We're On a Boat! (That's a pop culture reference, right?)

Number of Steps: 20057 (6.33 mi)

This morning I woke up at 6:30 am to head over to Starbucks for a 7:00am skype date with my parents…only to discover that Starbucks doesn’t open until 8:00 on Sundays.  BLARGH.  So, I headed back to the dorm to attempt skyping, but the connection there is lousy, so we decided to wait until 8:00 (10:00pm their time).  Long story short: I could have slept an extra hour on my one day off.  Oh well.  It was really good to talk to my parents once we finally got around to it.

At 10:00 most of the group gathered to head off to the Moscow river for a two hour boat right that was just plain lovely.  There were snacks and beer and JT had his leisurely cigar…and we were blissful in our complete lack of any sort of responsibility for those two hours.  It was a really nice way to spend a morning.   

I have this same picture from last year.  Hooray for boats, beer and beautiful cathedrals!

Then I hopped back on the metro in my den mother/cruise director capacity to grab some tickets for a few of us to see Three Sisters at the Современник (Sovremenik – which means “contemporary”) tonight.  The woman in the box office was not nearly so pleasant as my friend at the Taganka, but I was still successful – returning with tickets that were HALF the price of what the website said was available.  Take that, interwebs!

Then it was back to the dorm for a little down time before the show.  I probably should have done some actual work or something, but I just couldn’t quite motivate any brain activity, so I tried to nap, I played stupid card games…and then it was time to meet up for the show.  So we trucked back over to the theatre – running a little behind schedule, but we made it.  It ended up being a really straightforward, but really lovely show.  I knew the story enough and recognized enough words to really understand most of the show (and speaking of recognizing words, I definitely gave a Russian woman directions to the theatre when I heard her asking for directions outside of the metro station…do I get my Russian citizenship yet?)  It was performed on a raked stage that was also a turntable, so there were some really cool effects, and there was a huge bridge that arched over the front of the stage that they used very well for a lot of the heightened moments of the play.  It was a very romantic, very “Russian” interpretation of the play, and I really dug it.  On our way out, a young woman and her mother introduced themselves to us – they said we were pretty obviously American, and they just wanted to chat, welcome us, see how we liked the show, etc.  Super sweet people!  It was one of many such encounters that many of us have been having this year.  Just another reason we all want to just go ahead and stay.

Then it was back on the metro and back to the dorm for some vodka and blogging.  Note: our freezer is stupid cold…my vodka was actually SOLID.  How often do you have to thaw your booze?

Long story short…today was a good day, and I look forward to my attitude improving throughout the week.  Now it’s back to studying videos of my niece being adorable in preparation for my etude.  Life is hard.

What Day Is It?

Number of Steps: 12888 (3.97 mi)

Today was our first movement class in a week and a half…and damn…it hurt so good.  I spent the morning with my feet behind my head, or balancing all my weight on one shoulder, or sharing my weight with a partner while standing on a chair… I’m totally out of shape, but if I could just do Vladimir’s class every day, I’d be happy!  He makes me feel like I might die, but also like I might be able to do anything…which is one helluva combination!

After that we had a super long lunch, so I ran back to the Taganka theatre to grab two extra tickets to Marat/Sade…which I’ll touch on later.  But it was the same woman in the box office today as yesterday, so she laughed when she saw me, we chatted in Russian (see?  I’m so damn Russian!)  about how now everyone wants to come see the show, and how I’m studying at the MXAT and isn’t that cool… go team me and the ticket lady!

Our acting class today was not our best.  Our etude was not very successful, and we did another music vision quest…which is really not my bag.  But on our concentration parts of the class I was really on today…so I was frustrated when we were told that we were off.  Grr… ah well.  It’s that second week slump I warned everyone about.  It’s not new anymore…and we have been doing this…and we will keep doing this… and we’re all a little exhausted.  But next week we’re going to rock the socks off of this place, and then the following week it’s the last week!  WHAT!?!?

We did finish up class with partner animal etudes, which was a lot of fun.  For mine, I was my darling kitty Chloe, and one of the other girls in the group was my darling (but oh so stupid) kitten Tilly.  It went pretty well.  Oh… and we have each been secretly assigned a member of the group who we are to observe and create an etude around for Wednesday.  This should be fascinating.  More on this later, I’m sure.

