In theatre, I like to call this nervousness “nervous pee” or “nervous poop.” I know this sounds a little immature (the names that has been selected), but these are two of the trends I have seen with all of my fellow performers regardless of what kind of preforming arts they participate in.

Throughout these last few performances, my nerves were all over the place and it is all because of the infamous bottle dance. There is six of us bottle dancers in the show, trying to fit in a trapezoid that would hold three dancer perfectly. We each have a glass bottle on top of our head, while we dance and maneuver ourselves around our little area. The link below is the bottle dance performed at a Jewish wedding with a “break-dance” following it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYuYojyDwN4

During rehearsals there has always been at least one dancer to have dropped his bottle. So as you can concluded, the amount of nerves among all of us (all the cast, chorus, crew, directors, and the dancers) is ridiculous.

The “nervous pee” or “nervous poop” isn’t the point of this blog; the point is that the nervousness show that you care about what you are doing, and that you want to give whatever you are doing the best that you can possibly give. The nervousness that you really want to get is that perfect balance of confidence and the thought that you may not succeed. But you do not just want to get this with performing, you want to get the “nervous pee” or “nervous poop” in everything you do. There should be so much passion in what you are doing that when the “big performace” comes your nerves should be all over the place just like the entire Fiddler group’s are.

If there isn’t, then you probably don’t care enough for what you are doing; and if that is true, then why are you doing it in the first place? You should only do things you are passionate about, and with that passion should come the nerves.