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.’
People think that if you look fairly reasonable, you can't possibly act, and as I only care about acting, I think beauty can be a great handicap.
Men profess to be lovers of music, but for the most part they give no evidence in their opinions and lives that they have heard it.
I love hanging and drawing and quartering_x000D_ Every bit as well as war and slaughtering.
Art is a form of supremely delicate awareness and atonement — meaning atoneness, the state of being at one with the object.
One of the unexpectedly important things that art can do for us is to teach us how to suffer more successfully.
A critic in my house sees some paintings. Greatly perturbed, he asks for my drawings. My drawings? Never! They are my letters, my secrets.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.