HOW DO PERFORMERS INCREASE THEIR WELLBEING? AN INVESTIGATION AMONG MUSIC AND THEATER PROFESSIONALS V. De Luca 1 , D. Lombardi 2 , C. Cruder 1,3 , M. Pucciarelli 1 1 University of Applied Sciences and Arts of Southern Switzerland (SWITZERLAND) 2 GSRL Groupe Sociétés Religions, Laïcités - UMR 8582 -EPHE- CNRS - PSL Research University (FRANCE) 3 Conservatory of Southern Switzerland (SWITZERLAND) Abstract How to regulate emotions in stressful situations has become an important skill that professionals routinely need to deal with, especially for classical musicians, theatre actors and performers when moving from backstage to the stage and from the learning environment to the professional one. Conservatories and art schools have recently begun to introduce student services for health purposes, courses where students learn how to cope with performance stress and a concert hall simulator helps musicians prepare to perform. However, despite evidence suggesting that self-confidence is strongly influenced by preparation, researchers have theorized that much of performers’ wellbeing is influenced by emotions, attitude perceptions and behaviours. Indeed, practices such as meditation, self-listening, physical activity and relationships are known to have a positive effect on wellbeing and stress regulation but in today’s word, these practices are often hard to ground in daily preparation routine. The question remains: How can we most effectively integrate them to lifestyle coping strategies to support wellbeing? Under what conditions do wellbeing-increasing activities work best? To address these questions, we present here UpStage, an interactive toolkit of working strategies for emotional regulation and performance training that serves in the role of mediator to enable positive change in performers. The tool is designed on the results of a qualitative study conducted with 18 experienced and anxiety-free professionals. By investigating stress management as a human intrinsic skill, we present a design tool and discuss wellbeing strategies for an effective informal learning practice. Keywords: Wellbeing, informal learning, stress management, design method. 1 INTRODUCTION Musicians and theatre actors often spend a large amount of time and energy gaining and improving their abilities, “they have to deal with the physical demands of a profession that is intrinsically arduous, throughout a career than can literally span a lifetime” [1]. Furthermore, they have to deal with challenges such as coping with the pressure of performance anxiety, the consequence of an early specialization and a competitive learning environment [2][3]. According to Barlow, the definition of anxiety is “a unique and coherent cognitive-affective structure within the defensive motivational system. At the heart of this structure is a sense of uncontrollability focused on future threats, danger, or other potentially negative events” [4]. Experiencing performance anxiety is rather common for people, be they amateurs or professionals, who have to perform in front of others. Recent studies demonstrate that performance anxiety is a concern for a significant majority of undergraduate and professional career artists. According to Kenny et al. (2003), “music performance requires a high level of skill in a diverse range of areas including fine motor dexterity and co-ordination, attention and memory, aesthetic and interpretative skills. To achieve prominence requires the attainment of near perfection demanding years of training, solitary practice, and constant, intense self-evaluation” [5]. How to regulate emotions in stressful situations becomes an important skill that those professionals routinely need to deal with, especially in the transition from backstage to the stage [6]. For this reason, music schools and theatre academies have the responsibility to educate and prepare performers for the demands of their chosen profession. Despite a number of researches in performance studies, the practitioners' ways of positively handling performance anxiety are developed by years of experience and instead of a more formalized service of psychological approaches. Traditional systems of health support resources for students focus prevalently on mental health and environmental problems, from a psychological or medical lens [7]. Indeed, research has mainly dedicated its efforts to developing an elaborate array of anxiety-coping strategies, such as meditation, behavioural therapy, hypnotherapy, relaxation training, biofeedback, Proceedings of ICERI2018 Conference 12th-14th November 2018, Seville, Spain ISBN: 978-84-09-05948-5 2423