Master and Margarita

Today was a big day here in Москва.  We started off with stage combat - for realsies this time.  He did a lot of heavy partner work with them today - it was all about communicating and responding appropriately.  I really love the way he teaches combat.  It feels so connected to acting.  It's maybe a little more philosophical of an approach than I'm used to in the states, which feels a bit more mechanical.

After combat, we shuffled off to the Stanislavsky house museum, which was a lot of fun.  We got a tour of the small apartment that Stanislavsky and his family lived in for the last 17 years of his life.  It's so funny, because I've toured this place several times now, and I've taken the tours, and I've had to give the tours, and I've been given apocryphal information that was all so romantic and legendary... and a good helping of it actually ended up being debunked today by our friendly neighborhood docent.  But still, she was lovely, I'm glad to have the new information, and I was able to deal with her in Russian and English... so go me.

After the tour, pretty much everyone was voracious, so we headed back for some lunch before our last day of acting with Misha.  It's so strange to have had him just for this one week.  The group has grown so attached to him already.  Of course, I know the awesome that awaits next week when we start up with Sergei... so there's that.  But still, the class was quite amusing today, as they played a round of the game "Mafia"... which always gets super contentious.  But it was a pretty fascinating game to watch from the outside.  There were some other wonderful activities as well that sort of defy description.  But all things considered, it was a pretty great way to end our time with him (I say "our"... but it would definitely be more appropriate to say "their."  Since I was just observing, I'm pretty sure Misha doesn't even know my name.  But whatever... he was still a joy to watch!  I've learned oodles!)

From there, it was dinner before our first show at the Moscow Art Theatre: Мастер и Маргарита - an adaptation of Bulgakov's novel of the same name.  This was my third time seeing it, and it still takes my breath away.  The sheer scope of the scenic effects is enough to knock you off your socks, but the fact that all the big shiny bells and whistles actually serve the play... madness!  The brilliant movement piece that introduces the metro; the buoyantly floating scrim that drops as Margarita flies over Moscow; the subway car; the moon... it's all so delicious.  The group was completely floored.  And yeah... the man who plays Woland (the Satan figure in the play) has got to be about 7 feet tall, and all the Russian man that has ever Russia-ed.  I know it's the cat's name, but the actor playing Woland is a real life behemoth!  We have three teeny tiny pixies on this trip... I would be so thrilled if we could get a picture of any of the three of them with him.

From there, we walked home through the delightfully cool summer evening in a cloud of awesome theatre afterglow.  All in all... not a bad way to end the first week!

18169 Steps
5.74 Miles

Mawwage

...is what bwought us togevvuh... tonight.

But before we got there, we had a sort of strange day.  We arrived at 10:00am for our Stage Combat class... but apparently our teacher got his wires crossed (something you overlook in a fearless beast of a man), so our class was cancelled.  The thing is, we didn't have class again until 2:30... so that meant we had about four hours to kill.  I'm not sure what everyone else did... I mostly did some reading and some journaling, strolled down to Red Square for a few just to pop by and say howdy to ol' Basil, and generally enjoyed the quiet time.  I also spent some time with our awesome MXAT support staff getting some ticket things figured out.  So that's cool.  Acting this afternoon turned out to be a really lovely, moving day.  I can't really do justice to all the magical things that the students did in class today, but it made me really proud and happy to see them commit to the work and each other the way they did.  It was a super special day.  And that's really all I can say about that.

Then, while five folks headed back to the dorm, eight of us hoofed it up to the Lenkom Theatre where we saw Женитьба (Marriage).  This is a production I saw two years ago, and though I don't love the leading lady (she's a little long in the tooth for the role, and a little hammy for my taste, but when you're related to the head of the theatre, well...), the show itself is quite a spectacle.  The use of automation in stages over here is very impressive.  And what may well be most impressive is that the automation is used effectively to progress the plot.  Madness, I know!  The action of the show sort of revolves around this big wardrobe - which rises sideways out of the floor at the top of the show (while a couch revolves from under the stage with an actor on it), and later moves about, flies, etc.  It's pretty impressive.  But there's one point where a whole wall is whirling around like a windmill, mirroring the whirlwind in which Podkolyosin (approximate transliteration) finds himself... it's pretty wow-worthy.  It's definitely a step of from our Twelfth Night the other night... and I just can't even express how much of a step up tomorrow night is going to be!  I love knowing what's in store!  It's so much fun!  Though, we also have a few shows that I don't know, and that is fun too.  I love the chance to discover  these ridiculously awesome pieces!

