Declining performance without guilt: An artist's perspective

 

Imagine this, a Sunday afternoon, your relatives have come to your house for lunch, followed by a family gathering where the youngest ones of the families are expected to be their free entertainers. Relatable much?

As an artist, it is always a pleasure to be on stage, with all the limelight, performing. With every performance, the confidence the stage provides, makes an artist more grateful to the skill they have. But, the feeling isn’t the same always. “Beta, show us something na, or you feel shy to dance infront of us but not infront of the camera?” coming constantly from relatives feels like a taunt more than a eager urge to see our performance.

What many people don’t realize is that performing is an emotional exchange, not a switch we can flick on and off whenever someone feels like being entertained. In my opinion, art demands energy, intention and a certain state of mind. When I am on stage, I am mentally prepared and aligned to my craft. But when someone out of nowhere asks me to “just show us something”; it feels dismissive of the effort that goes into what I do.

Often, the expectation isn’t just about dancing or singing. It is about proving your talent on the spot, as if your worth as an artist depends on how quickly you can deliver. Somewhere, the joy of the art gets overshadowed by the pressure to constantly showcase it. For me, a showcase is meant to be perfect, in a single take, without any mistakes. But the work that no mistake single showcase needs, nobody really sees or appreciates that. And for many of us, that pressure to perform turns into guilt. We start feeling bad for saying no, even though we have every right to set our boundaries.

There is such a huge difference between performing by choice and performing out of compulsion. When art becomes an obligation, the relationship of the art and the artist blurs then and there. It is something that comes from within you. No one should have the right to force art on you. We forget that we started creating because it made us feel alive, not because it made others feel entertained.

So, the next time your bua says “bas ek chota sa dance karke dikha do”, every artist has the option to say no without feeling any guilt. Artists get tired, have creative blocks and overstimulation to make it worse. Most importantly, we deserve freedom to perform when our heart feels ready, not when the world decides our turn.

Shreya Roy Choudhury