Becoming a "triple threat" is much harder than becoming proficient in the skills of dance acting and singing. As soon as the lights hit the stage, can you bring a character to life and tell a story, or are you lost in the notes, choreography, or lines? A true performer has mastered the blending of all these skills! Here are a few tips on how to build this skill.
1) Layer your learning.
Whenever I teach a class, I have to teach movement layer by layer. It takes the tangled-up mess of choreography, technique, music, and acting and organizes it, so one can build from a stronger foundation. Before a dance can be mastered, one has to know body part directions and placements before they can layer in technique or texture. Before acting can truly take place, one must have the lines memorized. There's no need to let all the aspects of a performance overwhelm you. Take it apart and focus on building one layer at a time. The fine tuning can wait.
2) Broad vs Narrow Focus
A professional tennis pro who has years of training suddenly chokes! Why? Our brains have specific responses to stress, and one of those responses is located in a different part of the brain where muscle memory is. When nerves start to take over, the brain goes from its flow state to its learning state; overanalyzing what should be coming naturally. As a performer, there are so many things that can distract and pull you out of the moment and out of your flow. So what can you do to bring yourself back in? The beat of the music, the grounding of your feet to the floor, and your breath, perhaps? As a performer it is your job to spin many plates at once and it requires that broader view. As you improve each layer of performance to where it can feel more like "muscle memory", it becomes easier to broaden your focus to be in the moment, or to react to what is happening in more authentic ways. Nobody is perfect, but learning how to switch between broad and narrow focuses is a skill that will improve your ability to balance all three disciplines despite any hiccups or distractions.
3) Practice!
Bringing everything together is a skill that comes with time. Just like a muscle, it only grows when you consistently put it under pressure. Is there anything that you are consistently doing to train all three threats together?
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