Those Retards

Today at choir our conductor Jenny Chiang was talking about one of the acapella groups, The RITARDS. Not Retards. They're a 6 MAN high school acapella group that originates in our very own crystal choir. I'm a big fan. Anyways, she was telling us about how she saw them perform yesterday at the fundraising dinner and they helped raise 1000 dollars towards the fund for Crystal Hall, which is great.

She broke her experience down for us, giving us her internal play by play. She honestly said that it wasn't that their singing was amazing, no, not at all. It was that they all had a huge stage presence and that they were energetic and knew what they were doing on stage. But what she said that struck me was that they demanded attention. They were there to deliver a message. And with such enthusiasm, emotion and power she said, she couldn't help but think, Wow! It wasn't as if they were without flaws. There were definitely areas where they could have improved. But simply put, they demanded attention. They were going to go out there and do whatever it took to blow the audience away. They were going to do there thing and not care what anybody thought about them. And they succeeded.

As a fellow performer, I really felt connected to what she said on a deep level, as in I have, in my life, witnessed performances by people and groups who have demanded attention, who've been so powerful on stage that you just can't help but think, wow. And it's so mind blowing. That's not only an aspiration for me to work towards in terms of my stage presence, but also a concept/idea that can be applied to every day life.

It's easy to go through the motions of life and pass unnoticed. But that's not really living. You've gotta demand attention, put yourself on the spot, make it so that people are forced to notice you. You start meeting new people, making new friends. Sure, you're gonna have haters. But that's inevitable. Haters will be haters. But that's what's really living. Life's not a pat of microwaved ice cream. It's not always going to go down smooth.