front of the mirror, hit record on a videotape. It doesn't matter what you do, but you have to get to know your face. You've got to be able to make these facial expressions to communicate with the audience. It's a huge, huge part of your show. Once you do this, it will create that connection. Keep on shining, guys.
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