OUR PHILOSOPHY

Chapter Two

Our Philosophy

    Your attention is the most valuable asset you have. Your mind is guided by your thoughts and your thoughts lead you to either success or failure. Accepting criticism from people minimizes your energy and reduces your effectiveness as a performer. The best way to take criticism is to thank the person who gives it to you
and let that be the end of it.    Performing is a team sport. Each performer contributes to the total event in concert with one another, supporting each other’s preparation and delivery to achieve a desired result. Technique is how you know, have and use a workable, patterned approach to the work which allows you to assume the character’s viewpoint. Performing requires specific attention which cannot be distracted
by anyone or anything. Performers are masters of maintaining their attention, regardless of audience responses.     Singing is sustained talking as you are communicating to a specific person always.
The most effective tool for communicating is having a strong imagination which can establish and form an event. Building the ability to imagine is essential for performers, as it provides an anchor point, a recipient of your communications. Discovering your source of energy is important in developing your technique and abilities to perform any task.     Performers are special people. They are dedicated to challenging and moving audiences to change personal considerations, adjust their habits, alter their actions in life toward improvement and thereby improve the performer’s life and situations.
    The process of learning is a gentle, gradient-based progression which is free of negative input so as to engender cooperation, enhanced understandings, quality communications and wonderful performances. Learning is something that occupies a performer’s lifelong ambition. Age is not a factor when it comes to learning if the person confronts success, failure and adversity with a relentless willingness to be challenged. Much like the early forefathers of our country, we are all faced with trials, tribulations, conflicts, economic reversals, emotional upheavals, disappointments, and disasters. George Washington suffered many defeats before the victory at Yorktown and the eventual defeat of the British. He suffered through
Valley Forge, the death of hundreds of soldiers, disgrace among his peers and countrymen, and periods of hunger, cold and starvation of his men. Yet he persisted in spite of all that was thrust upon him. He was a military “performer” who never gave up his belief in his country and determination to survive the adversity. He learned that the only way to withstand a storm is to drive directly to the heart of the matter without running or hiding from it.    So it is with performers. You may encounter criticism, which is prevalent in our society, and may be affected by it, may even cause you to become sick, depressed, rejected, and ashamed that you let it happen to you. Just know that you are special, unique, and spiritual in nature. Know that people love you and that God loves you as your father or mother loves you. Remind yourself that you are a good person; you seek after joy and learning. Know that you may have to defend yourself on occasion, and know that you will survive, you will be fine. Adversarial attacks come out of nowhere, and if you refuse to be the effect of them, they soon fade away into the darkness they come from. Seeking light is the best way to defeat darkness. Turning to spiritual realities helps you conquer the world’s ills. You are primarily a thinking, rational being who is loved and loves. Adversarial attacks occur without provocation, randomly and are not the results of any specific target. Things happen. It is your responsibility to maintain a cool head, not be provoked into making a mistake which will drop you down a deep hole. Once, I remember walking down a street on the lower east side of New York City, and a man came out of nowhere and grabbed me. My initial reaction was to take the hand and dance with him! I instinctively knew it would prevent the attack, and I was right. He recoiled saying, “You’re crazy!” Only later did I discover that criminals are afraid of crazy people. 
    As performers, and indeed, people, we are responsible for our personal condition. We can point the finger that other people are responsible, but when we do, four of our other fingers are pointing directly back to us. The odds are four to one we are responsible for our choices in life, and indeed for our performances. I can’t say that I haven’t had the desire to blame someone, especially my father, growing up, but as I matured, I realized I had to forgive him, and understand his particular viewpoint, not discounting that his actions were wrong and indecent, but that we all respond to life’s pressures, and as a performer, we need to be able to “walk a mile in that person’s moccasins.”
    It’s a matter of being “pan-determined,” going out of the world and standing on the moon to get the whole picture, seeing the truth of a situation from another viewpoint other than our own, relating to how a person arrives at a place where they could do something negative, destructive, and self-deprecating. Some people believe in Karma, what goes around, comes around. There may be some truth in that, but to react because of that is foolish, and is an assumptive trap, because it might be that a person responded to a chaotic event which had nothing to do with a causative action supposedly committed earlier. Things happen, and for us to assume that we are the cause of what happens to us is naïve. What is more important is that our choices in response are what we have control over. Imagine if people thought what happened in New Orleans was the result of the sinful or wayward actions of the people. No, it just happened. What they do in response is the issue. 
   Now, when 9-11 happened, we were attacked, similar to Pearl Harbor. Certainly, no one viewed either of those incidents as provoked by causation. What did we do? How did we interpret those acts? We declared war on the enemies, who represent an adversarial force wanting to eliminate our freedom to exist, the same way Israel responds to the Palestine or Iranian desire to extinguish their people from the earth.
    Some time ago, I was in a touring production of “Antigona Perez” a rewrite of Anouilh’s Antigone, and we were sent to Boston to perform around town. Little did we know that the climate was hostile, that the Cuban refugees in the neighborhood were reacting to us as the invaders, suggesting that they return to Cuba, and that the play was a message to “go home?” So guerrillas came on the scene armed with weapons, and threw bottles at us on the stage, forcing us to seek refuge in our touring bus, and two of them boarded our bus, and threatened us mortally if we did not run away and not present this “propaganda” anywhere else in Boston. We ran for our lives and witnessed our bus, costumes, and clothes left behind burning behind us. I was the Equity deputy, and had the responsibility of contacting the union to demand two weeks pay and return transportation back to New York for the cast and crew. There are times when it is wise to not resist evil, but to preserve yourselves and friends, away from harm. I was responsible for that decision to comply with the terrorists and leave while we still could.    I pray that no one will ever have to endure that situation. In forty five years, it only happened once, and I am grateful for that. We learn from life’s turns of fate or we expose ourselves to a repeat performance later on. It’s what we do in the clinch that makes a difference. 
    Our philosophy is basically, that students need to be prepared for as many situations they can imagine, like what the New York Water Authority did recently with the US Air crash in the Hudson river. They were prepared and acted decisively to save lives. We believe that students should be ready to assume full responsibility for their actions, especially their reactions to whatever comes their way. We believe we are problem solvers, not problem makers.