Asly Toro: Sweet freedom
Photo: Donovan Martin
“I always find my best performance when I feel the most free and the most connected with my soul and with myself.”
The way that Asly Toro worded this struck me as profound. She spoke about performance as something she seeks, something to find. She suggested that she finds it within.
Asly performed for the first time at the age of four, in front of an audience of a few hundred people. At age five, she had her first studio experience.
She told me about it last year:
“I was only 5,” she said. “I was part of a show like ‘Star Search,’ called ‘Cuanto Vale Show.’ It was 1999. Me and five or six other kids from the show were recording vocals for a Simon Diaz album, the most famous Venezuelan singer. Something that stands out was hearing the orchestral instruments recording in a separate room from where we recorded. The violins. This was the first time that I really got to experience something of that magnitude in real life. It opened my eyes.”
Originally from Barinas, Venezuela, Asly moved to Louisville in 2013, when she was 19.
A promising entertainer from an early age, Asly remembers those years: “I was so young, and I didn't understand the meaning of what I was doing. I was just having fun. I was just enjoying, basically playing and being myself,” she said. “In my teenage years I felt more insecure, and I almost had to relearn things. It's funny, interaction with people and society is a part of growing up that can actually take away something that we are born with, which is the freedom to be bold.”
One of the things I believe she’s getting at is that societal norms don’t necessarily cultivate the freedom of expression that nurtures artistry. A performer’s raw, transparent exposure during performance – the immediacy of their delivery – is essential to connecting on an unforgettable level with the audience. Take that same energy into a boardroom, the grocery store, or an 8th-grade classroom, and there’s going to be blowback.
“I feel like every kid pretty much always speaks their mind, right? They don't even lie. And then you kind of lose that in school and with experiences in life. I think that’s what leads to the insecurity of teenage years. I had to relearn how to channel that performance aspect and deliver that freedom,” said Asly.
What’s crazy is that recapturing performance freedom comes through discipline. You would think the inspiration would come organically and wantonly, but no. When I’m radiated by a poor or underwhelming performance, my next conversation with the artist always includes this question: “How frequently do you rehearse?”
This response is a sign that things won’t get better soon: “I have a natural gift and I don’t need to practice.”
The best performers say this: “You have to rehearse so many times. It's like a sport. You have to be exposed to the point that you don't feel nervous. And even when you feel nervous, you have to know how to channel that energy into excitement – but not too much excitement because that can damage a performance.”
Those were Asly Toro’s words when we spoke about the success of her performance at the Latin Music Awards Kentucky, where she won Best Latin Song for Fruta, a single released last year and her most-streamed song on Spotify.
She performed at the awards show in September.
“This performance was definitely my favorite of all the ones that I've done because I really felt connected to my feelings in a way that I couldn't describe. It was my third time performing at the Latin Music Awards. It wouldn't have been the same if it wasn't for the musicians, the dancers, the production team, and all the love put into it. There's so much work happening to perform a three-minute song. It's inspiring having the dancers and having a group of people and feeling supported. It’s not about one person, it’s everything combined.”
I hold to this: What a person can create in the studio tells you a story about their artistry. What a person can accomplish in live performance tells you more.
Watch Asly’s performance of Fruta at La La Land Studios in Louisville, Kentucky and you’ll see what I mean.
