I’m writing this in the early morning from a hotel lobby.
I’m with my daughter Cate, who’s here for a dance convention. I’m so proud of her and all she puts into her dance life. As she gets older, I see her beginning to juggle her commitment and desire to dance with her equal desire to have a life outside of it. She manages it well, and when I ask her if she wants to continue dancing throughout high school (she’s in 9th grade), she says she does.
It’s too soon to tell whether she’ll pursue this as she transitions into young adulthood, and we don’t spend much time on that question right now. I’ve never directly asked her how dancing makes her feel (perhaps I should?), but when I see her on stage, or witness her showing up day after day, even when she’s exhausted, it seems to ignite and reinforce something healthy and positive within her (most of the time).
I notice that her relationship with the spotlight seems different from mine when I was her age. She seems to understand the line between who she is on stage and who she is in real life.
It’s two sides of the same girl, the person and the performer.
What we do talk about sometimes is the difference between performing and being performative. Her generation seems to understand the difference in a broad sense. Still, I can see her sometimes becoming concerned about what others think. If she shares a combo she learned in contemporary or hip hop class on social media, will her peers think it’s cringe? When she performs her solo on stage, what are the judges saying about her in their notes?
These kinds of questions aren’t reserved for the young. These insecurities and moments of self-doubt arise at any age.
I remind my daughter (and myself) that performing, in the most genuine sense, is about giving the brightest and most alive parts of who you are. The performance is an offering. In the best-case scenarios, it’s an energy exchange, and you get something back (applause, positive feedback). But the true performance feeds and fills the performer, whether anyone sees or responds to the act or not.
Being performative is about something else entirely. It’s about what the person is trying to get: attention, praise, status, approval. Being performative is about managing perception.
I think it’s an important distinction, especially when life calls us to put ourselves out there, to be seen, to be visible. It’s easy to worry about what others think when we offer our most creative, inspired, and vulnerable selves.
The lines can get blurry; we’re only human. We can become performative in our relationships and in all kinds of personal, professional, and social situations without even realizing it.
Learning to become less performative is more a daily practice than a statement about our character.
Lu Parker and I talked about this on my podcast recently, where we both expressed the vulnerability we feel before we hit send on our newsletters. We worry about that hidden typo, bugging people. We hit send anyway. We do it because we feel compelled to write and share our stories.
On Instagram, I’m sharing “30 Lessons from my memoir Girl in the Spotlight”. I’ve shown up and talked to the camera for this project more than I ever have in one month, and I’ve been on Instagram for 14 years! Some posts get a lot more traction than others. It's easy to think a less popular post is a failure. Still, this exercise is keeping me connected to the deeper reason I show up, put myself out there, and stay visible.
It’s important to check in with ourselves: Am I performing or being performative? A good way to tell is to ask ourselves what am I offering? Rather than what will people think of me?
And to anyone out there who needs to hear this today: Keep performing! The world needs it right now more than ever.
