ahhhhh!

Everything is going very well. (Read post right before this for St Petersburg news.)

I'm having to post this from a coffee house close to the dorm because the internet there is, once again, on the blink. So here's a quick (?) run-down on my life at this point in time. We've got today off due to a national holiday (I got 10-11 hours of sleep last night!!!!!!) so I'm spending the day working from here, emailing and blogging.)

My voice teacher transposed my song up an extra step, which is absolutely marvelous because before I was kind of riding that awkward line between upper and lower registers. Although I have finally stopped thinking about them as such. Before, I thought about them as separate things, because I was told that we'd work on my "lower register" which then became a separate entity of my voice. Which is not true. My voice is the same, and it goes up and down, and the voice that I use up high is the voice that I use down low. Which you'd think would be common sense, but is actually a difficult concept to grasp. I'm singing "I Don't Know How to Love Him" from Jesus Christ Superstar. (But if you listen to the recording, it's throaty and lyrically slow... I don't sing it like that...) Also working on my articulation, which is painfully absent, apparently. This lady is brilliant. She pokes and prods and holds your chin and hits the top of your head and makes you meow to get the sound up in your nose. Voice class is entertaining, to say the least. But I'm one of the better singers here, so that's cool. (Thanks to my mother's beautiful vocal chords.)

I'm learning how to do a handstand in Movement, and actually doing pretty well. I'm very bad at doing them slowly-it's easier for me to simply fling myself up against the wall instead of controlling myself... so I'm having to learn how to slow my body down. Not doing so well at my shoulder stand, because slowing down is important for that. Step, next step, next step... Yeah. (My Stage Combat teacher gets after me for the same thing... step, next step, next step... you're not actually defending yourself... it's a class... Only he's not so nice about it.) We're also doing a lot of balancing work with partners. The girls sit on the guys' feet and they lift us in the air (they strengthen their legs and learn to control their muscles, and we learn to balance... and how to fall with grace...) I'll try to describe another one...

Girl's left foot stays planted on the ground. Guy's left foot goes on the right side of girl's planted left foot, and holds on to her right ankle/foot with his hand. Girl stays straight as a board, and he lowers her down using balance, not muscle. He inches his right foot in... And she gets as close to the floor as is humanly possible. It's a lot of fun.

And then simpler ones, like feet together, facing each other. Hold each other's wrists and slowly separate arm's distance. Straight as a board, until you feel weightless. Lower one at a time to the ground, stand up. Lower together. Come back up.

All of the balancing exercises are marvelous. Marvelous marvelous.

Ballet is progressing well. I still get a lot of "No, Marishka, no! No!" Mostly because I have a hard time translating what I did on the right side to the left. Dyslexia? (No worries, Nicole, not to the degree that you have it.) But she loves my high arches, and I'm becoming much more flexible, so I do get some "Yes, Marishinka!" (I'm called either "Marissa," pronounced "Mareesa" or "Marishka" by the majority of Russians. Their language doesn't have an "r" sound in the way that the English language does-they always always roll their "r.")

Russian Language. I purposely avoid talking about this, because I really and truly suck at it. Romance languages, bring it on. Russian... no. Just no. I still stick Spanish words into my Russian sentences, and my English has become much worse as a result. This language just doesn't hold on to my brain, because I have no point of reference for it. There's nothing to compare it do, nothing to connect it with, because I don't even know German. If I lived in Italy, I could possibly learn Italian. If I lived in Spain, I could become fluent in Spanish. But I. Cannot. Learn. Russian. Which is a terrible mentality to have, I suppose, but totally valid. I'll learn it when I get back to the States, and then I can come back here and audition for MXAT. That sounds reasonable. That said, I have learned how to ask for something, how to give directions, how to tell people that I don't speak Russian, how to talk about the weather, how to talk about my family and where I'm from, and a few other both mildly useful and highly amusing things.

Design is wonderful. Intermittent because those classes alternate with Theatre History (which is not my absolutely favorite, but informative and brilliant because it's taught by the head of the school), but I'm in the throes of researching Ivanov not only for my scene, but also because I need to design a set for it. Which is awesome. That and my Theatre History presentations are my task for today, because I have no other time to work on them. And when I say no time, I mean it pretty literally. I know people say that, but I have learned that five minutes is enough time to run down the street and get a cup of coffee in order to stay awake in the next class and make it back with two minutes to find a seat. I will never say that I don't have enough time to do something ever again, except perhaps when I'm attempting to avoid something or someone.

Stage Combat is still fun. We do mostly hand-to-hand combat, well actually all hand-to-hand combat. No weaponry. I've become pretty good, except for those days when my brain isn't turned on (literally, though). Those are the days that he gets upset with me... Because right and left don't make sense and I don't do the Step One, Step Two, Step Three approach when sparring with people. I like to hit people, apparently. Haven't injured anyone yet, though. We all get a few bruises from accidental contact, but nothing serious. I get more bruises from being dropped in Movement and injuring myself during shower seizures.

Acting is still mind-blowing. A lot of concentration and connection exercises, learning how to translate what the other person is saying via tone of voice and learning how to be understood via tone of voice. Learning how to read each others' energy. It sounds like bullshit, but it's legitimate, if you're ready to learn it. We just had a meeting with the State Department (not entirely sure why they were here, but I think to feel out how we're doing in an exchange program in Russia, how we feel about the country and about being here as students) and several of us spoke about the difference between American and Russian theatre training. Russians aren't easy on their students. Both American and Russian programs encourage their students, but American programs have a tendency to say "Oh, you can't do that? That's okay, sit this one out, it's all right," whereas Russians say "Oh, you can't do that? Why not? You should be able to do that." So you learn how to do that. It's not a matter of law suits or invasion of privacy or personal space. It's training. We train the same way that an athlete does, but it spreads over several genres... not sure that's the right word. These performers train body, mind, and soul (aha! my yoga training shows up once again!). And I feel that in myself. I'm growing intellectually and with a sense of more understanding toward myself and other people. I'm slower to anger and frustration, because I know that if I keep going, I'll be able to do what I want to do. And there's no one here to be frustrated with. We all want to spend all of our time working. I've never met people like these people, with a few exceptions from home in New York. I love my people at home (I do. I love you guys.), but it's odd to know that I live in a different space, and you may or may not agree with me but that's the way it seems from this time zone.

So here I go. We've reserved the dorm's rehearsal space to practice movement and ballet exercises, so I'm going to go work on my shoulder stand.

Talk soon.

M