The most evocative thing to me is probably when a writer and a group of performers can collectively put together something compelling that asks the really simple question: 'How do we live?'
There's something really nice about writing something on Wednesday and watching it being performed live for a studio audience on Tuesday. You never really get that with novels.
Performing is a thing in itself, a distinct skill, different from making recordings. And for those who can do it, it's a way to make a living.
I always thought that it was every performer's dream. That's the epitome of being an artist, being able to express song, dance and acting in a live theatre setting and really connecting with an audience on that level.
The greatest villain of all time is The Joker - he always has been, and I don't know anyone who's not going to have Heath Ledger's performance burnt into their brains for the rest of their lives.
If I do a song where I'm angry, when it's time to perform it live I'm not mad, I'm happy. I'm at a concert. But I have to somehow drum up that rage. That's acting.
I've done a lot of films that are purely live-action roles, and even if I hadn't come across performance capture as a technology, I think I'd always consider myself a sort of mercurial actor.
I had no intention of becoming a performer, and yet under miraculous circumstances I was brought into the music industry fold. If divine powers hadn't intervened, I'd still be living in China working in some area of Sino-American comparative law.
In the U.K., classical music is composed by individuals and written down. Indian music is based on certain sequences called ragas. When I perform live, 95% of the music is improvised: it never sounds the same twice.
I always believe that every one of us is working hard not only for our own performance but also to give something significant back to the societies we live in.
Americans work a long away ahead of themselves because of the size of the place. To make any impact at all you have to promote yourself with live performances ages before a release.
It is possible to become world-class, enter the top 5% of performers in the world, in almost any subject within 6-12 months, or even 6-12 weeks.
And at the same time, you are of course a performer, but it's very important that you understand that your role as a performer is to get the best performance from those wonderful colleagues that you have the chance to work with.
Although I performed in high school, my first real experience with theater was performing with a student-run organization at Vanderbilt University called The Original Cast where I learned that I loved performing and especially loved theater people.
Cynthia: Me perform for you. Me sing! Bob: No, Cynthia, you no perform. They perform, not you. [Cynthia shouts viciously in an Asian language]
We are humanity, Kant says. Humanity needs us because we are it. Kant believes in duty and considers remaining alive a primary human duty. For him one is not permitted to “renounce his personality,” and while he states living as a duty, it also c...
Music, in performance, is a type of sculpture. The air in the performance is sculpted into something.
If you do performance and music, it's not performance as music.
Whatever is going on inside your head has everything to do with how well you end up performing.
Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way... you become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions.
I still insist that American performers are the best performers in the world.
