Making Eye Contact During a Stage Performance

Video Transcript

"My name is Dave Jackal and I am going to speak to you about eye contact. Eye contact when you are performing is very important. It makes the audience feel like they can connect to you. If you don't look at anybody, people will think that you are nervous, you are scared and that you are bored. What may seems cool at the time if you are aloof, people really won't pay attention after while. After all, if you are not paying attention to them, why should they pay attention to you. So make sure that you are always kind of looking at the audience, but don't actually look at them. That's the trick. If you look at people, then you break the spell. You get a little too connected to them and then they feel like they are up there with you. Look at them, don't look at the eyes, look at the floor heads. Look right above the eyes and always make sure that you are moving your eyes around the whole time. I would say go look at a person for about half a second, just move slowly like that. But whatever you do though, don't actually look someone in the eyes. That will break the spell and ruin the performance. Proper eye technique will look a little something like this. Be playing, looking around slowly, maybe a little bit in this direction for a while so it looks like you are looking at somebody, dart your eyes a little bit and create a little bit of drama, a little bit of excitement but don't do this and don't do this. Hey I know you. That always looks stupid. "