How you feel just before entering the stage?

[Zorba]

I'm "ok" until about 2 minutes before curtain call. Then I get this delicious feeling of anticipation, my heartrate increases a bit. I concentrate on breathing DEEP and SLOW, getting centered, checking my zills/veil/costume/props for the umpteenth time - and then the music starts and I'm on!

Or another way to look at it, this poem at the top of my videos page:

Zorba in Motion!

[Yshka]

Before I go on? I NEED TO PEE, REALLY REALLY BADLY!!!

I am calm up to maybe 10 minutes before performance. I stand around quietly but with hands shaking a bit, I feel butterflies when I go on. The nervousness ends during the performance (the shaking usually moves to my lip for a short while in the beginning, hehe).
When I'm performing with the troupe I'm way more nervy than when Im soloing, but depends on where I'm dancing and for whom. When performing for dance sisters or at school hafla's I'm really nervous. With the troupe I do get an extra oomph from dancing with the girls and it usually shows.

It's weird though. I LOVE performing and making my audience happy, letting them feel the music and emotion through my dancing, and I will feel this throughout the performance even though my nerves are present.

[Kashmir]

If it is "real" performance, I like to be quiet. I hate people chattering at me. I usually go through some drills - partly as warmup, partly as meditation. I breathe. I let the energy flow from the earth in through my feet, through my body and out the top of my head. I enter "the zone".

If I don't have time to enter this state I usually feel the "performance" was fake - doesn't mean people don't like it - but I'm not happy with it.

[Mosaic]

I am still a BBD (baby bellydancer) even at 4 years of learning (probably will be at 10 years) So far I have only danced with a class group. I am not confident enough to dance alone. I wish i did have the confidence, and hope that one day that will happen. So how do i feel? I am nervous, very nervous, but also excited, I dread the opening bars, but want them to happen as well. I am always sure I will forget a choreo, but somehow once you are out there it all comes together and you feel great! I love to dance and I just don't see the crowd, I just dance!

I feel more comfortable dancing before strangers than in front of bellydancers, I am even more nervous if the audience is full of BD'ers

For me the worst time is about 24 hours before a performance, I am so nervous, it is awful.
~Mosaic

[lizaj]

Before I go on? I NEED TO PEE, REALLY REALLY BADLY!!!

Name me one performer who doesn't struggle into her bodystocking and immediately require the little girls' room.

[Gia al Qamar]

Before I go on? I NEED TO PEE, REALLY REALLY BADLY!!!

Name me one performer who doesn't struggle into her bodystocking and immediately require the little girls' room.

LMAO!!!! OMG...too true!!!!

[Yasmine Bint Al Nubia]

I feel very silent...and centered...quiet and meditative.
I focus on my breathing, on my inner power and strength.
I take a moment before stepping on stage to touch my bindi over my third eye and remember why is THAT I dance.
I feel my heart pick up speed, matching the tempo of my music...a smile spreads across my lips, to my eyes, my face, my whole body...my posture grows taller and I am filled with enthusiasm and excitement to see my audience!Gia

Me too! While I'm focusing on my breath, I forget who I am! And when the music dies down,an dI leave the stage/perfroming area...amnesia takes over. I can't remember with clarity, just the emotional afterglow!
Yasmine

[Shanazel]

Name me one performer who doesn't struggle into her bodystocking and immediately require the little girls' room

My all time favorite bodystocking had hooks (well padded) in the pertinent area to allow graceful potty access. I've never found another one like it and I cried when it finally gave up the ghost.

[jenc]

I have a black one with poppers, but need a flesh one. Dno't they know that us geriatric dancers (speaking for self) can wee for england. Now there's a though for our specialist sport in 2012

[lizaj]

I have a black one with poppers, but need a flesh one. Dno't they know that us geriatric dancers (speaking for self) can wee for england. Now there's a though for our specialist sport in 2012

well if they can have synchro- drowning and beach babes chucking a ball about , why not?