The Confidence Concoction

Put on your best, most sexy, amazing looking underwear. If you do the bra thing, put the matching one on too. Now, parade around your dwelling a bit, knowing you look great. Cover that all up with some clothing that entirely hides it, but go out in public. Do you still feel a little more confident? Do you still walk with a bit more strut in your stuff? I bet you do. Especially if you peacock around in the mirror a little before going out and talk yourself up. I promise you, it helps. Now do that before larping, especially if you are playing a high status, high confidence character. Do it before creating something, and your creations will be better.

That’s it, the blog’s over. You all can go home and put on sexy underwear, you don’t need me any more, I swear. 

Okay, maybe I have a bit more to say, but it all comes back to this central point. Confidence can be created many different ways, especially when we aren’t necessarily feeling it ourselves. And, in turn, putting confidence into our artistic work – be it larping, acting, dancing – will make what we create in that moment better than it would have been if we went in doubting ourselves. You have all heard the old adages: “Fake it ’til you make it,” “Just smile,” “Dance it off,” “JAZZ HANDS!” I promise you, these aren’t just old timey things said to make us try and push back bad feelings. When you are performing, most people are just going to see the flash-and-trash  you confidently put out there and aren’t going to notice the tiny mess ups that our own brains dwell upon. Therefore, don’t dwell on them. Keep your head up, know that the overall performance you are giving in the scene is a god-damn-gift to all your scene partners and whatever little trip ups are happening are way more blown up in your head than in anyone else’s. Think of your sexy underwear and carry on. 

However, I know this is hard. Especially nowadays, when all of us are feeling more than a little rough around the edges. Sometimes some good undergarments and a self-pep talk just isn’t enough to do it. That’s when building collective confidence can truly make some magic. I’m going to start with the big picture and then we’ll work smaller. Learn Larp once ran a game called Beat Generation where everyone played the famous poets, musicians, and artists of the Beat Generation sharing a house in New York and creating art together over the course of the weekend. Now, the people playing these characters (which included Bob Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, and several of Andy Warhol’ “Tub Girls” who were works of art in and of themselves) were not famous poets or professional artists. However, one of the main rules of the game was if someone was actively creating in their character’s art form, everyone around them had to act like it was one of the best creations they’d seen in that style of art in ages. (Except for  William S. Burroughs, he got permission to be an asshole, apparently.) 

According to many of the participants, this caused something magic to happen over the course of the larp. Not only did they get more comfortable in creating in the style of art their character was an expert in over the weekend – but they also ACTIVELY BECAME BETTER ARTISTS for the confidence that ability to create gave them. Freeing up their minds from the worry of “doing something wrong” and just being able to create in an environment where they would be praised and appreciated enabled them to stretch their creativity, take bigger risks, and become better creators by the end of the weekend. Confidence didn’t just make them happier, it made them better actors and co-creators over the course of their collective experience. 

When I finally get around to running The Immortals, I plan on using something very similar to this directive. The Immortals is set shortly after the Vietnam draft and intended for 15-25 participants. Everyone will play characters who participated together in an artist colony in the 1960s and will be cast according to an art form they feel they can comfortably do an entire weekend – NOT a form they feel like they are ‘good at’ or ‘are a professional’ within. These characters back together to create one last Gesamtkunstwerk before two of their number go off to fight in Vietnam. I’m incredibly curious to see what sort of art comes out of this weekend of co-creation, but I do think whatever people decide to do, they’ll end up doing it better by throwing themselves confidently into the collective for the time they are all together and having their art celebrated by their peers. 

Alright. We talked about how to hype yourself up solo, and then I skipped directly into an entire cast being a collective pep rally to make you create beautiful work. But, you say, ‘Ericka, I am BOTH DEPRESSED and not at an ARTIST COLLECTIVE LARP! Your blog is useless to me!’ Fair enough. Let’s get to the really practical bits that I think can be used in any co-creative endeavor – be it larping, dancing, or even design collaboration. If you are diving into a creative experience with another person, find something to be excited about in that moment with them and give yourself over to that excitement. Let yourself fall a little bit in love with that part of your co-creator and, most importantly, let it show. People will feel it when you are excited to be with them and will give that energy back to you.

I’m going to start with an easy example – dancing.  If I’m in a partner dance with someone, I’m going to be spending at least the next three minutes of my life with them. Even if they are a beginner struggling to get the basic steps, I try to find something exciting about the way they are connecting to the music. Or why they came to the dance. Or find the one step they REALLY enjoy on the dance floor and then gently encourage them to style a few more things around it. Even if it’s just one single step, if they can find confidence and excitement in that one step there are so many different ways you can style a single move. Let’s find those ways together! Suddenly, they feel more excited to do the thing because they have found something they can do confidently, and I’m excited to see someone light up on the dance floor, and together we have created a better dance than either of us could have done apart.

Now, onto larping. This can be done a few ways. If you have a chance to pre-calibrate with someone, ask them what they want their character to be known for. Are they a super strong fighter? An amazing singer? Are they a shy mouse of a secretary? Just get a single sentence, and then get excited to play up that quality about them. Talk to other people about that single thing – not only do you get to build their confidence, but then you get to be known as a water cooler gossip and MORE people will come to you for information and conversations. I love doing this especially with people who are playing some sort of high status or famous character (wrestler, model, radio performer comes to mind from recent events.) The radio star was a fun one, because I got permission from the person to ‘not recognize him’. I played it with my back turned, waiting to hear that voice. And every time I’d catch the voice in the crowd, I’d get excited saying he sounds like my favorite radio show host and swoon a little bit. It took me half the night to finally put a face to the voice, but you can bet a bunch of the room was talking about him by the time I did and he felt like a real radio personality by the end of it all! 

This can also be done in smaller pockets. I remember a lovely nude drawing session at Inside Hamlet where the model was a little bit shy out of character, but she really wanted to try posing. Now, I can’t draw for shit. But I went around, starting to comment to several of the sketch artists about how gorgeous her lines were, how she knew exactly where she should pose in the light coming from the castle window, what amazing curves she had to capture in pencil. People started picking it up, asking for more angles of the beautiful art they were seeing, complimenting the figure in front of them. Now, this is probably not something you should do in an ACTUAL sketch artist class – but for a larp where someone was asking for confidence in their scene it worked beautifully. 

Conversely, you can ask for this as well. Especially if you are playing someone high status, think of a single line of what you want to be known for and get excited about it. Get wearing-your-best-underwear excited about it! Then tell people about that. Ask them to play up that specific thing about you. If you have time before the larp? Maybe even get a little hype circle going. You’d be surprised how long a way a little bit of cheering can go. Try it some day, I dare you.

Especially if your good underwear is in the wash.