R27.CREATIVELAB / Blogspot: Elli Fordyce

Elli Fordyce – Alone

by R27 CREATIVELAB on Tuesday, 6 October 2009

Just when you think you know whats coming someone throws a curve ball on what we call belief.

A quick note before we begin - you can hear samples of Elli's music at the end of the article and download desktop images.
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Describe the loneliest time while you were on stage and why?

Back story: At age 18, having moved from NYC to Dennis, MA, with my family and joining the high school class as a senior, I always had tremendous stage fright, particularly about singing but also about any public presentation. That year at a tiny school provided opportunities which I pushed myself through. I read something on the public address system, my first time although it was frequent for many students to do. I modeled clothes I’d made in a fashion show. With another senior (who also loved “Something Cool” and with whom I listened to it endlessly), I sang an a cappella duet of “You’ll Never Walk Alone” in a talent show; when she was unable to make the second night, I sang solo. I don’t know how I was talked into doing that but remember how nerve-racking it was and how high that high note seemed which she’d sung the night before. Years later, I discovered that my stage fright came from having been strangled by a jealous lover during a performance last lifetime in 1936 (a year before being born into this body). I said after the high school shows and performances for the next 12 years, “I felt like I was going to choke to death, but I lived through it” and sometimes would gulp in the middle of a note, losing air for a second and with no sound coming out. But, the loneliest time on stage was in 1936 after my strangled body slumped into unconsciousness and died, as I watched from above, frustrated that I couldn’t make myself understood or felt, wanting to let everyone hovering around know that I was there and totally fine and that it was “just a body.” I finally moved on (returning to the planet to join this body seconds after it was born on the afternoon of March 31, 1937).