Sarah

Sarah stepped up to the podium with sheer power in her stance. There was no signs of fear especially when she began talking about her cousin right away. Through out the time she held our attention, she enhanced her message with eye contact, pauses and the clever repetition of "Monkey see, Monkey do." Sarah allowed her audience to imagine her cousin as though we had meet him ourselves through her powerful words and engaging stories.

I never met your cousin or his bride,
But you made me feel like I had none them for a lifetime,
You captured my attention with your eyes
And never let a dull moment go by,
It was the toast of a lifetime.

Sarah did an amazing job keeping the attention of the audience. With her constant eye contact and affective pauses, it was impossible to get bored. She kept her speed nice and steady through out the speech, never talking too fast or too slow. I personally though her speech would have been a more affective weeding speech if she spoke more about the bride and not focus the whole speech on the groom. I also believe that if she had added another "Monkey see, Monkey do" to the end of the speech it would have led to a much more affective conclusion. There were a few points through out the speech where I thought Sarah was about to wrap up which did distract me a little.

Alexander advocates for using poetic/artistic responses because it allows him to feel and analyze the performances more carefully. It allows us to not look at the person in a cut and dry manner but rather leads us to dissect their actions through our own emotions. This method allows us to better understand the elements of other peoples performances as well as our own. By looking at ourselves in this manner we are able to better improve the way we perform.