“Our childhood is our greatest tool for our creativity.”

Tolya

Green is a tall pine forest, light yellow is a tiny chick at Easter and black is the never-ending sky. Today was my first acting class and one of the activities was to think and be a color and then connect with others who were the same color... without knowing what color others were... For our first acting class it as all about creating a rhythm with our group i.e. it was though clapping in order with task of walking and figuring out who was “it” without any external cues. Our professor Sasha speaks broken English but you can understand what he is saying simply through his body language. He is a great actor on the Moscow stage, even while he sits and talks to us, every muscle is engaged in his words. We have a second teacher who is also an actor but we haven’t met him yet.

In history Tolya introduced us to the personality of Stanislavski. He told us that when he tried to write a book the only thing that appeared in his manuscript was stories from his childhood. His books were never a bout his greatness but his failures and how each failure brought him closer to his goals as an artists.

Tonight we went out to a Russian bar, and because of our huge group and loudness the Russians were giving us dirty looks which is actually not that uncommon. Whenever we go to Russian stores the clerks yell at us in Russian until they realize we have no idea what they are saying, so then their best form of communication is to glare. Not all Russians are like this the other students, our guides, and our teachers and once in a while a sympathetic stranger will help us get through the language barrier. I find that the Language barrier is the one thing that I wish I could change and one thing that I know i will soon be able to handle.

Paka (see ya!)

this is what u get when u order A BLACK RUSSIAN.