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When I first started memorizing and planning Bodies Unbound, my one-woman show, I invited four friends to come to my basement to give me feed-back. As the time came for their arrival I realized I couldn’t sit down because of my fear. Finally I forced myself to sit and feel the rushes of fear inside me. I sat there until I had made friends with those horrible feelings that had stopped me from moving forward all my life. I can’t honestly say I made friends with those feelings, but I got used to them. I got used to feeling them and not allowing them to stop me.
The night I first performed before an audience, I told the woman introducing me to tell all the people in the audience to go home. I couldn’t do it. She was not amused. She said, “You go out there and tell them yourself.” I walked out on stage and saw friends who had made the effort to come and I decided to see if I could remember the first few lines. I said them perfectly and the audience laughed.
The five months of working on my show for hours every day took over. The lines were lined up inside me. They needed to come out. It was like giving birth. Before I knew it the show was over. Eighty people jumped to their feet to give me a standing ovation. The elation was overwhelming. It turned out that the woman I was on stage was not the person who walked around on the street and had relationships.
I jumped off the cliff by going on stage, and angels came to my aid. I have had to do my show again and again to become acquainted with the persona I am on stage. She only shows up with the first words of my show. I open my mouth and I am transformed. That woman, that persona, laughs at fear. Fear lifts her up to greater feats of outrageousness.