Cinema and gender studies has always been
my thing. Well at least academically, and at least from my honours year. Even
though I’ve always enjoyed my work I tended to feel that it was unimportant in
the greater scheme of things. After all, my friends were working in applied
theatre and educational theatre to help and uplift people and communities. Or working on actual productions. And there I was, discussing hypotheticals
and analysing film scenes. I kind of felt that my work lacked the gravitas to
actually be of any practical to use to someone. In the academic sense anyway.
And then on the off-chance someone read my dissertation, and
it meant something to them. It helped them understand one of their children
better. After working on it for almost four years I told my mom that it was all
worth it as my work had, in the smallest way, helped one person. A
great achievement when I know only my father and
study supervisor would actually read the whole thing. I felt that my research had achieved what it was going to achieve. Expect for maybe being a reference in some other student's undergraduate paper if they happened upon my dissertation in the library.
About a year after handing it in, my study
supervisor sent me an email about a Shakespeare conference happening in Durban and focusing on issues
of Shakespeare in South Africa. The conference intersected beautifully with my
research and he encouraged me to send in an abstract to present a research paper
based on my work.
The thought of speaking in front of other
people about my research terrified me. I’m completely comfortable on stage. I
can walk/dance/sing/act confidently in nothing but my underwear on stage if the
role calls for it without batting an eyelash. But ‘public speaking’. No. Give
me a few hours of rehearsal and character and I’m fine, but being myself in front
of people who get to respond to my work other than a to review it or give a snide comment in passing?
No thank you. To add to this, I was going through one of my existential crises,
as we actors often do when heightened emotions are our bread and butter. On the cut-off day I threw together and abstract for a paper and emailed it to
the appropriate address. I then happily forgot about it, having done my part
and being rather sure that I wouldn’t be selected to present at the conference.
Until I was selected to speak at the
conference.
Between all the fabulous September
castings, adjudicating eisteddfods I was doing my best to write an article.Somewhere, between the student protests my ever-patient study supervisor
co-wrote the article with me, and with no time to spear I put together a power point
presentation and edited the article down to something I could hopefully read in front of people while nervous. And did I mention we are also in the process of buying property?
So between running to the banks, furiously searching for marriage licenses,
anti-nuptial agreements, vat numbers and bank certified documents I managed to
get everything done. And book my flights and care hire for the conference.
It all became a bit much for me, and as I was
throwing clothes into a suitcase on Wednesday evening the anxiety of everything
happening at the same time overwhelmed me:
“I wish I wasn’t this nervous person” I
said to Mauritz, tears of anxiety and nerves clearly threatening and starting
to spill. My husband looked back at me with nothing but love in his eyes, took
my hand and said:
“Which nervous person do you want to be?”
With seven words he broke through all my tension and made me laugh. So with a heavily edited and marked speech, and power point presentation on my laptop and far too many pdfs to
confirm all my booking that my OCD requires I flew down to Durban on
Thursday later afternoon to start my conference on Friday morning.
The third paper for Friday I started, in all seriousness:
“The first time I had to speak about my research I told my now co-writer who was then my study supervisor that I would rather do walk-overs in
my underwear in front of everybody than talk about my research”
Their laughter and the general positive
atmosphere of the day relaxed me, and I got through my paper. I could even
answer all the questions the Shakespeare academics flung at me.
As the group headed towards their cars after day 1 one of the day’s earlier speaker came up to
me:
“I must admit, I’ve never seen you dance in
your underwear, but you spoke really well today. And I really enjoyed your
paper.”
In closing, I just want to give a big thank you to everyone in my life for all the support and messages of encouragement as I tackled this presentation. I've had unwavering support from my husband, parents, brother and study supervisor without whom I probably never would have left the front door.
No comments:
Post a Comment