More on Failure - an extract from A Choreographer’s Handbook by Jonathan Burrows

Failure:

It is often the attempt to do what you're doing which makes us intrigued; your occasional failure to achieve this goal simply keeps the stakes high.

We say, “Raising the problem to the level of the subject”: this is a thought from the theatre director Tim Etchells.
From ‘Parallel Voices’ talk, Siobhan Davies Studios, London, February 2007.

Audiences like failure, so long as they know that you know you’re failing. It allows an act of human recognition and empathy. Conversely, if you are uncomfortable with your failure, then we are likely to feel uncomfortable too.

Or perhaps discomfort is an important part of what you're doing?

Sometimes if you start out with the premise that you’re allowed to fail, it actually helps you to succeed. This is another of the paradoxes of performing: by allowing for what might go wrong, you include and conquer it.

‘There are no mistakes’ is a useful starting point. It doesn’t mean you will make mistakes.

Or this: ‘If you feel self-conscious allow yourself to feel self-conscious’. Accepting self-consciousness is one possible alternative to putting on a cool look like a new set of clothes. Of course I'm frightened, there are two hundred people out there and adrenalin is pumping round my body.