Abigaille (@abigaille__) from The Dinner Party (@thedinnerpartyband) talks about her love for performance ♪
‘For me performing is the only time where I am truly peaceful. It’s strange because performing on stage in front of people is an all consuming outpouring of emotions, a relentless full body experience that doesn’t end until you get down. Despite this, right though my core I am utterly calm and perfectly aligned. It’s like at the specific moment, the half hour I’m on stage, each atom and thought and memory suddenly surges inside me to make me a complete person. Self-actualised. When I’m just going about my life I am in varying states of harmony with myself, depending on what I’m doing and who I’m with. I’m scattered, sometimes uncertain, incomplete. The second I get on stage, when I start singing and moving and feeling my band coming to life beside me, I am who I’m meant to be. A complete person, completely truthful.
I think these kinds of performances tap into our basest animal urges. There’s a certain carnal craven madness that works it’s way up through the floor and into people watching. It doesn’t matter if it’s me on stage or someone else, they just need a vessel to ignite that spark of inhibition. The music is half of that, the performance is another. I am proud of the music I write but it wouldn’t really exist properly if it wasn’t heard live. The communion between performer and audience is a constantly shifting power dynamic, a pagan god at the mercy of their followers, a public execution, the coronation of a young king, a witches Sabat, a simple blood ritual. Performance is powerful. It’s abandoning yourself to something greater than you. I am at once in control of my self and at the same time completely, blissfully devoid of control.’