We had an hour for dinner after class before hopping on the metro back to the Tangaka (my third time in two days).  It was an hour and a half… and the show was so fun and physical!  But the woman who played the lead… well… what can you say but HOLY CRAP!  Can she sing?  Yup.  Can she tap dance?  Yup.  Can she walk across a surface that lies somewhere between balance beam and tight rope?  Yup.  Can she play the violin?  Yup.  Can she play someone else’s violin too?  Yup.  Can she do acrobatics and tumbling?  Yup.  Can she play a horn while lying on her back and being carried by two giant dudes over their heads?  Yup.  I mean… seriously… I was waiting for her to knit a sweater with her eyebrow!  She was ridiculous!

Then we came back to the dorm and pretty much everyone in the world went out for a night on the town…except me…because I’m the den mother.  But I did have a wee bit o’ vodka and grapefruit juice while I blogged… so there ya go.

Grouchy McGrumpyPants(skaya)

Number of steps: 16080 (5.08 mi)

Today hasn’t been the greatest day.  I considered not blogging because I was in such a bad mood.  But no… I will soldier on through the inter-tubes to bring the seven and a half of you who read this blog your eagerly awaited update.

So, I didn’t have singing this morning since I had it on Wednesday, so I had a slightly later start than usual, which was kinda nice.  Then we headed upstairs for what was listed on our schedule as our one stage combat class.  Cool!  Instead of ballet.  Double cool!  Oh wait, never mind… it turned out we were just observing NIU’s stage combat class because it was important that they “continue to move forward.”  The Butler group got an alternate movement class instead of ballet… and we sat on our asses watching Illinois students have an awesome stage combat class.  Things I learned from this event: 1) MXAT stage combat involves way more actual contact than the combat we generally learn in the States.  2) I can successfully act like things that piss me off are perfectly reasonable for the benefit of the group. (I'm fairly confident that no one on this trip reads my blog... so my brave face is still in place.)

We weren’t told when the class would end… and it looked like it was going past our usual 1:00 end time, so I ducked out and headed out to find the Taganka theatre so that I could get us tickets for Marat/Sade tomorrow night – despite the fact that most of the group had not yet responded to my request that they tell me if they’re interested in tickets. (sigh…grumble grumble)  Anyway, I hopped on the metro, found the theatre with no trouble, managed to communicate with the woman at the box office to successfully purchase 8 tickets for 100 rubles each (that’s about 3 bucks - yeehah!) and then rushed back to the MXAT for class.  (I had time to shove a cherry crepe down my throat AND to find out that three other people were interested in tickets to Marat/Sade…so guess what I’m doing on Lunch tomorrow.)  Anyway, our beginning-of-class etude today was not one of our more successful ones, but that was okay – there were still good things about it and things to learn from it, so no worries.  Then, we did this exercise where we listened to a piece of music and then Ilja (Sergei’s assistant teacher - beloved by undergrad women of every nationality) led us through this envisioning exercise that really didn’t work for me in the mental space where I was at the moment, so I just kept getting grouchier from my residual grouchiness.  Our training went fine for the day, and another day of animal etudes made me feel a little better too, but I really did have a hard time making it through today with anything resembling a positive attitude.  Then I had to hang around for an hour and a half waiting for Will Call to open so that I could collect our tickets for The Master and Margarita… and give it to someone else.  Because there are so many people here, they could only get ten tickets for us tonight, so I bowed out, since I had seen the show last year (not that I didn’t want to see it again… I REALLY did… but I was gracious and mature and all that crap.  Whatever.)  So they finally opened the will call half an hour before the show (REALLY?).  I did manage to figure out that a woman who came and spoke to us while we were waiting for the tickets was trying to scalp some tickets to the show… so that was another moment of Russian triumph for me.  I should have asked what her price was.  But oh well.  Anyway, once I finally got the ticket, I explained what it was going to be like to be shoehorned in to the sold-out show, and I headed back to the dorm where I did my insanely expensive load of laundry (it costs about $10 to get a card that works three times (a wash, a dry and a wash?).  So I just washed and then decided to air dry.  Maybe someone else in the group will give me 100 rubles for a wash.  <shrug>  But hey… at least I have some clean clothes moving into the second half of the month.  Woohoo!  I then spent the evening with some work and some extremely mediocre vodka in a very pretty bottle.  But hey… tomorrow I have movement class, and tomorrow night I’m seeing a show… so tomorrow will be a better day!

