It's already Thursday?!

So, I typed up a blog this morning, but apparently it didn't save. So, here I go again...I'll go until I feel like I'm going to fall asleep at the keyboard.

Let's see...Sunday...a few of us went to this marketplace where you could haggle for lower prices. I got a Russia Soccer (Football) shirt. Real cool. That's about it. It was a very interesting place with lots of shops and many different smells of bread, gyros, and old clothes. ha ha. We saw Swan Lake at the Stanislavski Opera House that night also. Beautiful Theatre. Marianna said that it was the "treasuer of our country." This sounds cheezy, but it the only word I can think of to describe the show is "magical." The elaborate sets including the forest with the lake backdrop, the elegant palace ballroom in the second act, and back to the lake/forest in the third. Unbelievable. The costumes were also very elaborate with very sparkly jewelry for the queens and vivacious colors for the others. The swans were of course white. I loved being able to see something that wasn't the conventional theatre that we've been seeing. The dancing was absolutely phenomenal. The lifts between the prince and the swan were so amazing to watch, and I wish I could do some of them...well, I can do one of them - where the girl is arching back and the guy has her over his head. A friend and I were goofing around and doing it and it was sweet. I also really enojoyed how much emotion and storytelling can be visible through movement. As you can probably tell from my other blogs, theatre movement is something I'm very interested in. Seeing a ballet - in Moscow, where it's so important to the culture, was just so surreal...just like the rest of this trip. Danielle and Katherine - you would loved it.

As I said in a previous blog, our ballet instructor was a prima ballerina at the Bolshoi Theatre in the 60's. She toured all over the world also. One of the roles she had was the swan in Swan Lake. Apparently, there was this ballerina sculpture that every little girl had in the 60's/70's...well, the model for this sculpture was my instructor, Larissa. How crazy is that?! So cool.

Ballet Monday was good, we were kind of off because we got kicked out of the room because they double booked it, so we had to transfer to a different one. When Larissa was showing us how to do something in the new rehearsal hall, she tripped on the a giant piece of tape on the floor and fell...honestly, it was like watching an angel fall because she's the most graceful, beautiful, happy human being I've ever met. But she was fine. Yesterday she had her wrist wrapped, but she said she was fine. We learned a new dance - a gypsy dance; it's pretty cool. There's a lot of knees bends, twisting, hips, and claps. So energetic and fun though. It's nice to be able to do different kinds of dances to see how versatile you really are.

We saw this show called KI on Monday which was AMAZING. It was pretty much a one woman show, but also with three children. It was a poor, homeless mother who sold her children for prostitution to pay for food. It was the saddest story, but so beautfiul in portrayal. It started off with the audience in the lobby and she would come up to us and talk to us individually...very audience oriented, a lot of audience interation. Eventually we made it into the theatre and some of us sat on the stage at a long table and the rest sat in the rake-seated audience. It was a small studio theatre. The tears this woman emitted, along with the emotion was incredible. The children were also extremely believable. I believed and felt for the poor unfortunate family. Terrific show. After the show, we asked someone if she would meet with us, and SHE DID. She was so excited to meet us (there was only 8 of us) and so happy to talk to us. She told us about how the process with the director was that she would come into the rehearsal at a level of zero and build from there because from starting at neutral you can have higher or lower emotional states, it's easier to get there an doesn't affect you as much as a human being. She told us that when on stage we are in a plane and we are the pilot, we control what we want to do and where we want to go. And most importantly, to be ourselves. It was so cool to be able to talk to the woman who wowed us for an hour and a half and give us advice. She had played this role for 14 YEARS and even toured around the world with it. crazy.

Acting classes are going well. My etudes, as well as everyone elses' individual and group ones, are going a lot better. You don't really realize what you've learned until you sit and think about where you came in at. It's pretty sweet how all of our creative energies are flowing together and making such great work altgother. It's really inspiring because ensemble work is obviously extremely important, and improv is pretty difficult. So, being able to live in the moment as if it happening for the first time, while making it up -great.

Movement - we've been doing a lot of partner balancing exercises. It seems kind of acrobatic, but the benefits are in spatial awareness, weight placement, trust-all of which are important to the stage. One of the exercises is where one person is sitting in a chair and another stands on their thighs above their knees and then the person stands up and the both lean back. Might sound confusing, but I have pictures, so cool, but you must work together or else you will fall.

Tonight we had a tour of the Moscow Art Theatre and the history of it. We kind of knew a lot of it already, but it was pretty cool. I got a picture next to the seat that Stanislavski always used to sit in when he came to the theatre. So exciting. (I know, I'm a nerd.) Also there is a sort of museum dedicated to the MXAT. It had old costumes, set designs, props, etc. from when Stanislavski and Chekhov were in shows there. We got to go into Stanislavski's dressing room. His make-up was there as well as the wig he wore in Ivanov. So cool.

A few of us went on an adventure with the translator, Dasha, who's 22, afterward. We traveled off of Traskiya and onto side streets and she gave us a little mini tour of houses, churches, and a beautiful park with a pond. It was really nice to see Moscow outside of the one big busy street I go down everyday. We then went to the American Bar and Grill. Oh yeah. We wanted to see what their take on America would be...the theme was Wild West with lassos, cowboy boots, saddles - right up my alley. BEST hamburger I think I've ever had. I of course got a hamburger and fries and we splite a pitcher of a Russian beer called Sibitskya - kind of tasted like Miller Lite. It was such a fun atmosphere and we just had a great time relaxing, talking, not having to worry about anything. It was really nice and much needed.

This morning I woke up for class at 7 and left at 8 even though I didn't have class until 10 (it takes 30 mins. to walk to class from the dorms). I went to Primestar - the cafe across the street from the American Studio and got a cappuccino, sat on the patio, and wrote in my journal. It was so peaceful, relaxing, and calm, and such a perfect way to start my day. Apparently there's the park Beth wants to take me to tomorrow morning before class because I am definitely doing this the next week.

Can you believe it? It's already been 3 weeks! I will be leaving in 10 days...9 days tomorrow! Craziness! I feel like time doesn't exist here because it goes by so fast! Tomorrow night we leave for St. Petersburg. We're taking a train through the night and arriving in the morning. I'm excited because I've never taken a train before. I'm totally going to feel like I'm in some old black and white film like Casablanca or something. So cool. We have our weekend filled with tourist stuff and shows, sleeping in a hostel Saturday night, more tourist stuff and shows on Sunday, and then taking the train back on Sunday night to continue classes Monday afternoon. Crazy, but probably amazing weekend ahead of me.

I should get going because I'm real exhausted. By the way - to those who have left me comment, I'm sorry I haven't figured out how to respond to them yet. ha ha. I appreciate the comments, I just don't know how to reply back. oops. Anyway, have a great night. Paris = T - 9 days! ahh. Love and Miss you all! Peace.