14/12

Today was a beautiful Sunday. I woke up and went Ice skating at Red square. It was beautiful ice skating while it snowed in moscow, I love skating any where but in with Saint-Basils on one side, the Kremlin on the other and in between them Lenin, it was absolutly incredible. We then went and warmed up with some mulled wine and Hannah and I went shoping!!!!! I didn't find what I wanted yet but I have a few more places to look so I'm sure I will find something very Moscow chic. I start finals tomorrow and I'm up to late as it is. I will be home sooner then I can imagine.
love you all,
Kirsten

8/12

Another quick update...

work work work! Got to love it. It is going well we started classes today at 9am instead of10 and we have rehearsal every night!!!!!

Love you
Kirsten

4/12

a quick update...

I saw an amazing show last night. King Lear done by the same person who did Richard III and Hamlet, and now it is tied with Hamlet as my favorite show I have seen it was amazing. What I loved so much about it was that every charater was good and bad and their own person. Typically some of the charcters especially the sisters, yet everyone had their individual history. I aslo really liked that all of the sisters were close and loved eachother and their father. I made their deaths so powerful. The end was so powerful they had three piano's and each sister was sitting at the stool huched over. Then Lear walked over and tried to lift each one up yet they kept slumping over on the keys and falling off the stools and no matter how hard he tried he couldn't keep them up.

Everything else is going well. I'm working so hard. My body is falling apart I have a twisted ankle bumb knee, pulled, hamstring and almost useless arms, at the moment. I really hope I pull myself together- although I did three back bends by myself today it felt really goos because I have'nt been able to do it. otherwise just working and trying to see all of the things I want to see. I'm ready to sleep for days but will be unable to... hopefully I have the engery t opush through the next to weeks. Thats my biggest challenge pushing through my tiredness. I love every moment still.
Love you all
Kirsten

1/12

Oh my gosh its December! We have so much to do. We have 16 days until finals!!!!! I'm not ready yet. Everything here is going well, minus the pain and torture that our teachers are putting us through to be ready for our final. Sunday night we went to the State circus and I left half way through their is only one other show I have done that with while I've been here. It was a draining experience. The animals were very thin and looked heart broken. Some of the handlers were nice but some of them were harsh even infront of people. The "actors" had less energy then we did falling asleep in our seats. Their smiles were forced and they messed up quite a bit. The kids aroud us seemed to enjoy it but it was not something I enjoyed.
Last night we went to the Ballet "Giselle" at the Stanislavsky Opera House. It was better then we expected. The Prima was not my favorite she kept falling out of her turns, she made very jerky movements, her arms were akward and her acting was awefull even for a ballet. the Primo was alright but he as well was trying to hard and his movements were forced. their were two amazing dancers though a young boy about 15 who did a solo and the angel. The Peasent boy was an incredible jumper, he litterally floated and his beats on his jumps were very precise and clean. The Angel was spot on. Everything she did was graceful prestine and graceful; I was suprised that she wasn't the lead because she was clearly a better dancer. I enjoyed it though.
I am as aways just pushing through trying to survive the week but I'm tired, I get to sleep in tomorrow though I'm incredibly excited but I still have all sorts of work to do tonight and I have a paper due saturday and another one monday. Always something else to do. Rehearsal for each preformance have gone up to every night so even though I have finished classes I have much more work to do. I love you all and will be home sooner then you think
Love
Kirsten

29/11

It has been a while since I wrote, its been a hecktic week. Finals are coming up and all of us are just trying to survive. I had a bit of a bipolar week. While my acting is going really well and I feel like I'm really getting some where in my class I had a really hard event happen this week.
On Wednesday I went to get out money and I couldn't find my bank card. I came home and looked on line and found out it had been stolen on Monday and I had lost $660. We figured out that it was most likely either while I was in class from the american studio or while I was in the dorm in someone elses room. I called my bank and hopefully the money will be replaced, the hard thing is that it was most likely another student american or russian because they are the only people who have access to those spaces. I also am without money because my bank can't send me a card in russia so I have to figure out how to wire money, which I am working on. Hopefully everything will work out.
Thankgiving on the other hand was really fun. My friends Kenya, Lizzie and I started cooking at 12:30 and cooked until 6:30. We cooked meat and mash potatoes for 50 people. Turkeys aren't available in Russia except from the US Embassy and we are poor college students we can't afford that. But we had a magnificent roast and Kenya being from the south made fried chicken which was unbelievable. I made the mash potatoes and apple crisp (thanks Libby!). Everyone else brought salads and side dishes. We had wine and apple cidar and all sat and talked and were together. Even Tolya came. He made a beautiful toast to our freedom as a country and our freedom as people, every time he speaks he amaze me at the depth of his passion.
Friday night was very emotionally charged for me. We saw a play called "the Pillowman" it was literally brilliant but it was one of the most horrific moments of my life. The acting was brilliant even in Russian it translated completley. The story of the play is hard in itself; an author who writes murder stories about children and all the stories are coming true and they suspect him. He has a younger disabled brother who they are holding to get answers out him. You find out the brother is disabled because he was tortured by their parents as a child for an experiment. the play contiues torture, brutal, muders and death, I don't want to give a way what happens but it something that everyone should see, but it shook me to my core. It was amazing theater, one of my favorite pieces ever; I loved it and wanted to run out of the theater. It is exactly what I think theater should do.
Time is slowly slipping through my fingers and I'm trying to get as much done as I can with the little time I have left. I love you all and will be home soon,
Love
Kirsten

