Certain occasions require standing up.

The national anthem. The bride’s entrance at a wedding. The judge walking into a courtroom.

A perfectly lovely but not stellar performance by musicians, dancers or actors is not one of these occasions.

The standing ovation is widely regarded as the deepest expression of appreciation for a performance, says professional cellist Steven Elisha, artistic director of the Lawrence Chamber Orchestra.

“It is generally reserved for brilliant performances – performances that are spectacular and literally elevate people to their feet because they are so moved,” he says. “I like to think that we should reserve that conduct for that type of performance.

“If everybody gets a standing ovation, then there’s no distinction between a good performance and a great performance.”

Some who frequent Lawrence performance halls say that local audiences are too quick to leap to their feet.

“I think it’s overdone in Lawrence, for sure,” says Gunda Hiebert, an arts patron and season ticket-holder at the Lied Center. She suspects that some of those ovations are a response to factors other than the performance.

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“There have been performances at the Lied Center that haven’t been top-of-the-line performances, but the performer is so charismatic and projects such warmth and enthusiasm for the audience that the audience picks up on that and responds to that,” Hiebert says. “Whereas you have other performers who are technically much better but they don’t excite the audience in the same way that a different performer would.

“I think a lot of times what you see in Lawrence is a response to the performer and not to the performance.”

‘Doing our job’

Karen Christilles, associate director of the Lied Center, has an answer for people who wonder whether audiences at the venue give too many standing ovations.

“Our job here at the Lied Center is to, in essence, scour the world and look for THE very best art,” she says. “If there seem to be more standing ovations … it’s not because our community is full of hicks who don’t know the rules. Perhaps it’s because we’re doing our job.”

That said, a yardstick exists for measuring whether a show merits a flight to one’s feet.

“I think the natural response in rising is to move closer to the work,” Christilles says. “So for me, if I feel that the work has been so compelling to me, then that should almost just naturally happen.”

For Ron Willis, an actor and professor emeritus of theater at Kansas University, the standard is hard to pin down.

“I don’t have any real sense of what it takes to get a standing ovation, other than, ‘Wow, was I dazzled,'” he says.

KU dance professor Joan Stone thinks applause – even vigorous clapping and “bravos!” – suffice as a response to most performances.

“I think there should be standards,” she says. “It seems to be automatic, and then it becomes meaningless to me.

“In terms of dance events, it would have to be pretty extraordinary choreography. I might feel inclined to stand for a Twyla Tharp or Mark Morris concert.”

Personal connections

If one isn’t compelled to leap from one’s seat as soon as the last chord dies, other social factors might influence a delayed decision to rise.

“If half the audience is standing and I see that a professor in the dance department is standing and this is a dance work, did I miss something? Should I be standing?” Christilles says. “I think that is just the human condition.”

Sometimes it’s simply a matter of not wanting to look like a grouch.

“I think that at some point in time I don’t want to appear to be the curmudgeon if everyone else is standing,” Willis says. “So I will stand even if I was not personally transported to ecstatic heights.”

For the past three years, Willis has portrayed Drosselmeier in the Lawrence Arts Center’s production of “A Kansas Nutcracker.” He says standing ovations are more the rule than the exception at those shows, which are fueled by a cast of more than 100 local children and adults.

“That standing ovation seems to me to stem from feeling a kinship with the people onstage,” he says. “I don’t think the thing that people often point to, which is some kind of theatrical excellence, necessarily is what rules there.”

Warm spot for Lawrence

Ultimately, of course, audience members make their own decisions about the quality of a performance, rendering the standing ovation a very personal reaction – one that’s appreciated but not expected by artists.

“I think the general rule is don’t question it. If it happens, it’s wonderful and should be encouraged,” Elisha says. “If something is mediocre and gets a standing ovation, well, that may be a commentary on the audience and how sophisticated it is and how hungry it is for anything.”

Either way, you won’t find a performer alive who doesn’t eat it up when an auditorium full of people leaps to its feet in response to his artistry.

“Even though I think the standing ovation is vastly overdone, I also think it reflects the warmth and enthusiasm and eagerness to be entertained and respond to entertainment which exists in Lawrence, which I think is very lovely,” Hiebert says. “And I think it leaves a lot of performers with a really warm spot in their hearts for Lawrence.”