How to Use the Stage

Shut 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 Rockstars, Reggie Dawson here, host of the Being On Stage podcast. Welcome back. Thank you so much for tuning in, and if you're catching the replay on Facebook, thank you as well. I appreciate you for tuning in to the video on Facebook. Couldn't get live to work this time for some reason, but that's okay. It'll still be uploaded right after we get this podcast up. One thing that I haven't talked about in a few episodes, and I've gotten a couple emails about it actually, and I got one question. That came to me, I was kind of taken back by it. They mentioned that they didn't think that my podcast had much to do with performing. And I question, I mean, I don't normally question people that question my podcast, because I mean, it's my podcast. I can pretty much talk about what I want. But I question them like, you know, how so? And they mentioned that I never really talk about the actual act of being on stage. And I told them, I said, well, The hard part is your mind, your mindset, your motivation, your confidence, you're just building up to it. Once you're on stage, once you're through the past 30, first 30 seconds, that's the easy part, you know. But, you know, I was thinking back, and it has been a while since I've done any type of episode about actually being on stage. So today we're going to be talking about being on stage, boys and girls. And I don't. I don't usually play into these types of emails, these types of comments, but they were right. You know, I haven't really done. I've been doing a lot of mindset and motivation and confidence building, haven't done too much actually being on stage. So one thing that I know for a fact that most people, most performers have struggled with is how to use the stage and how to use the different stages that they're presented with. You know, not not every show is going to be on the same stage in the same environment. With the same setup once in a while, you're going to have to change some things about how you move and how you approach the stage. One of the biggest things I can tell you, there's there's two things, two major things that you want to absolutely avoid. One of those major things is staying in one spot, whether that be all the way up close to the audience or whether that be further back away from the audience. You really want to avoid the act of staying in one spot. It tends to. Not be engaging to the audience. So if you're let's say you're standing, let's say you're on a three foot raised platform stage and you're standing four feet back, just throwing out a number there, you're standing four feet back. You have a microphone, you're a singer. Let's go there. You're a singer. You have a microphone. You're tied to that spot because you have a microphone on a stand. Right. Right. You're tied there. Wrong. One hundred percent wrong. You're not tied to one spot. I don't care. If you have a microphone on a stand and you play a guitar, you're not tied to one spot, not for the whole time. So standing one spot. Huge mistake. It disengages the audience, especially if you're back away from them. So if you're if you're further back, more than like two feet, three feet away from the front of the stage, they don't even feel like they're part of the same show. At that point, you kind of become a background type of act. And that's that's what you want to avoid. You never want to be. A background act. I mean, if that's your thing and that's what you're hired for. Fine. But you want to know the difference between a background act and an entertainer audience engagement, my friend, audience engagement. And if you're standing in one spot and you're removed back far from the stage, they engaged. There's not you're not going to get them. Similarly, if you're all the way to the front of the stage or even if you're off to a. And listen, before I get to the front of the stage, when you're standing back, it doesn't. Matter if you're standing back off to the side, even if you walk back and forth, you're too far back. Similarly, if you're all the way to the front, you're kind of it's kind of overbearing sometimes for the audience to have someone always right there in their face and always coming towards them and getting closer and closer. It's kind of it's kind of overwhelming sometimes. And you may even find people move back from you if you're, you know, too close, too much. The balance there is to move. And it doesn't have to be crazy movements. You don't have to be bouncing around the stage like a like a volleyball or whatever. Basketball, that's a ball that bounces right. You don't be bouncing around the stage like a basketball, but you do need to be using the space that you're presented with. Like if you have a good 10 feet of space that you can work with, you can do a nice little like forward and backward type of deal. Plus, you have your lefts and your rights to work with. Phenomenal. Like you can do a whole lot with a little bit of space. And it's just moving at the right times. The times that you want to emphasis and the times that you want people to feel more, get closer to them and lean into the audience. The times when you want them to feel a little more somber and a little more emotion, step back a little further from them. So, you know, go with your intensity with how close you are to the audience. However close you are, that's how they're going to feel. Look at it this way. The more emotion you want them to feel, whether it's energy, excitement, scared, whatever you're trying to project. The more you want them to feel it, get a little closer to them. When you want to take that away a little bit and switch gears, step back a little bit. Now, of course, you don't want to. Now, that comes to the second thing that you want to avoid on stage. And that's moving back and forth. Whether it's in a swaying pattern where you're just kind of standing in one spot and you're swaying left to right. Or if you're doing a walking thing, which I've seen a lot of performers do. A lot of times it's pacing from the left to the right. So, what they'll do is. They'll go see the audience on the left and they'll go see the audience on the right. And they'll just kind of keep going back and forth. You see this a lot with hip-hop, actually. A lot of hip-hop artists do this. And I can see why. Because there's not a lot you feel like you can do when you're rapping, really. But there is. There is. You can move more. So, instead of walking back and forth. Or worse, front to back. That front and back walking thing that I've seen people do. First of all. The only way. You're going to notice that you do this is if you record yourself. Second of all. Stop it. Just stop it. That walking back and forth from the back of the stage. Or upstage to the front of the stage. Or downstage. That walking back and forth. As I'm telling you this. Keep in mind. I did just say. Get closer to your audience when you want them to feel more emotion. And pull back when you're. It's like a rollercoaster ride. When they're going down and they're feeling that energy and that emotion. You get closer. When they're going. When they're going up and