Sadly... I forgot to wear my pedometer today.  I'm thinking it was 3.75ish miles.  So... we'll say it was that.  I'm really hoping all this walking and eating less will translate to fitting back into my dress for my friend's wedding in July.  See... this trip is inspiring AND practical!

Sweat

9382 Steps
2.96 Miles

Okay... it's always hot in Moscow in June.  It just is.  That's weather.  But man, it has felt just SWELTERING these last couple of days.  I can't seem to not be sweating.  And this is not a city that really embraces the creature comfort of air conditioning all that much.  Certainly not to the level we do in the US.  So I walk to class... and I sweat.  I watch the ballet class... and I sweat.  I sing... and I sweat.  I eat buckwheat and vegetables...and I sweat.  I observe acting class... and I sweat.  I walk home... and I damn sure sweat!  But hey... I also learn a lot.  So stop whining, self!  Geez!

This morning we had ballet again.  I was pleased to see how much the students retained from the first class.  It always makes Renat crazy when we don't retain what he teaches us.  I have faith in this group.  They're working hard!  Then we hopped over to singing class where we started out with our crazy trio... and frankly, for our first time singing it through with accompaniment... we may have been just a little awesome.  I'm very proud of us.  Actually, I'm proud of everyone.  It's so much fun to sing with Marina.  And she has brought a lot of different songs into the mix this year than in the past three.  The biggest surprise, however, was at the end of the class when one of the students started working on a new piece she had been given... and it quickly turned into a group number.  All That Jazz is now some of the most organic singing fun I have ever had!  Go team!

Lunch was uneventful, until the very end when JT swung by to take me over to the administration building to meet the ladies in the offices.  Larissa and Lilina are names I have always seen in email chains, but somehow I managed never to meet them in all my times here.  So it was nice to get a chance to put faces with the names.  And they were very sweet about my Russian - praising me for being able to speak any at all.  And let's face it... who doesn't like a little praise here and there?

Then it was back for acting class, which was a lot of fun today.  They did some activities that are old favorites of mine, as well as an etude in which they had to check a list to see if they got into the university of their choice - and it was up to them whether their name was there or not.  It was interesting to watch the ways in which they dealt with the good/bad news.  The most fun, however, was an etude in which they had to be a bunch of actors waiting to find out which of them had been cast in a film.  It was deliciously awkward!  Then they finished up by drawing pictures of each other and making up stories about them.  Misha does a lot of exercises designed to open up the imagination, and man, are they a lot of fun.  I really look forward to trying some of them with my own students one of these days.  But first I need a job... and before that I need to write the damn dissertation...

Yeah... it always comes back to that.

Anyway, it was a quiet evening around the dorm, and I have been determined to keep myself awake instead of drifting off like I want to.  I feel like tonight will be the one that truly tips the scales into Moscow's time zone.  I just need another hour of consciousness... that's all... I can do that... er... maybe.

Partners

18146 Steps
5.73 Miles

This morning was our first stage combat class, which is always a lot of fun.  The teacher is a fearless beast of a man who is just fascinating to watch.  He introduces every exercise with, "Next pleasure."  He had the group all over the place, doing all kinds of different activities - they were working very hard in there, for sure!  Every now and again, JT, the translator, and I had to relocate to avoid being run over by zealous high-fiving or some other such activity.  After class, I headed up to the Lenkom Theatre to pick up tickets for Marriage for some of us on Friday.  I was supposed to buy eight tickets.  She told me there were 5 for the price we wanted, and 3 for a price 2.5 times the price we wanted to pay.  I told her that was too much money for students, so I would just buy the five.  Then, lo and behold... three more cheaper tickets appeared!  So I felt pretty good about myself on that interaction.  We're in the absolute back rows of the balcony, but we're there!

Then I headed back down to school for a quick lunch before acting class... unfortunately, one of the students thought she had left her cell phone behind at the Starbucks near our dorm that morning, so rather than making her miss any of the class, I did the good den mother thing and made the journey there and back myself.  Thankfully, it turned out to be a successful journey, as the barista had her phone back in the office.  Huzzah!  I did manage to make it back for the second half of class, which largely involved everyone describing how they thought the world would end.  This was fascinating, hilarious, and a little depressing.

