I did a lot of touring in my youth, and I learnt very quickly that giving is what it's all about. It's about the gift of making an audience feel great and forget their cares, if only for a few hours.
Interpretation
Giving to others and creating joy is the essence of performance.
This quote highlights the importance of generosity and the act of giving in artistic expression, particularly in performance. Julie Andrews emphasizes that the true value of performing lies in the ability to uplift an audience, allowing them to escape their worries and experience happiness, even if just momentarily.
In practice
This quote can be used to inspire a group of artists at a workshop about the importance of audience engagement.
I've learned a lot of things about myself through singing. I used to have a certain dislike of the audience, not as individual people, but as a giant body who was judging me. Of course, it wasn`t really them judging me. It was me judging me. Once I got past that fear, it freed me up, not just when I was performing but in other parts of my life.
Singing has been a cherished gift, and my inability to sing has been a devastating blow.
My mother was terribly important to me, and I know how much I yearned for her in my youth, but I don't think I truly trusted her.
I come from a long line of below-stairs maids and gardeners. Good ol' peasant stock. My mother and her sister made a quantum leap out of that life. Then I made another quantum leap.
Every time I go out to perform, believe me. You never lose that fear of, 'I hope I do it right. I hope I don't fall flat on my face. I hope this will be good for them.'
Success is terrifying. Like happiness, it is often appreciated in retrospect. It's only later that you place it in perspective. Years from now, I'll look back and say, ‘God, wasn't it wonderful.’
Fashion isn't interesting when it comes from an uninspired place. It's like voodoo; we don't want things that are soaked in blood, sweat, and tears. I adore life, and I'm very easygoing - and it shows in my work.
Artists are the gatekeepers of truth. We are civilization’s anchor. We are the compass for humanity’s conscience.
The art of storytelling is reaching its end because the epic side of truth, wisdom, is dying out.
Maybe directors who are more interested in realism and naturalism come from cities, where they see things on their doorstep every day. But growing up as a kid in a very pretty but ever-so-slightly boring town, where not a great deal happened, encouraged me to be more escapist, more imaginative, and more of a daydreamer.
The creative artist seems to be almost the only kind of man that you could never meet on neutral ground. You can only meet him as an artist. He sees nothing objectively because his own ego is always in the foreground of every picture
I trust that if God gives me music for someone else, that's what He wants that person to have. I have to trust that that's what they're supposed to do and that's the music that should specifically be released for them and their ministry, for their career and for their audience.
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