The Show Must Go On, Part II
by Susie Vanderlip, CSP

My program uses a critical and precisely timed CD that runs the first 30 minutes of my signature keynote. It has multiple tracks that include music cuts interspersed with carefully timed silence cuts for speaking portions versus dance segues. I always bring my own wireless lavaliere microphone which I wear by my ear in an elastic band so I can pull costumes on and off throughout my presentation. These two elements create innumerable unpredictable performance moments which keep the business interesting!

The school gym was bursting at the wall joints with an assembly of 800 cannibalistic teens (they will eat a speaker alive if you don’t keep their attention!). The students were seated in a "U" around a makeshift stage of six risers pushed together. 200 of them come for the express purpose of finding fault with you.

In the middle of a rather energetic jazz dance in the first 10 minutes of my program, the risers began to separate, first 1 inch, then 2, then 6 inches apart. My choreography took on a whole new flavor, more like a jumping frog than a rhythmic flow. But, in my mind, I reminded myself, "They don’t know the choreography, and it is a solo. They won’t know the difference…" when suddenly one of the risers began to collapse. Now I was dancing and speaking on a roller coaster ride. So, once more, I improvised. Now I leapt from riser 1 to riser 3 to 5 and down to 4, up to 6. I was playing chess and checkers, dancing, speaking, acting, and faking it all the way!

To my enormous relief, I didn’t falter, much less fall, maintained the teens’ attention, and got a rave response (not to be confused with driving the kids into doing drugs at an ‘Ecstasy’ binge at a RAVE party!).

The Lesson: Apparently, the audience never doubted that it was all an incredibly controlled and deliberate part of the show. I don’t smash guitars in concerts, but I can dance a stage into a pile of heaving, smoldering pulp — and make it look planned.