HOW DRAMA CAN HELP BUILD CONFIDENCE

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Drama has the ability to develop skills in feeling confident about yourself.

Drama is very beneficial for developing confidence in oneself. It develops the voice, physicality, experience of working with others, listening skills, and communication to name a few. Drama is a goldmine for skill-building towards developing your confidence.

Drama Develops Strong Physicality on Stage in In Real Life

It is physiologically possible to feel certain ways by the way you hold yourself.

If you are standing straight up as though you have an invisible book on your head, you increase the feeling of security and strength.

However, if you stoop over and walk slowly, you tend to feel insecure and slow in thought and a bit befuddled.

The ’embodied cognition’ is the way you carry yourself actually affects your mood. Drama gives a person the ability to explore different personalities and situations.

An actor or drama students is more likely to be able to utilize different postures and facial expression, not only to express as a particular character, but it give them as an actor muscle memory in which to use in positions where they may need to call on a certain amount of confidence.

Often this type of confidence is gleaned through having experiences on stage and or film where they have explored this feeling/physicality before.

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Drama games and improvisation games help students explore and use a specific space or place.

You often find drama or theater students confidently exploring new theatrical spaces and completely enjoying the moment.

This is because they are over all pretty comfortable using space and reveal in it.

Drama and theater students are more likely to perform confident as well as passionate presentations and performances because they know how to work a space and use their physical stature to fill a space.

Drama Helps Build Confidence in Using the Voice

The voice is important for good communication. If a person can state clearly their wants and needs, they are more likely to get them.

Drama helps people build confidence by giving the opportunity to articulate, project, resonate, pace, and emphasise their words out loud.

People listen to people they can hear. They tend to turn off to people they can’t hear. Sometimes they are forced to listen to quiet voices if done in a strategic way.

When a person speaks clearly, in a tone which isn’t too high, nor too low for their natural range, people have them more credence.

People who lack confidence can talk fast and therefore are harder to understand.

People who talk too slowly can exasperate people. But finding a good pace which is the sweet spot helps give the speaker the appearance of confidence.

Remember some times it has been said; you need to fake it until you make it.

Tongue Twisters for Articulation to help with Confidence

Some students utilize voice techniques such as tongue twisters and projection exercises.

These are well used by amateurs and professionals alike.

Warm ups like these are great to warm up the voice and help loosen up the vocal folds and throat area. This makes it easier for good communication to happen.

Utilizing the Diaphragm For Projection to Help with Confidence

The diaphragm is the large muscle based just above the belly button. This area is pivotal for projection of the voice.

Many people tend to think that shouting or projecting from the throat is a good idea to be heard. But often their sound is shrill and in the high voice area…it just sounds baseless and unconfident.

But by using the diaphragm in conjunction with breathing, can really help with finding a natural way to project the voice, rather than forcing it.

Drama Helps Build Confidence by Working in a Team

The modern word environment can have staff working with each other on projects or to solve a problem at a particular workplace.

However many are now working from home more and more.

However, this doesn’t take away the fact that most people are still working in a team environment or that someone is relying in them to fulfill a function of some kind.

Drama helps build camaraderie and teamwork to work towards a particular goal or performance.

This skill is extremely transferable to the workplace because people need to network and communicate effectively while understanding their role in meeting the overall workplace requirements.

People who have done drama know that nothing will get done by oneself and that the crew, production, producers and directors as well as the cast make the production and it isn’t a one man band.

Infact many drama students much prefer working ‘with’ and alongside people and see success in a collective way, than standing alone on an island hoping someone will notice their abilities.

A really great book which I have personally read and used in my life is Happiness A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill by Matthieu Ricard. It’s a book from Amazon which delves into how we become happy and more confident in our lives. This book is full of scientific and academic evidence to support their claims. It’s a good read.

There is strength in numbers.

Drama Builds Confidence by Encouraging Flexibility

Drama helps people think on the spot, especially if things go wrong. Actors are constantly focusing on their words, their surroundings, and the objectives at the same time.

This makes them hyper aware of the situation at hand, which can help with their ability to handle different situations at different times.

Because they are used to being flexible, they develop confidence in their ability to handle different situations.

Drama Helps People Build Charisma

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It can be stated that those who emit great charisma also emit good confidence.

Most people think that people are born with charisma, but you can work on it.

Drama helps people work on their confidence in numerous ways and by developing this confidence, charisma is often a by product which eventuates.

With power poses, strong clear voice, taking up the space and being more flexible, can help emit a strong presence and therefore increase your natural charm and charisma.

Drama Builds Confidence by Developing Listening Skills

We all love a good listener, especially when we are in an emotional state and need a friend.

Drama helps build listening skills because if you are on stage and someone forgets a line or a particular action, then the scene goes belly up.

Listening is a very important skill so that you are able to prevent mistakes from occurring and can help find solutions because you know the issues.

Those who are versed in Drama skills have learned to listen to what’s happening and respond appropriately.

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Build confidence By Taking risks

Drama is excellent in that it allows people to take calculated risks in a safe environment.

Drama allows a person to take a risk by getting infront of others even though they may feel judgement, but doing it anyway.

It’s similar the book Feel The Fear and Do It Anyway by Louise Hay.

Confidence develops by taking risks, failing, and picking oneself up and again and carrying on.

Confidence also develops when we take risks and actually nail it. The success we feel, forgers us ahead to take more risks.

Confidence Develops by Observing the body Language of Others

Simply put, when we can read another person’s body language, we can make sound judgments as to what they are feeling.

This allows us to ascertain how to approach them for our needs and wants.

Drama provides plenty of opportunities to observe and notice what ours and other peoples’ bodies are saying as well.

We get used to reading the body and subconsciously ask ourselves if the body language matches the words. Of course, that makes good acting, but this also gives us clues in how to read other people.

The more variety of roles a person takes, the more they put themselves into their shoes. The more they can read others if they come across a person in a similar situation.

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Mel Coddington

Hi I am an actress, singer, teacher, former acting coach, tertiary lecturer and content writer. I live in a small town in New Zealand. My husband is a theatre director. We aim to mount 2 to 3 productions per year which include dramatic theatre, theatre for children and sometimes musical theatre.

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