Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Country music busts the wall between performer and audience. There's a connection because there's a vulnerability, a confessional quality, to so much of the songwriting. Those lyrics take you in.
My mother named me after her favorite actor, Joel McCrea, and dressed and presented me as her avatar. I'm sure she wanted to be a performer, but when that was impossible, I was her next best shot.
I think everyone's intentions are to become a performer at first. But by the time I was in high school and college, I discovered that I liked writing and that I was probably a little better at it.
Ideally the performer has a special function. Which is to bring the listener to the edge of that experience and to open the doors of this perception in such a way that those who wish to enter can.
I love the stuff that makes you laugh and cry. It kind of sucker-punches you a little bit. That's the thing that most interests me as a performer, in addition to telling the most captivating story.
More than an actor, I am a performer... I'm a great believer - honestly so, shamelessly so, vulgarly so - that cinema is for entertainment. If you want to send messages, there's the postal service.
The crowd is the crowd. You're gonna take them as an individual performer how you take them. The key is how do you learn from them. How do you use whatever is happening reaction-wise to get better.
When I was a street performer, before I had any songs of my own that anybody would stop and put in money for, I would always be doing covers. Even with covers, people wouldn't stop in the beginning.
I'm a hometown girl, and my personality at home is the opposite of the performer in me. But then, when I'm home and haven't done anything for a while, I get really itchy and nervous and weird-feeling.
I don't really want to be known as just the puppet girl or just a singing ventriloquist. I want to be known as the performer, singer, ventriloquist, actress, Broadway star, all of it. I want do it all.
If you're growing up in a chaotic world without reason, your instinct is to become a performer and control the circumstances around you. You lead from weakness into strength; you have an undefended back.
You get hate in this business growing up. When you're a young performer, you just don't get the credit for the work that you did. And it is what it is. You can't walk around with a chip on your shoulder.
The Tinted Windows shows were very fun but it's very different for me as a performer. I'm not playing music - I'm just singing and I missed that. I miss rocking out on keys, drums, guitar... whatever it is.
You want the personality of each performer - whether it's singing or bass or drums or piano - to be intact. In some ways it's much more challenging to preserve that and to also make music that sounds modern.
People think because I can make them laugh on the stage, I'll be able to make them laugh in person. That isn't the case at all. I am essentially a rather quiet, dull person who just happens to be a performer.
My singing wasn't horrible, but my dancing really made it look silly. It's not like I'm a horrible singer that can't sing. But I don't have the consistency or the presentation skills that a good performer has.
Before I start, I create a set list that I listen to while I'm writing. For 'Intimate Apparel,' I loaded Erik Satie, Scott Joplin, klezmer music, and the American jazz performer and composer Reginald Robinson.
Right now, I'm thinking in terms of just having a good band, man. Having a good act for the stage. Being a good performer, you know? Connected to that is future recordings, and future tunes, that kind of stuff.
A performer learns with experience and with age. I did not know the future when I left home and started out to begin my career: I started qawaali; then I met Peter Gabriel and was exposed to a lot of new ideas.
I haven't had the occasion to meet Adele. She lives in England. So when I'm flying, or when she comes over here, perhaps we'll have a chance. I think she's a very fine singer, a very strong writer and performer.
I was 17 when I auditioned for 'Miss Saigon.' I really grew up doing that show. I pretty much knew, almost a year into 'Miss Saigon,' that I was going to be a performer, that I was going to be singing and acting.
I get really self-conscious about people staring at me. It sounds so weird. As a performer, as an artist, these should be the things that I'm used to. But that's not the case. When people stare at me, I freak out.
There are so many factors that go into how you feel, as a performer, on any given movie, that it's really hard to identify which things are the things that help you be good, and which are the things that hinder you.
If I belong to a tradition, it is a tradition that makes the masterpiece tell the performer what to do, and not the performer telling the piece what it should be like, or the composer what he ought to have composed.
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.
It seems like a contradiction, but the shy person who is a performer actually does make sense, because in a way, when you're young and shy, making people laugh is a good way to make friends. It's an instant connection.
I find I like the spotlight for a very brief period of time... and I sort of need it. But then, the minute that it's done, I have to sort of go hide. So I was never really meant, I think, to be a performer for a living.
