Nada Mucho (in Russian)

I forgot to wear my pedometer today.

Today was a fairly chill day as Moscow days go.  After yesterday’s beautiful, sunny, not-too-hot-not-too-cold, perfect tourist weather, it rained all day today, so it was a good day for doing a little grocery shopping and generally staying inside.  I did go to Starbucks this morning for some quality internet time, where I was kind enough to assist an American family in ordering their coffee (seriously, I’ve got this Russia thing!).  Then I read read read read read for most of the day until meeting up with JT in the evening to go see a production of Женитьба (Marriage) by Гогол (Gogol) playing at the Ленком (Lenkom) Theatre.  I had looked up a plot synopsis, but that was all the background I had on the play, and I have to say that I really enjoyed it.  It was a very energetic and engaging production with a lot of creativity in the staging.  The Hilberry (the grad theatre at Wayne State) will be doing that show in the coming season, so I kept trying to cast it out of the company.  I’ll look forward to seeing how it all shakes out, especially since JT tells me that this play can often be a real snooze.  So here’s a big challenge to JT (who’ll be directing it) and the Hilberry company: I had a great time at this play… I hope I can say the same again soon!

After the show we had a very pleasant evening of sitting in the kitchen swapping stories about nothing in particular, and then I turned in for the night.  Of course, there is a mosquito in my room that I am finding it difficult to kill… which means I’m going to wake up all itchy.  Damnit.  But hey… itchy in Moscow beats itchy in Detroit!

These Sandals are Made for Walking

Number of Steps: 25180 (7.95 mi)

So yeah… my feet are tired.

Today we had the day off of classes because five of our twelve are in St. Petersburg for the weekend.  So those of us who were left behind slept in.  Huzzah!  Then, a little before 2:00 we ventured out of the dorm toward Alexander Gardens outside the Kremlin.  We had designs on going back to Red Square as well, but it was totally blocked off since they’re setting up for the Russia Day festivities on Tuesday, so we stuck to the gardens for a while, wandering through the fountains and seeing the sights (like two dudes charging money to have people take pictures holding giant lizards or snakes, or overly aggressive mascots).   From there we wandered into the ГУМ (pronounced “Goom”), which is a giant mall, in search of ice cream.  We didn’t find what we were looking for, so we headed over to Охотный Ряд (a large underground mall) where we found some pretty bitchin’, albeit overpriced gelato.  After that I led the group over to Стару Арбат (Old Arbat), which is a big long pedestrian street of shops and kitsch and artists and such.  This was a place I had been to last year, but I had always taken the metro, so I was very pleased with myself for successfully leading us there by foot.  I’m feeling so Muscovite these days.  Anyway, we had an afternoon snack at a restaurant that used to be a bus, two of the girls danced with some street performers, our one African-American student was mobbed by two probably drunk Russian men (and yes, the two of these men were effusive enough to be considered a mob) who wanted her to come with them to dance somewhere. 

Once we got home I met with JT for a little bit to give him the skinny on the next few days, and then we pretty much settled in for the night (well, I did anyway…but I’m old and walked 8 miles today and I even may have gotten a bit of a sunburn on my shoulders...so settle in I shall!).  I skyped with my family for a few minutes, but the connection wasn’t very good, so it mostly consisted of us putting the back of our open hands on our foreheads (our nonsensical signal that we can’t hear the other person) or listening to my niece demand drawings of Mickey Mouse or Tinkerbell.  I love skyping with my niece.  Tomorrow… I am going to make myself do some actual reading.  I have got to get some studying done this month or I am going to be in trouble!

I'm so Russian

Number of Steps: 11167 (3.45 mi)

So, a lot of stuff happened today, but the thing I am most proud of has nothing to do with theatre.  While I was sitting on the steps of the MXAT American Studio reading before we went to the theatre tonight, not one, but TWO Russians asked me for directions, and I successfully understood them and provided them with the information they needed.  AND, when our singing teacher stopped us in the courtyard to tell us something, I was able to understand what she wanted us to do.  (And one of our translators popped in at the end of the conversation and confirmed that I was correct.)  Yeah, Russia… I got this!

So, aside from my ever-increasing levels of Russian aptitude, today was a day much like Wednesday.  We started out with singing.  We all sang through our songs, and that was pretty much that.  I love singing… I really miss it.  I need to give myself the gift of voice lessons when I get back to Detroit – I will feel better if my voice is in shape.

After singing was another day of ballet, and weirdly enough, after ballet class, I was less sore than I was than when I went in.  In fact, I might say I was the least sore I’ve been since our first movement class on Tuesday.  So go ballet!  I mean, I still suck at it, but at least it seems to be good for me on some level.