Back at the dorm for the night, I hung out quietly while the kiddos went out for dinner.  I had every intention of using that quiet time to my advantage - maybe doing some reading and writing and whatnot, but I'm still just the teensiest bit jet lagged... so I just ended up zonking out until they returned.  <sigh>  Then... well... I zonked out some more. Honestly, I'm getting concerned that, four times in, my blog is now getting a little boring.  The kiddos are always out running around exploring with every spare second they can find, while I just sort of hang out in the dorm, reading and wishing I were writing... I do need to make a point of heading out to a couple of places I haven't seen yet that I know I want to...but I also have to make a point of making some progress on that dissertation monster that keeps breathing down my neck.

Oh... but why the post title?  Well... today's activities were all so partner focused.  It was really neat to hear the continuity in lessons between stage combat and acting class.  The philosophies are so compatible.  I feel like, in the US, a lot of the time our training is so haphazard.  Whatever disparate things these people in this department like are what we'll talk about.  But here, there is such deliberate heritage.  Whether you are telling a painful story from your partner's childhood, or chasing your partner's hands around the room with your knees, the relationship between the partner is paramount.  It's why an audience leans forward in their seats to see what will happen next.  I really loved that little motif for the day.

Doppelganger Day

Steps: 14991
Miles: 4.73 (I don't think this is right though... I feel fairly certain that I covered far more distance)

Today was a big day for me.  Our morning theatre history class was canceled due to the instructor's illness (don't worry folks, Anatoly is fine, and will be back soon!), so pieces of the group headed down to Red Square while I headed to the Pushkin Theatre to secure tickets to Much Ado About Nothing and The Good Person of Sezuan.  I did very well at this particular theatre - negotiating ticket prices, explaining that I couldn't buy tickets to the classic she wanted me to see because we have class at that time, fending off a woman who was randomly trying to sell me an art book in the lobby... I was a machine.  Then I headed out to the Taganka Theatre to get tickets for tonight to Twelfth Night... and somehow managed to forget how to do basic multiplication.  I mean, to the point that I was doing really wrong long form multiplication in front of the box office woman.  Apparently my brain can handle EITHER Russian OR math... and in that moment, I chose Russian all the way.  Of course, the worst part of this is that I'll have to be back at that theatre later in the month for another show... and I know that woman is going to remember me.

Anyway, after all my very sweaty running around, I headed back to the theatre for our afternoon acting class.  So far I find all of his exercises very interesting, but I don't entirely see a through line yet. I'm looking forward to seeing where he takes them next.  Then it was a quick dinner before leading the group through the Metro for our first show of the month!  It was a bit of a risk, because neither JT nor I had seen this show before, the MXAT doesn't usually recommend stuff at the Taganka, and though I've seen some great stuff there... it is also where I saw the worst show I've seen in my four summers here (I say that with confidence that nothing could be worse than their Cripple of Inishmaan).  So I crossed my fingers and hoped that their first experience would be a good one.  And in general, it was!  This was not an earth-shattering production - mostly it was just a lot of fun.  There was great music, Maria was played in drag by a really sizable (and very funny) dude, Malvolio was great, we saw the most vuluptuous Olivia in recorded history, and the biggest monkey wrench was that the same actress played Viola and Sebastian, so there was a lot of goofy on stage/off stage body doubling in the final scene that was clearly the gag on which the entire show was based.  I assured the group that, as charming as this was, and as non-traditional as some of their decisions may have seemed... they just haven't seen anything yet.  This hardly contained the largest changes they were going to see to a script they know.  I really can't wait for them to see more.

But even more odd... today was definitely the day of doppelgangers. I saw Russian Alec Barbour standing at the top of the stairs at my Metro stop.  I saw Russian Amy Holtcamp strolling down Tverskaya.  In Twelfth Night I saw Russian Ryan Bradburn (Andrew Aguecheek) and Russian David Sterritt (Orsino).  And, I saw Russian Nathan Fillion.  Unless it turns out that Nathan Fillion is actually in Moscow right now... in which case... boy was that a missed opportunity!