they're kind of at the top. And it's kind of calmer. You step back a little bit. But if you continue to just go forward and back in the front of the stage. It still kind of feels like. You ever. Oh, God. What's the things that kind of go like in and out of your face? Like, I don't know. You see a lot of these boomerang videos now. That's kind of how it feels. It kind of feels like you're watching a boomerang video on Instagram. It's not pleasing to the eyes. That's the easiest way to put it. Is you just walking. You're walking back and forth. Forward to back. Or even left to right. I did an episode a while back. And God for the life of me. I can't remember the name of it. But I gave some. I put out some images on Instagram. Of like patterns you could move in on stage. And listen. If this is something you want. Shoot me an email. Reggie at beingonstage.com I'm happy to send them over to you. I just got to dig them out and send them to you. I might post them on Facebook. To pair with this video. Like. In a couple of days. So like the Facebook page. And follow on Instagram. And all that good stuff. I'll put it out in a couple of days. But if you want it now. Or if you can't find it on social media. Hit me up. Reggie at beingonstage.com And I'll email them to you. But it's just little diagrams. If you will. Of movements you can do on stage. And patterns for. I would say. Three to five minute set. Or one song. Or anything like that. It's designed to be done in a shorter set. It's like three to five minutes. It's not. These movements don't have to be. Up. Back. Left. Right. Like you're not doing jazzercise here. You're conveying emotion. You're putting your talent on stage. So when you do use the stage. You can vary it up. So if you're starting pulled back from the audience. You can go forward to the left. Move forward to the. You know. Move towards the center. Come back away from the audience. And then do the same thing to the right. Move forward. Move to the right. Move to the center. Come back towards the audience. And there's a lot of different things you can do. Break up the stage into little quadrants. If you will. And there's actually nine. Nine sections of the stage. There's you know. All your down stages. There's down left. Down right. And down center. There's your center center. And then center left. Center right. And then there's upstage. Which is furthest away from the audience. And that's your upstage left. Upstage right. Upstage center. And you can break that up even more. To like upstage center left. Whatever. But I use. It's about six quadrants. help out and that is center left and right and then you have forward and back okay so you have you know back left back center back right and then you have forward left forward center forward right use all six of these areas on stage during your set and it doesn't have to be all at once you don't have to go back and forth like you're playing four square here or or anything it's you can do it in you can spend 30 seconds to a minute in one spot convey the emotion get close to the audience squat down lean down stand up stretch yourself lunge to the left you can do all sorts of different movements in that quadrant but then move to another section of the stage allow the audience time to follow you that's how you get them engaged they they have to know that when you're up when you're up close to them that is a limited interaction because then you're it's kind of like a it's kind of like supply and demand you know the the the more you're up there the less they're going to want you but if you do it strategically and you're up there for only 30 seconds and then you pull away or you go see another part of the audience that leaves them wondering is he are you are you coming back can can i can i see you again can you come wait come back over this way and see me that's what you want your audience to do and that's that's how you do it you use the areas of the stage that you have you don't pigeonhole yourself to one spot and you don't just rotate between two or three spots you vary it up you change it up and and it's never the same pattern i can give and i'll give you three or four i think i have four patterns four patterns of movement on stage but it doesn't have to be all four of these you can you can take all four of these and mesh them together and do part of number one and part of number three and then throw in four there at the end like you can do this whole little rearrange type you guys got to watch this video like i go i go out with these hands i'm telling you there's all sorts of different patterns and changing up of what you can do when you use the stage so to keep your audience engaged you have to use the space you provided yes you're going let me just get this out you are going to be faced with small spaces at times but that doesn't mean you have to stay in that small space the stage is what you created and if part of your stage is also happens to be part of the audience then so be it don't hold yourself to one spot just because that's the spot marked out for you there's a giant x on the floor you don't have to stand in the middle of it you're the performer you're in charge of where the show goes take the steps move around the stage use the space that you're provided and use it well your audience wants to see as much as you as possible but they also want to see you in different dynamics they want to see you up close they want to see you far away they want to see you energetic and emotional they want to see you relaxed and calm so you got to take them on that roller coaster ride move around the stage and do it with feeling like do it how the how the song or the set or the whatever the dance or whatever it is you're doing even comedy use how it's how use the moments that you've planned out use the moments that are supposed to be more intense and be more emotional or be more engaging use those moments to get up close then pull yourself back a little bit take them on that ride take them on that ride and again listen i can't say this enough i almost i almost forget every time um if if you're not sure if you want a little help you need a little guidance kick in the pants whatever it is you want to do hit me up um jump on my calendar go to being on stage.com slash calendar uh when you pick a date and time put in your email and your phone number i'm actually going to give you a call right on my phone right on my cell phone you'll have my number um and we can talk through what it is that you're doing and i'm going to give you a call right on my phone right on my cell phone you'll have my number um and we can talk through what it is you're working on if you're working to get to the next step if you have this vision and you're not sure how to how to do it i guarantee by the time you get off the phone you'll have at least at least three things you can start working on the very next day even that day if you catch me in the morning there's things we could talk about to get you started that day moving towards the next step and that vision that you see for yourself all right everybody thanks again for tuning in to the being on stage podcast and as always keep on shining