performance, art and improvisation

[Olaf]

As artists we love to improvise, we feel its the purest form of art, in the moment expressing what you feel. The only problem with improvisation is that it is not gonna come off professional and will not be appreciated by the general public. This is something to be understood very clearly. If you want to be a great artist, performer, you must have a show that has been practiced a 1000 times. If it involves speaking you would have to know what you say before you say it, if its movements, dancing, juggling I don´t care what it is, you must have practiced the exact thing you perform atleast a 1000 times and even that is not good enough, because now you have only practiced it in front of a mirror, you should perform it in real life on open mics or different places. To be great, to be the best, you got to practice even when you think you got it, Michael Jackson could probably do a show without any practice yet he never stopped practicing, because he didn´t wanted to be good, he wanted to be the best.

This is why most artists fail, they fail, because they are not professional, they improvise, they just do some random stuff, nothing is thought through deeply, nothing has been practiced for long enough and mastered. A great mentor of mine told me its better to have a short performance of 15 mins that is really great then an hour or half an hour of just good. You don´t want good, you want the best, you want excellence and that comes with practice. 

You might judge what I say here, but look at the movies you watch!? These are with the best actors who practiced their art, practiced the script, its all prepared, nothing is improvised and all you never watch any improvised movie. You don't pay to go to a concert, to watch someone improvise, Beyonce knows exactly what she has to do, she practiced and rehearsed it a 1000 times, aswell as the whole team of dancers who know and learned the chorography. They practiced for months before even going on stage. 

So this is for any artist, if you want to go to the next level, you got to do better, meaning you got to work on one performance, one piece of art, not 10 not 20, focus on one thing, do it really really well, master it. Look where it could be improved even in the slightest ways. This is how you will become great, with improvisation you will maybe feel more connected to your art, but you won't have mastered it. In my performance I have mastered it, and there are still levels higher for me to go, it never ends. But with this good of a show I am confident to promote, sell or market it. How can you be confident about something you have never done before? How can you be confident in your improvisation skills? The biggest people I know in any creative industry put in the hours, put in the work, to really master a few things instead of doing a bunch of stuff only with half effort. The greatest artists release an album only once in a couple of years, not to forget that the greatest artists have all the money, resources that you don't have, also they have much more time to work on it then you have, so if your a musician you would have to put in the double the work the people on the top put into it. 

And to end it on this note, I think what I would ask you is how serious are you about this? If you take your art serious, you should want to share it with the general public, but therefor also consider that they are not gonna resonate with improvised shows, music or any piece of art. People love professionals, professionals get paid and the aspiring artist will live broke, because they never adapt, they always remain idealistic, when I started persuing art I never wanted to be broke, so I adapted, I stopped believing that people just need to like whatever I do, because they don't. Everyone can make a youtube video with 1 view, how many can truely put in the work to make a successful video? Its not luck, its not talent, its work, practice, scripting and rehearsing, trying and failing. A few succeed, because only a few are willing to do what it takes. Blame yourself for how far you have made it, take responsibility and only then will you improve.