Well, the night finished off with a little Metro 101 on the much-less-crowded-than-rush-hour Metro on our way home!  And now... there is a bed waiting for me to melt into it.  Here's hoping that sleeping through the night is in my future!  Спокойной ночи, interwebs!

Class Begins

Howdy, friends and family and whoever may accidentally stumble upon this blog!

First things first: I found my pedometer, so it's on!

Today we started out slowly with 11855 steps, which is about 3.74 miles. Woo!

Today we began our classes... and boy, were we off and running!  Our first class was singing, with the irrepressible Марина Смирнова.  She took a little time to get to know everyone's voices, and then passed out songs - this year she has focused largely on group numbers, so there are duets and trios, and a couple of solos.  It should be interesting.  Particularly interesting for me, since I had been planning on only observing the class this year, but instead, because there weren't enough people who could sing harmony, I got rolled into a very complicated trio from the musical Company.  For reference - we have to learn this song in pretty much no spare time at all...gulp.

From there, it was ballet, which I am actually observing.  Ренат didn't suddenly feel moved to drag me to the center of the floor to dance with the class or anything.  Though I did get a Привет (informal, familiar Russian greeting) from him in the hallway.  Yeah... he remembers me.  Which is definitely why he wouldn't pull me up to the center of the floor to dance with the class... but whatever.  At any rate, he seems to have more fun with our group each year, getting a bit more impish each time.  He actually seems to be having fun with us, which is nice, since we are definitely not in his league.

After that was our first day of lunch in the MXAT cafeteria, which is always a good time.  The people who dish up the food see us coming a mile away, and I'm sure they just roll their eyes, but they're always super nice about our pathetic pointing and "пожалуйста" ing (that's "please").  Then, we continued on to our first acting class.  Our usual teacher Сергей is out of town with his Russian students this week, so we had a new fellow today: Миша Милкыс (And no, folks from 2011, this is not our Misha).  This Misha is a youngish fellow who studied under Misha the elder, and he will be spending the week doing Michael Chekhov work with us.  The class felt a little haphazard today, but overall he planted some excellent seeds.  Now, I had originally planned on participating fully in the acting classes instead of observing as I have been in some of the others, but it became obvious pretty early that it would be a lot easier for the teachers to deal with an even number of students, which we have if I don't participate.  So I am observing this class too, which is a little bit of a bummer since this is a new teacher for me, and I haven't done much Chekhov work. But, I am definitely drinking in everything that all of our teachers are doing and saying, and I am taking this as my own personal little pedagogical master class.  So, giddy up, y'all!

After class we headed back to the dorm... and that was pretty much that.  There was a lot of activity on the street this evening - a couple in an argument, a guy playing a trumpet for about an hour or so, and I think even a couple of fireworks over the park.  Nothing fancy... but still just kind of cool.  I spent a lot of time online trying to hunt down shows for the group to see, which is proving a little tougher this summer.  Some of the funding has been cut here recently, which means performances are a little fewer and a little pricier.  But I persevere!  Of course, I let myself get way caught up in that, and stayed up too late, when my jet lagged self should really have been in bed a couple of hours ago.  So I bid the interwebs Спокойной ночи!

Четыре

The sweet card from Brian that I found in my luggage.
Yeah... he's kinda the best.

So... I have arrived in Moscow for the fourth time.  WHAT THE WHAT?!?!  It was a long travel day, but we got through it without any noteworthy events... which is sort of exactly how I like my travel days.  We started off in Detroit with many a tearful goodbye (I am so bad at leaving... which is strange, since I seem to do it so often), connected through Amsterdam with some fairly notable jetlag, and then finally made it to Moscow - all our luggage on hand to greet us!  We were met by our new contact Katya, who loaded us on a bus through Moscow traffic and over to the dorm.  Once here, we got everyone settled for a while before braving the mean streets to do some changing of currency and buying of groceries.  Then a bunch of us hopped over to Corner Burger for a delicious (if a bit pricey) first dinner in Russia.  The servers were super friendly and patient with our limited English... and I'm finding that I'm still able to navigate a lot of conversations with a healthy dose of nodding and gesturing... peppered with key Russian words for effect.  After dinner, we headed back to the dorm for a little orientation, which basically involved me leading the group in a few exercises to prep them for the days ahead, a little Q&A, and then we retreated to the dorms and are currently in the process of turning into exhausted little pumpkins.