Parent and Child

Today I realized I was refraining from writing further until I had a better photograph of a Russian woman dressed head-to-toe in violet, which is a pretty extreme constraint even from a lifelong procrastinator.

But yes: answer to last Blog Bowl was supposed to be purple, but since it has sort of turned into All of the Above. I really wanted to be taking pictures of these zoot-suited women but apparently dressing all in one color and walking fast in the opposite direction of cameras are two skills that come necessarily paired. Buy one get one. Annnnd like many things, sartorial monochromatics have sort of faded into normalcy.

For instance, I finally have discovered the only quiet hours in my home, 5-7AM, and relish chai and kasha and English-language podcasts in the blue light of dawn before the hustle and egg-frying and quotidian movie marathon begin (at which point I return to the hard-but-beloved lofted pallet of mine for another hour or two before class). I am used to walking thirty minutes down puffball-strewn Tverskaya to the Moscow Art Theatre School only to be told that class has been moved to tomorrow, or yesterday, or the day before that (“but I went to that one, and they told me the next one was today…?”). I am used to the beautiful pastel-colored buildings (seasonal depression prevention tactic #1, or so I hear: paint your office building turquoise).  Such is life: what weeks ago held trembling, gape-mouthed fascination is today what I pass and do not smile at, like a hardened local. A tourist’s wonderment is like that of a child, and I guess I’m like eleven or so in traveler’s years—still noticing, but not screaming in delight to the nearest adult at what I find. Cities become cities become cities, with the pushing and the shoving and the foods and the street signs and the people in them we find to love. But it would be nice, I think, if we could always keep our traveler’s age in single digits, allowing for the merriment and gasping and superfluous photography that dwells therein. In turn, as locals, let the visitors stare and snap, and retain the parental calm and understanding and pride.

Church of Christ the Saviour

Church of Chekhov the Saviour (MXAT)

I have a week left (how this has flown!), jam-packed with shows and exams and classes and send-offs, then to Cambridge to get deeper into the meat of all this stuff—interviews, six classes with Droznin a week, Chekhov in the evenings, and laying, at long last, in the grass of the Common. There is, after all, something lovely to be said for the familiar and dear as well.

Zoom Zoom

As a former short-term resident of New York, one whose 40-minute train commute from the UES to Lincoln Center was decidedly a factor in her return to her gas-guzzlin’ NC lifestyle, I must take a moment to express my total wonderment at the Moscow Underground. While I have always really enjoyed the culture and mystique of the molepersons and the different customs and attitudes and the stories that inevitably emerge from our subterreanean interactions, the metro here is Really Something Else.

In the New York metro and the Boston T and the London Tube and every other subway I have ever been into, save the sandwichery, one enters by swiping or inserting a card into an apparatus and rolling through a turnstile. Not so in Moscow. Yes, there are cards, but like the Oystercard, they needn’t be swiped but rather are sensed through pants and purses. You walk through the turnstile-less gate, and in the event that you are not carrying a card, these little doors swing out at knee height and essentially clothesline you, potentially fatally and certainly resulting in a fractured wrist or two as you tumble over the once-invisible gate. So instead of presenting the traveler’s obstacle at the get-go, which can be surmounted for a small fee, the Moscow subway appears free! But then you die because you have tried to violate something very sacred.

And O! Lo! How sacred. After you have gotten in, you ride down the longest, deepest, most absurd escalator you ever thought possible. They were apparently built as bomb shelters (or so the guidebooks say) with special secret tunnels further still underground that could serve as nuclear shelters for a select few. The system of tunnels is completely labyrinthic and confusing—you go up an escalator, then to the left, then to the left again, then down an escalator, then to the right, then up an escalator, etc., to get to your connection. But it doesn’t matter because it is SO BEAUTIFUL. There are guilded sconces, detailed mosaics, busts, bas relief, murals, lighting fixtures that belong in the Biltmore. It’s wild. Even the buskers are more refined, playing beautiful classical pieces on violin instead of yowling or whatever they do in America.

See what I mean? This isn't even one of the pretty ones, and it looks like a fancy hotel.

Get it, man.

And there is cellphone service. Even 38 miles underground or however deep it is. I don’t know how this works, maybe there are transmitters all over the place—creepy, but it’s nice. You can rendezvous on platforms and chat as you ride.

I live where the brown circle intersects with the green. Yesterday the circle was only running one direction-- 'twas a mere forty minutes from where the orange intersects all the way around clockwise. Totally pleasant, save for the MAN MYSTERIOUSLY COVERED IN BLOOD who showed up in my car for a few stops. I've avoided theorizing too much about that one. 

I have also on more than one occasion seen these hugely fluffy (Moscow winter) stray dogs hanging out in the stations (outside the invisible dangerous gates, as they do not have cards) in groups of 3-4. I think this is smart and resourceful of them—holing up in the art gallery listening to violin, free, for once, from the cigarette smoke.

Just headin' home for the night.

Answer to Blog Bowl #3: V. I know. What?

