Therapist Kelsey Fyffe asks Houston Ballet Academy students a simple question each year: Does the adrenaline rush they feel before a performance help or hurt them? The answers are always split. Usually a little more than half of the students say that adrenaline enhances their dancing, helping them feel more alert, present, and grounded. But a sizable minority typically reports that adrenaline has a negative impact, causing symptoms like tunnel vision, shakiness, and trouble balancing.
A surge of adrenaline is a natural response in high-stakes situations, whether it’s an audition, a performance, or a competition. “Adrenaline is a hormone our bodies release in scary or stressful situations that’s connected with the fight-or-flight response,” says Fyffe. “It’s responsible for things like speeding up our heart rate and speeding up our breathing.” While the physical manifestations of adrenaline can make some dancers feel out of control or panicked, they can also sharpen focus and add energy and excitement to a performance. So how do you become the kind of dancer who feeds off of adrenaline rather than fears it?
Rehearse the Rush
Justin Allen, assistant director of The Rock School’s professional division, says the biggest difference between dancers who can channel their adrenaline and those who can’t is performance experience. While it’s difficult to manufacture the high-stakes conditions that tend to trigger adrenaline, he says dancers can practice versions of that feeling in lower-stakes scenarios. At The Rock School, for instance, students perform an in-studio Youth America Grand Prix preview show for a small audience. “That’s helped them get those nervous vibes out in the comfortable space of the studio before going to a stage they’ve never danced on before,” says Allen. “We try to give as many opportunities as possible to navigate the emotions involved with going onstage.” Dancers can also create those opportunities for themselves, Fyffe adds—by looking for chances to perform in casual settings like community events, adding “practice” competitions to the calendar before the big one, or asking to perform their solo in front of fellow dancers.
Visualize Your Performances
It turns out that practicing in your mind can be almost as effective as the real thing. Fyffe says the brain struggles to distinguish between what’s imagined and what’s real—which means that visualizing your performance can be an incredibly powerful tool. Before a performance or audition, Fyffe recommends, visualize the moment in as many details as possible, from what you’ll be wearing, how you’ll get there, and what backstage looks like to exactly what you’ll be doing and feeling—including that adrenaline rush—pre-performance. That visualization can be used in two ways: to imagine what it would be like if the performance goes perfectly and to problem-solve potential issues that could arise.
Prepare Your Body
If you don’t properly prepare your body to go onstage, the pre-performance adrenaline rush that suddenly has your heart racing can feel jarring and destabilizing. That’s why it’s all the more important to prioritize a true warm-up, says Suzi Taylor, a longtime jazz teacher at Steps on Broadway, Pace University, and New York City Dance Alliance. A good warm-up can both ease you into the excitement of performing while also helping you get out of your head and into your body. “It’s all muscle memory, so if you don’t have your muscles ready for what’s coming, then all you have is your thoughts,” she says. Even if there isn’t time or space for a full class, something as simple as doing jumping jacks backstage can help.
Train Your Attention
If you find yourself overwhelmed with adrenaline, Fyffe recommends getting specific about your focus to stay grounded and present. If you’re offstage, try things like counting the number of rectangles or red objects you can see. “The key is to give your brain a task that’s easy enough to do, but involved enough that you have to do it continuously,” she says. If you’re onstage, try picking one visual focus—such as an audience member—and one physical focus, like closing your fifth position. “Everything else is not your business,” says Fyffe. “This helps the dancer rely on muscle memory, which is what athletes want to be doing at performance time.”
Address Underlying Anxiety
Many of the students Fyffe sees who struggle to manage their adrenaline also struggle with anxiety more generally. “That makes sense if you think about it, because any level of stress or anxiety is going to produce a bit of adrenaline,” she says. “If that’s a recurring problem, you’re going to have a pretty negative connotation with the physical feeling of adrenaline.” Fyffe recommends that these dancers take steps to address their overall anxiety: “Whatever skills you’re learning to manage anxiety when you wake up in the morning, those skills will also be useful when you’re in a performance or competitive environment.”
