My decision to travel to Russia stemmed from my love of theatre and exploration outside of my comfort zone. In these mere four days in Moscow, this interim has already done just that. Upon arriving in Russia, I had no idea how much of a challenge my lack of knowledge of the language would be. To clarify, no one here speaks English, no one. To make matters worse, reading is half the struggle through the Russian use of the Cyrillic Alphabet. Although at first it seemed improbable I would ever eat or walk freely again, by day four I have begun to read and use very VERY basic and poorly executed Russian. I'm becoming more and more comfortable in this excursion each and every day.
We have wasted little time as a group and seen three performances already; Talents and Corpses, The Scarlet Flower, and Mitya's Love. As a dance major, my focus within performance lies mostly within the movement of the actors and I've been pleasantly surprised how much of the storyline I am able to understand through the movements and facial expressions of the actors, as well as the musical accompaniment.
Last night we attended a performance of Mitya's Love at the Gogol Center. I have never laughed nor cried so much during a single performance. It was incredibly short but sweet and I found myself moved in a way I would have never expected from a performance in which I did not understand a single word. I have never seen anything like it. The actors performed the entire show while climbing, swinging, falling, and perching on a single wall of pegs, their feet never touching the ground for the entire hour and a half. The ease and fluidity in which they moved was absolutely breathtaking.
My expectations are set high for the rest of the performances and I'm very excited to see my personal growth throughout this challenging yet inspiring interim. Merry Russian Christmas!
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