The afternoon brought us back to acting class, which was another good day for teamwork.  It turns out that, collectively, we are relatively good spellers.  We had one spelling game that came down to a clash of the titans between me and Vanessa – the other grad student on the trip.  It was great fun – especially since I did end up winning in the end, but really only on a technicality.  I think the two of us could have done that all day.  And yes… I am bragging about the spelling and ball throwing ability of two graduate students.  But trust me, it is really way cooler than it sounds.

This evening five of our group headed off to St. Petersburg for the weekend, while the rest of us headed to our first show at the MXAT: Зойкина Квартира (Zoyka’s Apartment), which is a play by Mikhail Bulgakov about which I know pretty much nothing.  So we walked into this one totally blind.  It was pretty trippy and difficult to follow, but it was visually and vocally stunning, and I think we figured out most of the major plot points and even maybe some of the more subtle ones, as we discussed it.  It would be impossible to explain this play, but it involved a lot of sex and drugs, dancing and singing, piano playing and paranoia, and a set that was basically a giant rotating cube.  It was unreal.  And there were these people with giant black globes as heads – I decided they were intended to look like those security camera bubbles, to signify that there are these people who are always watching.  Oh… and the costumes and the dancing were kind of the big hit for me.  The costumes were just plain GORGEOUS, and the physical dexterity of these performers is just beyond beyond.  It was a weird evening of theatre, but it was pretty damn cool.

Since half the group is in St. Petersburg, we don’t have class tomorrow… a two-day weekend is a rarity in the Month in Moscow program.  And then we’re going to have Tuesday off for Russia Day… so we’ve got a lot of free time coming, and I’m feeling a little crippled by it.  What to do, what to do!

The View from Above

Number of Steps: 12281

This morning was much like any other morning (though I was awakened by a student 2 minutes before my alarm went off…so she could check the time…which was not my favorite thing, but still, I’m good...I shook it off).  Class this morning was a three hour Russian film history lecture that we shared with the other two groups who are here.  The professor – Галина (Galina) – is as awesome and passionate and scary knowledgeable as she was last year.  She took us through a brief history of Russian politics and then talked us through about the first 3 decades of Russian cinema up to the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917.  We finished the class by watching a few clips, and the one that was by far the biggest hit (this year and last year) was The Cameraman’s Revenge.  Do yourself a favor and click on that link.  It is so very worth the 13 minutes.  It’s done by a guy who is known for being the first Russian animator… it’s basically stop motion that he did with dried bugs.  He was clearly a genius, but he was probably also a super weird dude.

After lunch, we had another day of acting class wherein we did not kill anyone… so it was a big change from yesterday.  But it was a good day for teamwork.  Today I was an iphone that got dropped in a toilet by a toddler.  So that was a good time. 

Classes came to an end and we had an hour before meeting up with our escort to the show for tonight: Демон: вид сверху  (Demon: The View from Above).  This is an amazing piece of visual/performance art that I was lucky enough to see last year too with just a few other grad students…but this year the whole group got to go!  It’s performed in the round in a theatre with three levels of seating, all of which have a railing in front of the row of seats so that you can lean out to look down at the stage in the middle – which, for most of the performance, is lowered below the actual level of the stage by about 2 meters (see what I did there?).  The stage is made up of layers and layers of butcher paper and plastic, and as the show goes on, the performers paint, sculpt, and generally create their way through the entire span of human history in general, and the entire life of one girl in particular…with almost no words.  It’s so damn beautiful and moving and funny and engaging, you hardly know what to do with yourself!  I consider myself all kinds of lucky that I have seen this piece twice!  WOOHOO!

After the show I guided both the Wayne State and the Butler groups back through the metro (turns out I still remember how to do that!) to the dorm and we settled in for the night.  Vanessa (the MFA student on this trip) and I were going to try to catch another show that started at 9:30, but Demon started a little late, and we had to get the rest of the group back, and we weren’t even sure we would be able to get tickets, so sadly, we had to miss it.  But hey… you can’t make it to everything!

PS - you know what's going to make it super easy to sleep tonight?  The insane amount of jackhammering happening on the road below my window.  Yeeeeeehah.

Sing Out, Луиз!*

Number of Steps: 10926

Well… I am sore as hell… let me just get that out of the way.

This morning we tromped down to school for a slightly earlier morning than we’ve had yet for our first singing class with the incomparable Марина (Marina).  I love this woman.  She speaks almost no English, but still manages to communicate so much about singing it’s really amazing.  And boy does she remember me from last year.  I ran into her yesterday, at which point she gave me a big smile and a flurry of happy Russian, and this was only compounded today in class when I got up to sing.  I wasn’t great, but I wasn’t bad, and she noted that I had gotten more confident since last year.  Yeah – she REALLY remembers me from last year.  Then she asked me if I wanted an easy song or a difficult song, so of course I answered a difficult song.  So she gave me “Your Daddy’s Son” from Ragtime.  This is a song I could never actually use anywhere, but it definitely is tough.  Two students sang it last year, and I’m sure I’ll have a good time working on it this year!  It was also a lot of fun hearing everyone else sing.  We really have a good group of voices this year, so I really think this class is going to be a hoot!

