Vacation this weekend!

So. Hope you enjoyed the super long blog from last night. :) Today started off great. I woke up early, made my normal scrambled eggs. Then Monique, Beth, Kennikki, and I headed over to class two hours early so we could grab a coffee a chill. So, we went to this park on Traskya with a beautiful fountain and benches and sat there and talked and relaxed for about an hour before we had to go to class. It was such a nice way to start the day because it gets you in your own groove and your relaxed and ready for the day.

We had Theatre History with Anatoly Smeliansky today. Brilliant man. He gave us the history of Stanislavsky, Meyerhold, and Chekhov, as well as a lot of other important historical facts. Very interesting.

We had our Chekhov class next. We're working on the beginnings of psychological gestures. So, we had a partner and had to sit opposite of them. Then you had to sculpt them into something that you thought represented them. (My partner was Matt. I had one hand on his heart and the other being held out, standing ina relaxed state, with a smile and a head a little tilted forward as if to nod.) We then had to name them and they had to complete gesture. I named him "heartfelt helper." The sculture, by the way, had to be something that we thought defined this person. He completed the gesture by grabbing his heart and holding it out. Exactly what I was thinking. So cool. He did me next. He molded me into sitting on the edge of my seat with my hands/fingers curled on the seat in between my knees, leaning forward with the biggest smile on my face and my eyes kind of squinting out of excitement. He named me "joyful loyalty." I completed the gesture by shooting out of my seat and bowing down.

Psychological gestures are gestures that are added to text to help get the meaning of the words. Sometimes you use them in a show, sometimes you just use them in rehearsal to get a beter understanding and feel for what you are saying so that you are saying it with meaning. Then, once on stage, you have these feelings in your muscle memory and you are able to say it all truthfully and be living in the moment.

Next was acting class. We did more etudes. We're now onto doing etudes from "The Seagull" by Anton Chekhov - both group and individually. They're really helpful by watching,and being a part of, because they help answer questions that may not have been fully looked into before and help with the understanding of the play and certain characters and situations.

In three and half hours (11:30pm) we're heading off to St. Petersburg. I'm really excited for that. That should be an amazing time. Lots of pictures I'm sure. I've already taken over 200 on this trip! Get ready to see many many pictures when I get back! I'll be back in Moscow on Monday morning, and then back to my schedule until Saturday. Then it's done. CRAZY!

Gotta go eat and pack! Peace!