In other news… I’ve decided that I could probably get a grant to come back here to study contemporary Russian women playwrights…  so there’s something to toss onto my to-do list!

Hail the Mighty Sloth!

Number of Steps: 13271 (4.19 mi)

So this morning was another three hour film history lecture in which she breezed through all kinds of different people and films (including an awesomely horrifying “look how great Stalin is” ending to a film from 1949) in order to get us to watch a full film called The Cranes are Flying.  We watched it last year too, but it’s still crazy beautiful.  Unfortunately, we didn’t finish it… so we have to wait a week for the last 20 minutes!  I feel bad for all the people who don’t yet know the end!

After lunch it was back to acting, with a mildly successful etude about an audition.  As usual, we’ve got good specific characters and a good atmosphere, but we’re still circling the idea of a successful event.  Then we had another pretty strong day where teamwork is concerned, though I think it took us a while to get our focus today.  OH!  And one of the games we played was particularly difficult for me… because it was a game in which we had to mill around and the two people who were killers would wink at someone to kill them.  For those of you who are aware of my bizarre winking tic, this proved to be difficult for me.  In fact, I’m winking right now as I type about it.  Trust me folks, it ain’t easy being this neurotic.  And, as my big finish, I was a three-toed sloth crossing the road.  Revel in my inspiration!

We don’t have a show tonight, so some of us went down the block to what turned out to be a GREAT little vegetarian restaurant called Avocado.  It’s a little pricy for the portion size, but it was so flavorful and yummy!  They’ve got a pretty cheap lunch deal, AND they’ve got a bunch of cocktails with fresh juices that I fully plan on partaking in at a later date.  Then most of the group headed to the mall, so I came back to the dorm, grabbed some groceries and settled in for the night. 

Trolls and Mosquitos

Number of Steps: 13660 (4.31 mi)

This morning we had singing with Marina, which was fun, as always.  She’s such a character!  And, aside from the last few bars, I made some real progress on my song, which always feels good.  After that we had ballet…which did NOT go well today.  The combinations he gave us were much more complicated, and he spent even less time explaining them than usual.  There was one combination that was extremely difficult, and he never explained it, and then he’d make us do it despite the fact that we looked completely confused… and then he’d mock and chastise us for doing it wrong.  If I screw up because I screw up, that’s on me.  But if I screw up because you refuse to teach me, then we have an issue.  I was grouchy all through the rest of class (and so was he… he really doesn’t like teaching this class…it oozes out of his elegant and beautifully sculpted pores how much he dislikes us) and then all through lunch, and I was really worried it was going to carry over into acting class, but luckily I was able to shake it as we practiced our etude – which today involved a high school house party interrupted by parents.  It was a good time.  All in all, our teamwork was really on in class today – we were very ensemble-minded today.  I’m very proud of the work we did today.  And my work as a mosquito was quite moving, let me tell you!  I have never had that many people that glad to see me pretend to be killed.  Of course, this particular etude was very close to my heart, since I’ve been having these epic battles with mosquitos the last few nights.  One will buzz in my ear as I’m trying to sleep, so then I turn on the lights to try to find it.  If I can’t, then with the lights still on, I lie down… a decoy for the mosquito.  When it inevitably comes to buzz in my ear, I stalk it until I am able to swat that little bastard down.  This has, for the last few nights, been a process that takes me to about 2:00 in the morning.  Here’s hoping I have exorcised the demons through my etude today.

At any rate, after class we headed to the Lenkom theatre for a performance of Пер Гюнт (Peer Gynt)…now I know what you’re thinking (if you happen to be someone who knows a little something about Peer Gynt): “aren’t you still at the theatre?”  Yeah… Peer Gynt is notoriously long and cumbersome, which is why no one ever does it.  But this production clocked in at a brisk and lively 2 hours and 15 minutes long!  The set was very dynamic – moving all over the place, changing all the time.  The choreography was amazing!  There was a fight sequence done with a bunch of long planks of wood that was breathtaking…and the battle with the trolls… DAMN!  And there were these crazy people in red tubes… it was really pretty remarkable.  The physical control these actors have is staggering.  And, as an added bonus, it featured Russian Traysie Amick and Russian Matthew Merritt.  (I forgot to note earlier that the production of Marriage that I saw here on Sunday also featured this same Russian Traysie Amick, as well as Russian Robert Linder.  So all the doppelgangers work at this theatre!)  I am delighted that watching Peer Gynt was not only painless, but downright pleasurable!  I would venture to state that not many people can say that!  