After our awesome hour with Marina, we headed over to ballet with Рэнад (Renad), who is some sort of sculpted god.  Seriously, this guy is the very picture of elegance and grace.  And though last year he seemed a little shocked to be dealing with non-dancers, this year he knew what he was getting into, and he really did a great job working us into the basics.  That said… he also beat the living hell out of us.  The adagio sequence nearly killed me.   

After dance class it was another hurried lunch of buckwheat and veggies before meeting to go over our beginning of class etude.  Yesterday we were told to up the stakes, so today we killed a groom at his own reception.  Boom.  This was, of course, a little over the top.  But still, it was a lot of fun.  Then we played a pretty intense game of Mafia – but the added element was that we had to choose a time and place and then create characters for ourselves within those circumstances.  It was a lot of fun, and turned out to be a pretty fascinating acting exercise.  After that we did our first round of object etudes.  I was a G2 pen.  It went alright, but it wasn’t nearly detailed enough.  Ah well.  Better luck next time… if I ever come up with another idea.  Argh!

There was no show to see tonight, so I headed straight back to the dorm and met with JT about possible shows for the group to see for the rest of the month.  It was a lot of fun going through all these theatres, getting an idea of what might be ahead of us.  

*Луиз = Louise

Much Ado About EVERYTHING

Number of Steps: 14673 (and is it possible that they were all stairs?  It sure feels like it.)

I wrote “5 June” in my journal tonight and it just didn’t look right.  How can it only be June 5^th?  We’ve already done so much!  Today was a big one – it started out with our first movement class with my good pal Владимир Ϲажын (Vladimir Sazhin) who proceeded to beat us all to within an inch of our lives!  I tell ya, I’ve never loved someone this much who caused me this much physical anguish!  He’s so damn delightful that you’ll agree when he tells you to do insane things with your body.  And yes, I can still put my feet behind my head, it turns out.

After movement we slogged our way downstairs to the cafeteria for lunch (buckwheat, by the way, still delicious) and then back upstairs to wait for our assistant acting teaching Иля (Ilja – who is a big hit with all the young ladies) to take us over to watch the first year students’ final presentation.  This ended up being a misfire because the tiny room was way too crowded for us, so we ended up having acting class after all.  The first half was extremely successful, but the last exercise was not so much.  We didn’t really follow the directions or each other, so it was kind of an endless churning mess.  But we can’t get ‘em all right…yet.

On our way to our first show!  (Justin knows that Russians love jazz hands)

At any rate, after class we grabbed crepes for dinner and hung out for a bit before I led our group to the Пушкина им. театр (Pushkin Theatre) for our first show of the month: Много Шума из Ничего (Much Ado About Nothing).  I should let you know that, though the landmarks I was given were a block off, I got us there by using another map and by asking directions from some friendly Russian passersby... so go me!  And I successfully retrieved our tickets from the box office!  So DOUBLE go me!)  And let me just tell you… this was the right play for our first outing.  It was great to have a show we were all familiar with so that we could appreciate what they did with it.  I can’t describe everything, obviously, but it was so alive and honest and touching and FUNNY (yes, even in Russian)… it was really magical.  The soundscape of the play was provided by a band that seems to be called Группа W/ (The W Band)… and man, I have a new favorite band.  For some reason, all the songs were in English, so they really worked for us.  Here’s a linkhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtAGtlsC-Xk to a video that was clearly made as some sort of promotion for this show: it’s the song that plays during the masquerade ball… which was AMAZING!   A particular standout for me in this production was Leonato, who was so tender and genuine that he brought me to tears during the wedding that wasn’t.  When Hero collapsed he picked up her limp body and held it in a sort of clumsy way as he wandered about looking totally lost, trying to understand what was happening.  And as they melted together into the floor, the way he clutched at her became more and more violent until he had to be pulled away.  I couldn’t help but sob!   And of course, all the women involved were beautiful skinny Russians who just worked the hell out of their sexy little costumes (as you’ll see in the video), but damn, they were incredible.  And the ending was so intensely satisfying… the stage rotated as they danced at the REAL wedding and we got to see everyone’s ending – down to Borrachio proposing to Margaret and Don John watching from a catwalk high against the back wall of the theatre.  No character was left unresolved.  And the song that played underneath it was so gorgeous I could listen to it over and over.  I was in tears again by the time they came forward for their epic curtain call.  (Curtain calls are different here in Russia… they are a real event in and of themselves!) 

Me outside the Pushkin Theatre with the show poster for one helluva show!

At any rate, it is way too late, and I have an earlier morning tomorrow, so I bid you (my 7 blog readers) good night!  I’m planning on some good dreams tonight (followed by some seriously stiff joints and muscles in the morning!)!