Blog Bowl Question #4: So far I have counted 19 women dressed head to toe in which single color? Hint: it is not a neutral. 

What I Do All Day

Okay guys, this is what I do here in Moscow. Watch stuff like this.

Here's someone failing their second-year object exam at Schukin:

And here are two first-years getting a 4+ (B+) on theirs at MXAT:

This is totally unfair of me because one dude got assigned a yellow ball and those other guys got a massive, sturdy table.

Still, this stuff is REMARKABLE. Object work is generally the second-year course of study in the Russian movement tradition, though MXAT only teaches it with a very light touch (out of the first years, only those two used an object in their exam, whereas each Shukin student was assigned an object [a plate, a cane, a whip, a stool] to interact with as acrobatically and coordinatedly as possible). It's a foundational piece of movement as it aligns with the work of an actor on stage--constantly using props, both hand and furniture, to flesh out character and action. I wish I had videos of the best exams at Schukin-- they were astounding, as it's probably the best object/acrobatics training in the world. 

Also, yesterday marked the halfway point of my time in Moscow. INSANE. Two new American groups have started at MXAT so now I'm in class sixteen hours a week with four instructors instead of six hours a week with two. Feelin' the burn. 

These classes the building blocks that eventually structure exams like the previously posted ones. I'll post another video soon more relevant to what I am learning (they take like two hours to upload... bleghhhh). I feel like the majority of my readership is probably skeptical that someone as uncoordinated as I could ever work towards this type of stuff, but that's the whole thing-- the pedagogical approach is so in tune and individually oriented that they can teach even the least genetically predisposed to move in new and strange and amazing ways.

Answer to Blog Bowl #2: Yogurt-covered things. No lie. You thought you wanted yogurt-covered almonds? THINK AGAIN, SILLY FOREIGNER. Raspberries are pretty expensive too.

Blog Bowl #3: In the Cyrillic alphabet, if C is S, and H is N, then what is B?

Zombie

Back from the dead! Or the gloriously alive, as it were. The weather has been absolutely perfect for the past few days and I can’t stop strolling and eating ice cream (stands literally on every block, men women and children consuming at all hours--this is my kind of place) long enough to blog.

Little park where I go running. That's the actual color of the sky. 

A church on Malaya Dmitrovka being reeeeally pretty.

I’ve spent the last week at Schukin in movement classes, watching more productions, looking in on the Russians’ classes and exams and, at long last, starting Russian language lessons. I’ve gotten a private tutor at the Russian State University for Arts and Humanities (RGGU). She’s very nice and patient with me. I figure that while I’m still trying to prepare for my interviews, do research, and figure out the damn IRB approval (which must be done by post, but much mail that leaves Moscow never makes it to its destination [I lovingly recall the story of Jaki sending a postcard from Bulgaria in July that arrived in North Carolina no earlier than November]), I might as well try to pick up a bit more language so I can navigate a little better. I’m sort of frustrated with myself over how long it’s taking me to get revved up for this component of research—it might not happen until I return to the states—but I’ve got my fingers crossed that I can work it out. It’s also unbelievably difficult to find English-language texts. I need to be learning more about Meyerhold, Vakhtangov, Stanislavski, et cetera, and J.Stor only goes so far. I forget that wonderful, free public and university libraries are a luxury, not a given. That and toilet paper (also scarily scarce).

On the topic of home, one of the most surprising things to me has been the Russian reception of me as a resident of the American south. Most people have no idea where North Carolina is. Which is understandable and fine. The only two places in Russia I could place on a map are Moscow and St. Petersburg; I could probably gesture to Siberia, too, but that’s not exactly a needle in a haystack. But when I explain where it is, what UNC is, and so forth, the most frequent question I get is “are there a lot of racists/ do you know a lot of African Americans/did your grandparents have slaves/ do you live on a plantation?” It sort of blows my mind. Though the percentage of persons of African descent is very low in this city, the fascination coupled with ignorance is substantial. What, as Americans, are we doing to give off the vibe that slavery ended six weeks ago? Am I naïve in thinking we project racial tolerance, or have it at all? I expected to get from the Russians the same negative associations of the south that Americans from other places hold, but could never have anticipated what I got. As someone new to travel, I don’t really know if this happens to southerners often. Is it something we’re doing wrong? Do we need activism or just patience?

Anyway, more soon. Please, please don’t hesitate to call my cell phone (the number’s 8-926-012-33-74; remember, Moscow is 8 hours ahead of EST) or email me at elizphil@email.unc.edu. I love hearing from home and from my fellow travelers.

Answer to Blog Bowl #1: Pigeon fluff! I don’t know what’s up with the Muscovite pigeons. Maybe they are extraordinarily downy from such long and cold winters and just now shedding as it’s warming up, but their little white floaties are ubiquitous, though the pigeons themselves are not so easily spotted. Winner: Monica Byrne for “nuclear fallout.”

Blog Bowl #2: What is the singlemost overpriced (/“valuable”) item in your typical corner grocery store? Hint: not caviar and definitely not vodka. Ice cream, FYI, is about US75¢.