A Quote by Taraka Larson
The way that music is approached in the temple is very call and response; it breaks down that barrier between performer and audience.
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What I love about comedy is breaking down the barrier between the audience and the performer.
As a solo performer, it's total involvement. What I do is to break down the wall between audience and performer.
When you talk about the exchange of energy between performer and audience and audience and performer, I hope that I'm one of the best.
Something that I think extends to a lot of African cultures is that the line between performer and audience is blurry. My mom would lead the wedding song regularly, and she isn't a professional singer. Even as an audience member, you're expected to clap and sing the response to the lead.
I believe that classical music comes through listening and practice, and it can be fun both for the singer or performer and the listener or audience, as long as the performer is taught to recognise the pulse of the audience.
In regards to live shows, space is very important to me. Space and context should complement the music in some way; you gain so much from it. It enhances the dialogue between audience and performer. I'm very much aware of this when choosing venues. I say no to 90% of booking offers. Somehow I feel the venue needs to make sense.
The wealthy class often looks down on the poor as "those people." And deprived people view the rich as cold and heartless. The way to break down the barrier between the rich and poor is to asociate with each other and to help one another. Make a connection. If you can break down the barrier, it may pave the way to recovery for some person, a family, maybe an entire community.
The basic success of the conga came from ...that basic principle of African music and dance: everybody participates. The conga eradicated the distinction between performer and audience, broke down the wall of the proscenium.
Yes, the audience is so important to Negro music, especially the element of call and response.
Pop stardom is not very compelling. I'm much more interested in a relationship between performer and audience that is of equals. I came up through folk music, and there's no pomp and circumstance to the performance. There's no, like, 'I'll be the rock star, you be the adulating fan.'
I always call performing live "giving the people the medicine," because when you're engaged in it, you can feel the sort of soul magic being exchanged between the performer and the audience.
Country music busts the wall between performer and audience. There's a connection because there's a vulnerability, a confessional quality, to so much of the songwriting. Those lyrics take you in.
If it's total freedom, I guess the ultimate thing you can go into is total silence between the audience and performer, with the performer projecting something he doesn't even have to play.
I think theater and church are so relatable because it's traditional call-and-response in the way that an audience interacts with the actors.
I prefer that for my own satisfaction over radio, there's no audience. TV, there's no audience. I need the response of the audience, even if it's a silent response.
What I love most about playing in front of people has something to do with a certain kind of energy exchange. The attention and appreciation of my audience feeds back into my playing. It really seems as if there is a true and equal give and take between performer and listener, making me aware of how much I depend on my audience. And since the audience is different every night, the music being played will differ too. Every space I performed in has its own magic and spirit.