23/11

This weekend has been very filled with theater. Saturday night we went to see the cherry Orchard at MXT. It was good, the woman who played Charlotta was good and the two daughters but the lead was weak and some of the charcters weren't well developed. The stage though was really neat. When we took a tour fo the stage we saw them putting up this production. The way it works is on some kind of incredible mechanical device they put pieces of the curtain. When it is closed it looks like one piece of fabric. It then opens like a book and the pieces of curtaincan move and change to create different looks. The stage is also rotating so furniter and people move in and out very fluidly. Toight we saw Wvocheck the Opera at the Bloshoi and I have to say I was a bit disapointed. The set was also amazing it was a full bar that transitioned to 9 square apartments. The set was changed by moving panals like a square iris focusing. The singing was ok although the lead was from america, Russians aren't nessarily know for their singing. the good parts were I could read a few of the subtitles, the pit was filled with emotion they were amazing, and it was a dress rehearsal so we entered through the stage door and walked through the dressing rooms and stage to reach our amazing seats. Otherwise I've just been working really hard. My body is still sore and about to get more sore this week but we can't stop we have so little time left. We went to a flee market today to buy presents and I was very proud of my hagling skills. Hopefully you all like what I bring back.
Love
Kirsten

19/11

Last night I saw an unbelivable production by the same director who di Daemon called Opus 7. It was a two part show. The first was about the directors family, his heritage and there disaperence durring the Holocaust. It was done through a Chorus singing different songs while moving and forming different parts of the history. My favorite part was they took buckets of paint and threw them on the cardboardwall and from the splatter they created the Jews. They then took a knife and cut around the upper half of their body. They were then backlit as the paintings had a glowing circle of light around them; then the bodies fell and the center and all these ripped up news paper clipings came flying out everywhere. This led into what I think was the news of the holocaust as picture of Jews flased againts the walls. The second part was about a Russian compser during the stalin era, who barely escaped with his life but was the pride of Russia. To composer was played by this woman who has a beautiful soprano voice and was the lead in Daemon as well. The composer was just a child when he began and was quite young while he was being hunted by stalin. Russia was represnted by a giant woman puppet. Who started with the composer teaching him how the play the piano, as the woman climbed and painted and tipped over a wooden sturcture of a piano. Then the puppet was given a hat a gun and pictures of famous poets, actors, and artists of the time were brought out. One by one they were all shot except for the composer who ran away and barely escaped. It ended with the composer on display for everyone as the Puppet came back again as Mother Russia and embraced him. It was really amazing the woman was fearless she was doing the most amazing things with her body climing up things and working with the other cast members she had unbeivable control. I had so much fun and it was really mentally stimulating which I think is amazing when theater can do that.
I will try to finish a little bit about Petersberg although it'll be quick. The picture will be easier to tell the story with. I don't remeber what I said about the Summer Palace but it was beautiful. The summer palace is mainly about the archetecture. It was built for Catherine the Great and was mainly constructed in the Baroque style, although part of the palace which was done by her son in a later style but I can't rember what it is called. The rooms are all beautiful gold is everywhere and hand painted tiles and dining sets. The ball room litterally glitters. The most famous part of the Palace is the Amber room. I don't have any pictures because they are very strict about photos there. It is one of Russia's crowning joys which was a gift from the Germans, all the wall panals are made of pure amber of colors ranging from bright yellow to deep red, it is a magnificint work of art. The sad thing about the winter palace is that most of it is not original. When the Natzis invaded Russia they were headed toward Petersberg and they set up fort at the summer palace. As the Russians though closed in the Natzis knew that they couldn't hold their position so they burned the palace diminishing the main building and one of the winds to rubble. Luckly some things were saved by the musuem workers who as the Natzis approach shipped as much as they could of to Siberia. One of the things destroyed was the Amber room, the Natzis ripped the amber slabs of the wall and either destroyed them or hid them somewhere in Germany. The Russians never tracked them down, it was one of the most expensive projects completely recreating the amber slabs exactly as they had been before.
Probably the most moving place I saw was Saint Peter and Pauls catherdral in the fortress. I have never been to one of the grand catherdrals in Europe, this was my first one and it was completely overwhelming. Peter the Great built it for he, his family, and future rulers final resting place and it was stuning. Painting on the cealings, the tomb of Peter and alter that could not be desribed in words or shown in picture. The artist created a complex scene or sculpture I don't know how to describe it in gold, you could stand for hours and never get bored. We heard a choir sing; in the seagull there is a line by Nina,"My heart is overflowing with you." I didn't understand what it ment until I was this. The room filled your sould with a energy that moved you to tears. It was the true meaing of beauty.
Everything else is still going really well. We have been kicked into high gear in order to make the most of are 4 1/2 weeks left. My body is very sore but very happy. Still so much work to do.
Love
Kirsten