A Show Director’s Blueprint for Showcasing Human Potential
Virtuosity in live performance goes beyond technical skill—it’s a celebration of human potential. It’s about creating moments that inspire awe, where the performer’s effort and artistry are unmistakable, yet delivered with style and control. For creative show directors, the challenge lies in designing performance contexts that highlight virtuosity and shape a lasting emotional connection with the audience.
In short, virtuosity is a collectively curated fantasy in which the acrobat’s excellent technique is understood as a metaphorical technology. This means, we can shape it, like any story. It is through the power of the vicarious that we establish an emotional connection between performer and audience. In this sense, virtuosity is the converging point of projection (“I could never do that”), desires (“I want to be like her”), and skill (“OMG, I would never put my life in peril like she does”).
Virtuosity is about skill, yes, but it’s also fundamentally about the craft of show directing—about how we contribute with all the means available to us to managing and structuring these technical protocols. At its core, our role is to help curate and present visible evidence that simultaneously evokes admiration for the agency of the exceptional body and stirs anxieties regarding its vulnerability and fate.
To understand virtuosity as more than a technical concept, we must see it as a dialogue between performer and viewer—a visceral reminder of what humans can achieve. Whether through breathtaking acrobatics or perfectly executed dance sequences, virtuosity is about the body, how it moves, and what it communicates.
Why Virtuosity Matters
For directors, the challenge lies in crafting opportunities for this kind of virtuosity to shine. This means designing moments where the audience connects with the labor and artistry of the performer. Virtuosity is the lifeblood of compelling performances. It relies on three key elements:
1. Bravery – Audiences are drawn to risk. Whether it’s a soaring aerial stunt or the precision of a complex pirouette, bravery connects because it evokes admiration for the performer’s courage.
2. Control – Virtuosity demands mastery. Movements should feel deliberate, almost inevitable, as if the performer and their technique are one.
3. Beauty – This isn’t about visual beauty (which is always a question of debate and perceived standards). It’s about emotions. Beauty lies in rigidity, grace, fluidity, and the ability to shape moments that feel profound. However rigid and modern we want it to be.
As directors, our role is to create conditions, both narratively as well as in staging, where these elements evolve and thrive. The key element is about playing with these markers and de/stabilising them. This requires both honouring tradition and exploring innovation.
Before directing virtuosity, you need to understand this:
For show directors, crafting impactful performances means going beyond technique to create moments that captivate and inspire. This usually happens by creating a nexus of meaning. These key takeaways focus on how to highlight the power of the human body and connect with audiences on a deeper level.
1. Shift Focus from Narrative to the Body
Traditional word-based narratives often dominate stage productions, but some of the most impactful moments come when the focus shifts to the performers’ bodies, when they become explicit. Their movements and control can tell a story as compelling as any script. Think of ways to choreograph “sculpted moments” that highlight strength, precision, and elegance, or lay bare the social, political, and gendered inscriptions on the flesh. How can you emphasise the body’s labour to reach the highest points of tension and release?
2. Celebrate Human Potential
Virtuosity is a celebration of what the human body can achieve. Highlight elements like balance, coordination, and concentration, and ensure your staging, lighting, and music amplify these qualities (which is yet another form of virtuosity). The goal is to inspire awe and create a shared moment of wonder between the audience and the performer.
3. Design with Labor in Mind
A performance is always a process, you’d watch it progressively from start to finish. Use this relation to time to acknowledge and showcase the effort that’s behind the act. Subtle cues or a signature move, like a momentary pause or breath before a climactic move, can make the audience viscerally feel the journey of the performer.
4. Create Pioneering Moments
Every act should aim to be pioneering—not necessarily through spectacle but through originality and emotional impact. What is the story the body is telling – and how does the stage support this? Challenge your team to push boundaries in subtle ways: a new twist on an old technique, an unexpected pairing of performers, or a reinterpretation of traditional forms.
Bringing Virtuosity to Life: Key Strategies
Virtuosity thrives when it is deliberately cultivated as an emotional and physical journey that resonates with the audience. For directors, the challenge lies in crafting performances that balance precision with spontaneity, discipline with creativity, and tradition with innovation. By focusing on how the body moves, communicates, and connects, directors can create moments of awe and intimacy. The following strategies provide a roadmap to unlock and showcase the full potential of virtuosity in your productions.
1. Choreograph for Boldness: Design sequences that challenge performers physically and emotionally. A daring leap, a complex series of turns, or a seemingly impossible moment of stillness can make audiences hold their breath.
2. Focus on Effortless Control: Virtuosity is about making effort look easy as times, and showing how this ease is achieved. Consider how music, lighting, and staging can emphasize the performer’s mastery without overshadowing it.
3. Celebrate Individuality: Dance technique might teach precision, but virtuosity thrives when performers bring their own unique style. Allow room for interpretation and improvisation to make the performance personal. What additional skills can come into the mix?
4. Shape the Audience’s Experience: Create a narrative around virtuosity. Let the audience see the effort behind the artistry—through a carefully timed pause or a moment of shared anticipation—before delivering the payoff.
5. Balance Classical and Contemporary: Fuse the discipline of classical techniques with the energy of modern forms. This can be achieved through casting, production values, costume, and storytelling. This mix keeps performances fresh and relevant while retaining technical excellence.
Virtuosity Checklist for Directors
Use this guide to assess and enhance your production’s virtuosic elements:
- Curate the Spectacle: Virtuosity isn’t about excess; it’s about elevating select elements to their highest form. Identify what needs to shine and amplify it. Define the core spectacle: What aspect should be the virtuosic centerpiece?
- Orchestrate Complexity with Ease: Just like a pianist makes impossible passages sound fluid, a show director must make intricate productions feel seamless and intuitive. Design seamless transitions to enhance the illusion of effortlessness.
- Play with Perception: Keep the audience engaged through sensory manipulation and perception shifts. Use lighting, staging, and movement to manipulate what the audience sees, leading them to believe the impossible.
- Embrace Risk and Uncertainty: Incorporate elements of spontaneity that allow for real-time magic, keeping performances alive and responsive.
- Develop a Signature Style: Whether through visuals, movement, or narrative structure, cultivate a unique directorial voice that defines your work. Think Gaga’s monster hands, which elevate each choreo to the next level.
Finally: test, refine, and iterate—virtuosity is a continuous process of pushing limits. It’s a philosophy of exceeding expectations while making it all look effortless. By focusing on these principles, directors can craft performances that resonate deeply, turning acts into moments of shared human triumph. Virtuosity is about inspiring. As you create your next production, let this checklist guide you in shaping performances that are emotionally unforgettable.
I recently published an article on this topic in the esteemed Theatre Survey journal published by Cambridge University Press. The piece examines the concept of “socialist virtuosity” as it emerged in East German variety theatre during the 1950s and 1960s, with a particular focus on the role of physical performance—specifically acrobatics and dance—in articulating socialist ideals. The article argues that the emphasis on humanism and the laboring body catalyzed a shift from narrative-driven productions to performances where the body itself became the central medium of storytelling. This transformation, rooted in Marxist cultural appropriation and rigorous aesthetic experimentation, sought to define a uniquely socialist performance style by foregrounding the interplay of discipline, bravery, and beauty in human movement.
Find the full article here. If you want to learn how to talk about virtuosity in the rehearsal room and when creating it, this book by Judith Hamera is gold!
Header image by Kooné for Battle Royal Studios.
