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. Hey, rock stars. Reggie Dawson, your host of the Being On Stage podcast. Welcome back, and thank you for tuning in, and thank you for subscribing and rating and dropping a comment on my podcast. Oh, you haven't done that yet? Well, if you haven't done it yet, you can still go into iTunes, click subscribe, comment, give me a rating. It helps other people find the show, so I greatly appreciate it, and, you know, so do they. Listen, have you ever had something completely ironic happening? Like. Like, you find an umbrella, and not even five minutes later, it starts to rain. I'm talking Alanis Morissette ironic. For example, I was ready to record this podcast 20 minutes ago, and the lawn maintenance guy showed up, and my desk is next to an open window. So, as you could imagine, it's a bit ironic. There's a little bit of irony in this show, because I'm a podcaster, I'm a performer, and my wife would tell you that I'm always on high. I'm always, I'm moving, I'm always talking. I'm always saying something. I'm usually just kind of blabbering on and on and on about the podcast, about my coaching. By the way, I'm Reggie Dawson. I'm a talent coach. I coach performers to improve their stage performance. If you want to know more about me, you can check out my website, beingonstage.com, or you can just join in our Facebook group on Facebook, beingonstage.com slash group. Get in there, and we'll network and get to know each other a little bit better. But listen, so the irony here is I podcast. I emcee. I host events. I perform. I'm always moving. I'm always talking about how you have to create connections, and you have to be high energy. And the irony here is this episode, I'm actually going to talk about the opposite. I'm going to talk about silence, and I'm going to talk about stillness. And when you're a performer, there's a strategy to using silence and stillness in your performance. And if done correctly, it. It creates a magical feeling in the venue. It doesn't matter if you're on the street. It doesn't matter if you're performing in Radio City Music Hall. It doesn't matter if you are performing on Broadway. It doesn't matter. But silence and stillness creates magic. It creates a feeling of anticipation, and through anticipation, that increases the connection the audience member has to the performance. Have you been to a performance where they've used silence or stillness? I guarantee. I guarantee every person listening to this podcast has been somewhere where they've used silence and stillness. It could be a concert. In between numbers, you know, at the end of the show, the lights go out, people start screaming, they want more, then they get more. You know, when you're in Broadway theater, sometimes they'll use a blackout. Sometimes they'll use lighting effects. And let me tell you, if you have access to lighting in your shows, and you're not using them, and you're just allowing them to just kind of sit there and be on you, you're giving up a huge opening to create moments for your audience. Now, when you're performing, that connection your audience feels that makes them want more, that makes them want to go follow you on Facebook, that makes them want to go check out your merchandise table, that connection is created by the moments that happen during your show. Now, you have access to a lot of tools that you can use to create moments, and if you have access to lights, that's an amazing tool. But the tool that you have inside you is that silence and the stillness. Now, I was saying in theater, they use blackouts, they can use lighting effects, but there's silence and stillness on stage. Think about some great songs that you may have heard. How many great songs or great live acts that you've seen, there's a long silence or a great pause or a freeze. These are creating moments that just kind of like let that anticipation and that feeling of what's going to happen next, like that question, that's coming in the air. And those moments, those moments capture your audience, because when your audience is anticipating what's coming, like if they're hanging in that moment, they're invested in your show. And if you have an audience that is invested in your show, and you can get them invested in your show, that anticipation is a great way to get them to invest in your show. But when your audience is invested in your show, they're going to seek more, they're going to Google you later, later on to see what's going, you know, what your website is or where they can find you. They're going to search you on Facebook or Instagram or Twitter, whatever their social media platform is, you got to be on them all. But those moments, those moments is where you need to start. Before you worry about how you're going to get people to follow you, before you worry about where they're going to land, before you worry about what they're going to find when they Google you, all of which, by the way, you can manage and get help with. That's all well and good. But before any of that, you got to create your audience. Create those moments that make them want it. And the way you do that is your silence and your stillness. And so here's something you can try. And this is probably something that I don't even know how many talent coaches would ever actually tell somebody to basically be still and be quiet. I don't know how many other people would tell you this, but pick a moment in your show, a moment that you want to have an impact. And I don't care