Last week, my band played at the Dunedin Pride festival at Sammy's.
I was worried about playing at Sammy's for several weeks before the event.
There are only two people in my band and one of them is me, and while I have a lot of hair I am pretty tiny and insubstantial.
For bands in Dunedin, Sammy's is about the only place with a big, raised stage.
It's a huge space to fill, for both musicians and audiences.
Thankfully, Pride was well attended and so the only space left for us to fill was the stage.
My band is loud, and so I wasn't worried about getting the music across but I was worried about looking small and insignificant, and not taking up enough space.
My anxieties regarding taking up space on stage seem to stem from a misguided background in theatre studies.
When I first started university, I thought that I might continue to study theatre as I had done in high school.
When you first start with theatre studies they tell you your stance is very important.
If you don't want to look weak on stage, then you should plant your feet a shoulder-width apart and avoid resting any weight on just one side.
And, significantly, you're best to avoid any strange swaying and to eradicate any odd tics, and you are not supposed to move unless you have a definite purpose.
This advice is something I've thought about a lot since I started playing in bands.
As there is only one of me and the drummer of my band is pretty much trapped, a huge part of keeping audiences entertained has been down to me.
I'm good at movement but I do sway.
I know I sway and I really try not to.
But, at Pride, all I could think about was the swaying and how I was going to not do that.
I became absolutely obsessed with my stance.
Unfortunately, once you start thinking about how you are standing it becomes difficult to remember how you are actually supposed to stand if you want to look significant yet not unnatural.
I found myself placing my feet a significant distance apart.
It's possible that I overestimated how far apart my shoulders actually are, or maybe I thought no-one would be able to tell how strong my stance was, given that I was so high up on the stage, and so I overcompensated.
The result, according to my friends, was a good performance amusingly peppered with some very classic-rock-man guitar stances.
The classic stance might not be for me, but I do appreciate it.
I've never really been a huge fan of classic rock music but I can get behind some decent performance techniques, techniques indie bands are sorely lacking.
The reason I get so hung up about making a big impact on stage is that it is exhausting and boring to watch bands who are not making an effort to make any sort of impact or to have any kind of presence.
So many people are so much bigger than me, and have so many people in their bands, and yet they still manage to look as if you could blow them over.
Obviously, some music does not require major ''stancing'', but a lot of bands could benefit from at least looking as if they feel like they belong on the stage.
Ultimately, playing at Sammy's has helped me find a happy in-between in regard to my stance.
I am definitely not going to continue hamming it up as much as I did last week.
I am now very aware that how you put your feet on the ground can make the difference between being timid and boring, and strong and engaging.
Millie Lovelock is a Dunedin student.
