Love Quote by Deborah Bull

Deborah Bull slips a small, sharp pin into a balloon of cultural wishful thinking: the fantasy that “real” feeling is the gold standard of performance. By choosing Romeo and Juliet, she goes straight to the most over-romanticized case study possible, then punctures it with a practical reminder from the rehearsal room. “Obviously” isn’t just a throat-clear; it’s a dancer’s impatience with a tired debate, the kind that treats technique as fakery and emotion as proof of authenticity.

The line works because it defends artifice without sounding defensive. Bull isn’t demoting love; she’s relocating it. In performance, the job is not to experience the emotion on schedule, eight shows a week, under hot lights, sometimes injured, sometimes exhausted. The job is to make an audience feel it anyway. That’s not cynicism; it’s craft. Her phrasing implies a wider misunderstanding: spectators (and critics) often confuse sincerity with quality, as if a performer’s private life should be the evidence log for what happens onstage.

As a dancer speaking, there’s an extra layer. Dance is often judged through the body’s apparent “truth,” which invites people to assume the dancer is simply “being” rather than doing. Bull pushes back: embodiment is constructed, repeatable, and disciplined. The subtext is a quiet defense of professionalism. The best Romeo doesn’t need to be in love; he needs to be reliable, legible, and persuasive. That’s the real romance: the audience believes because the performer can.