Engaging your inspiration

If you're a performer, and you care about being good at it, you crave inspiration - those moments when you are completely engaged in your performance; in a state of "flow" where everything proceeds to "just work" quite naturally, without apparent effort.  This is your best and most effective self.

But inspiration is a funny thing - it's not something you can force.  It's certainly not something you can rely on, because it may or may not be there at the right time, like when you're on stage!  What we really need is a way to invoke our inspiration, so that we always take our best and most effective self on stage.  Fortunately, this is not a new idea.  In fact, it is the core of method acting.  Stanislavski's "method" if you boil it down to its purpose, is a way of accomplishing exactly that.  It's a way of invoking inspiration.

The question is, if you can't control inspiration, how can this method possiby work?  The answer is, indirectly!  By creating the right conditions, or "inner stimulus" as Stanislavski puts it, the inspiration is called up.  By preparing correctly, you can harness your subconscious and create a truthful performance - one that will engage the audience at a level far below the surface, take them on the kind of emotional journey that they crave, get them into the standing ovation mood, and ultimately get them coming back for more!

This makes a lot of sense, neurologically.  The brain is complicated, and composed of many parts that evolved at different times, and that talk to each other.  Some parts of your brain can not tell the difference between a real memory and one you made up.  Those same parts are unable to tell the difference between a real situation, and one you have created for yourself.  Consequently you can fool your "subconscious" into responding in a very real way to an imaginary situation!

Here are some of the tools you can use, to go about fooling your subconscious mind.  With these tools, you will create the conditions for inspiration:

1.    Invent a scenario. What Stanislavski calls the "magic if", and "given conditions."  For example, sitting where you are right now, say to yourself, "what would I do and how would I feel if there was a crazy person with a gun banging on my front door?"  Really put yourself in that space - it's not difficult.  This kind of imagination work is what playwrights do when they create a play.  And you can do the same, no matter what sort of performer you are.

2.    Break down the action in your scene (or song) into units that follow logically from the beginning to the end.  For each logical unit, figure out what your objective is, and how it relates to your overall objective in the scene, play or song.  Make each objective believable, clear, attractive to you, and active.  These objectives will nudge your subconscious into helping you get what you want, in the imaginary scene.

3.    Learn to control your attention.  Focus it on something in your scene, whether you have a real set and props to work with, or you have to invent it all in your mind's eye.  Focus on the reality of that scene, instead of where you actually are - on some stage, with some other players, in front of a bunch of people.  Learn to keep your focus on the invented reality, so you're not distracted and pulled out of it.  Your subconscious can't tell the difference, as long as you have the discipline to give it all the right input.

4.    Execute true physical actions that fit with the scenario.  If they are true in their detail, again they will provoke inspiration out of your subconscious.  If you're supposed to be drinking, really swallow.  If you're caressing the cheek of your lover, feel the softness, make it real and it can be a powerful stimulus to inspiration.

5.    Study the text and the subtext of the piece you're performing.  Dig deep into the lines or the lyrics, and try to understand what motivated the artist who wrote them.  What were they feeling?  What are they driving at?  What is their philosophy?  These things will get you below the surface and into the reality underneath.

Depending on your mode of performance, you may also be able to rely on external stimuli such as sets and props, to help transport you to the appropriate reality.