Russia Day

I barely moved today… so no pedometer

Today is Russia Day – basically Fourth of July for Russia.  Big day, right?  Classes were cancelled, so we had the whole day to ourselves.  Lots of celebrating and parades and fireworks…right?  Well… kinda.  I mean, there were certainly state sponsored festivities, but with all the unrest over the current political situation, we were pretty much advised to steer clear of any and all events.  It ended up raining most of the day too, so it turned out to be a good day to stick around the dorm.  I read most of the day, had a meeting with JT and Vanessa (the other grad student) where we ate chips, drank beer, and talked about theatre – pretty much awesome.  Then we had our weekly potluck… and I have to say, it was impressive.  Today, in celebration of Russian Independence Day, Justin made the most American thing he could muster: Apple pie.  And Liz (one of our Canadians) made a pasta casserole thing.  Very fancy.  (Sara wanted you to see her cheese as well.  It was good cheese.)   

Happy Russia Day from our ambitious chefs!

We had a good discussion about the theatre we’ve seen so far and the theatre we are planning to see, we chatted about our etudes for tomorrow, and we pretty much did our own thing for the rest of the evening.  We’ve had it pretty easy for the last few days, but for the next 18 days…things are about to get sort of non-stop.  It’s go time!

18! Seriously!

Number of Steps: 8939

Today things got started a little late because we needed to give the St. Petersburg folks some time to get their feet under them, as they arrived back in Moscow via night train, rolling into the dorms at 10:30 this morning.  So we had the second of our AWESOME theatre history lectures today at 1:00 instead of the customary 11:30.  It was a wonderful, heartfelt lecture that ended far too soon, followed by an acting class that started a little late and ended a little early for a variety of reasons.  But we did have a fairly good teamwork day, and we did our partner etudes (Daniel and I were water wings – you know those floaties that kids wear? – it was really fun).  Then half of the group went to the Satirikon theatre to have their minds blown by their production of The Seagull (I’ll be going to see that with the other half of the group on the 30^th – our last night in town…this is the best possible thing I could think of to be what I do on my last night in Moscow).  The rest of us hung around the school until 7:00 when we went to an encore performance of the showcase of the first year MXAT students.  It was three hours of their self-selected best etude work from the year – and it was extraordinary.  First, it took me a few pieces to get used to how young they were.  Then, later I found myself reflecting on how old they seemed.  These 18-year-olds from all over Russia were fascinating to watch.  And, I happened to sit next to our translator, so every now and then she would lean over and explain something to me, which was an excellent bonus!  The evening was mostly monologues with a couple of dialogues interspersed, and they looked like they were probably based largely on observation etudes – characters they had built by observing people around them.  There were even a few cultural references - like Joan Jett, the Lady Marmalade number, Sid Visius and a truly fantastic Prince.  I'll admit, it was comforting to hear a little English in those little bursts throughout the evening, and not to feel like a complete outsider the whole time.  With those - we were in on the joke!  But regardless of the language barrier, there was so much energy, commitment, and above all SPECIFICITY to each character done by these 18-year-olds (yes, I know I repeated that... I just can't get over it).  I think probably the thing I am noting the most this time around is that attention to detail that is at the heart of the Russian theatre.  There is no room for generalization in the Russian theatre – you must always be more specific and more specific.  Ask another question, dig a little deeper.  I think it’s that attention to detail that is the key ingredient that not only makes what they do so compelling, but that could most readily be brought back to work in the US.  I have heard a few of the kids on this trip, after they see a piece of amazing theatre, sounding a little despondent.  They ask themselves why we even bother when there is work on this level happening out there, and we’ll never achieve it.  And my answer is that we bother because we are moved by the same impulses as these artists we’re sitting here revering, and it’s our privilege now to bring back whatever little glimmers we can of the things we experience here and put them to work in our own world.  So there’s my challenge to myself as I move into my third year at Wayne: increase my eye for detail, increase my aptitude for specificity, never accept the easy answer unless it generates more active questions.