It's the most unrealistic thing you can do to shoot a close-up, and it's the most unrealistic place you can be as a performer. And yet actors grouse about having to do visual effect shots, but they love doing close-ups.
Role-playing games have been a huge part of my life and a huge part of my training as a performer - learning social skills, meeting friends, and being a generally competent person - so I owe a lot to role-playing games.
I find that putting my make-up on and playing with different looks is really relaxing for me before the show. It kind of helps me make that transition from 'mommy' to 'performer,' or star or whatever you want to call it!
The thing I fail to do is fully comprehend what's given back to me by the audience. You would think you would be a performer partly so you could feel all the appreciation or adulation, but I haven't quite managed that yet.
I was the family alien. Both my parents are quite creative, but I was... appalling... always putting on little shows. I was rather a shy child, not a natural performer, but there was a performative edge to everything I did.
I believe that classical music comes through listening and practice, and it can be fun both for the singer or performer and the listener or audience, as long as the performer is taught to recognise the pulse of the audience.
I started performing in 1950 at the age of 16 when I joined the Burton Lester's Midgets as a performer. Shortly after, I became a DJ with Mecca Organization before joining Billy Smart's Circus as a clown and shadow Ringmaster.
There's certain elements involved in pro wrestling that aren't solely down to the performer. There's only so much I can do. I've kind of stopped beating myself up about things not working out the way I want them to every time.
I understand marketing. I understand licensing. I understand the business side of our business. That comes from paying attention and wanting to do better, not just as an in-ring performer but as someone who loves the industry.
I was a shy kid, but somehow I knew I would make it as a performer. I'd always be telling my mum that I was going to be a famous singer. In my school yearbooks I would write, 'Remember me when I'm famous.' I knew I had a gift.
You know the circus performer who spins the plates in the air you know, and he'll spin six or seven plates in the air? Acting sometimes is kind of that guy spinning all those plates in the air but in your head and in your body.
My size has helped make me an amazing performer too. The cliche of the Funny Fat Friend: I absolutely was that character - I am that character... It's a complicated bag of tools I acquired, and I've put them all to work onstage.
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.
When I came to WWE - I got signed when I was 23. When I was on 'SmackDown' roster, the main roster, I was 24. I wasn't ready for those responsibilities. I wasn't - I wasn't seasoned enough as a wrestler, as an in-ring performer.
I was ballet dancing at four, playing piano by six, and doing commercials by 12. When I was 21, I was on the number one live comedy show in Puerto Rico. I told my parents, 'I'm going to New York to become a performer.' And I left.
We are always full of the types of people who retire or die. But they are never saying 'This guy is really unbelievable; we're alive to witness an exceptional performer.' I think we should recognise that while we are still racing.
I always give credit to Scotty 2 Hotty. He is an amazing teacher. I was in his class for, I want to say three months and I learned so much and he helped me grow, not only as a performer, but as a person. He was always there for me.
Zumbao' is a word that is not commonly used in mainstream America or even mainstream Latino America. For me, I needed a word that describes me as a performer, as an artist and that is just me wilding out and being crazy. I'm Zumbao.
I've been a performer for a long time, but I really don't have any dancing experience. I did some of the musicals in high school, and I was in the glee club for a little while just to try and gain some skills... I was not good at it.
I was always drawn to the blues. Alberta Hunter at the Cookery was a life-changing experience. I only wanted to get enriched as a performer as I got older, to have an audience which got older, too, and would come to see me when I'm 80.
My introduction of Whitney was that if there's going to be one performer for the next generation who combined the beauty and lyric phrasing of a Lena Horne with those Gospel fiery roots of an Aretha Franklin, it would be Whitney Houston.
Performance-wise, you really need to be down in the trenches; you need to do the hard work, for a lot of reasons: To build yourself as a performer, to get a sense of the audience, to work hard and to wonder, 'Do I really want to do this?'
Sometimes I'll watch a music video of a great performer like Beyonce and try to follow her choreography. Yeah, maybe I look ridiculous, but dancing gets your energy up a lot better than running on a treadmill or pedaling a stationary bike.