if you're, you know, if you're. If you're a musician, even better, because you can just stop playing whenever you want to. Singer, same thing. Dancer, same thing. Pretty easy. Anything else, listen, you're just going to have to, you're going to have to find a way to create silence and create stillness. Because that's something when you don't, when you do it on stage and you do it right, and I'm going to talk about how you do it right. But when you use it on stage to create a connection to your audience, that connection is going to last. That's how you're going to get people to follow you. That's how you're going to get people to approach you after the show. And listen, you want people to approach you after the show. If you're one of those standoffish artists that don't really want to interact with your audience, or worse, you think you, like, are too good to interact with your audience, cut that crap, seriously, because those people are the ones that are going to support you. Those people are the ones that are going to pay your bills. One day, you know, if not yet, one day, those people are going to be the ones that pay your bills. People that buy the tickets to your shows and the merchandise and your album. Those are the people that are paying your bills. The point here is you've got to create moments for them to want to do that, to want to boost you up and to push you further in your career. And silence and stillness is an amazing way to do that. Now, how you do it right. So you have a moment, and here's where I was getting a couple minutes ago. You pick a moment in your show, and it doesn't have to be a big moment. It doesn't have to be, you know, a crucial moment. It helps to be one of those big moments. Like, I use lyrics sometimes, or music. You know, music is already timed out for certain moments to be, like, at the height or the climax of the show. So you pick a moment, and what you do is you create a silence. Now, you can do this through stopping the music. You can do this through freezing. Silence doesn't just have to be in words and music. It can be in your movement as well. That's the stillness. And you just freeze. And sometimes you can. If you can lock eyes with the audience, you can look up into the distance. It depends on what you're trying to convey. Where you look and the position that you're in, it depends on what you're trying to convey. Dance does the same thing. They have freeze moments that create, that just look even more spectacular. You look at aerial artists and acrobats. They are in a frozen position. That stillness of showing the audience something you can do or giving them that anticipation of what's to come, that's what you're going for. You are in a frozen position. You want to create a position and a direction, where you're looking, where you're facing, what is your body doing, and when you do that, you hold it, and you are silent, and you are still. And if possible, and you have control over this in the live show, if possible, don't move until somebody says something, claps, screams, boos, who cares? Don't move until somebody says something. Don't move until someone does something. Leave that anticipation. Because the person that finally screams, the person that finally claps, the person that finally reacts and finally says, oh my God, move, there's at least 10 other people that wanted to that just didn't have the courage to say something or to be the first person. This works. You see it time and time again, but it's all about the moment that you choose, and it's all about doing it at the right time and with the right timing, meaning you can't overdo it. You can't do this three or four or five times a show. We're talking, this is like a one-time deal. So when choosing the moment, when choosing the moment in your show, in your song, in your set, when choosing this time, be careful. Choose wisely. Choose the moment that's going to have the most impact, and the moment that's going to have the most impact is right after the climax, where that top moment of the show, where the most impact is. Where the most energy is flowing, and it's like everybody is at the edge of their seats and just ready. and raring to just like give everything, your adrenaline is at the top, just after that moment, just after that explosive moment during your show, that is when the time is right to use your silence and use your stillness. Your audience is already feeling the adrenaline and the energy from your climax. And I know this sounds kind of weird, but go with me here. The audience is already feeling it from your explosive moment of climax activity. And yes, I'm still talking about performing. Then you create that anticipation. After they're going nuts, then you create that anticipation. You got them. That's where it's at. You got them. And they will stay with you as long as you continue to give them what they crave, which is that connection and those moments. Those moments and that connection to your audience is going to be everywhere. Everything in your career. Thank you once again for tuning in. I got to hop off here. We're headed to the park. I'm not even going to take very much time to edit this. And you know what? If you want more, head over to beingonstage.com Subscribe to the Rockstar Lounge. Join us in the Facebook group, beingonstage.com group. You can also search the Being On Stage group on Facebook. Keeping it simple here, folks. And remember, keep it ironic and keep on shining.
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