Wednesday, April 28, 2010

I Have Been Seeing the Wrong Shows

I have less than three weeks left in Russia. It's very difficult to describe the way I feel about it. Basically here is some of what I feel: scared, sad, excited, happy, shocked, and unprepared.


So the past few weeks in the academic sector have been about as boring as watching paint dry. It's all just looking at my calendar and freaking out for like 15 seconds because there's such little time left. The main thing I am focusing on at the moment is getting a project done for the semester. My project is basically about the cultural influences on Cuba from the Soviet Union. It's been pretty interesting to see the changes that occurred in Cuba's culture because of their political/economic liaisons with the USSR.


Something simply amazing happened a few days ago. I discovered queer Russian theater. This is probably one of the coolest things that has happened since I first found a gay bar in Moscow. I saw Oscar Wilde's Salomé, which was directed by the most famous gay theater director in Russia Roman Viktyuk. The way I got tickets to the show is also pretty cool. Homegurl Eleonora went to the ticket office trying to buy tickets for me and her but unfortunately they were out. To her surprise, Roman Viktyuk walked into the room and she immediately put on her charm and started to chat with him. She explained the situation to him and apparently even talked about me. Viktyuk offered to help her out by giving her two tickets for his show. These also weren't just any ordinary tickets, they were tickets for the section where the director's closest people sat. I was astounded by homegurl Eleonora's adventure.


The show was beyond spectacular. All but two of the actors were men so this meant that a majority of the roles were played by men. Even the role of Salomé was played was played by a man. The makeup used by the actors was really intense. It was definitely not your regular theater makeup. The male actors who played the role of a female tried to do justice to the performance of femininity. It was not used for comedic relief as some of the plays we saw earlier. I couldn't believe what was happening on stage when I was seeing the play unfold. The show also had a good deal of dancing elements. The characters at times wore a minimal amount of clothing and were in intimate dance numbers together which created a big display of homoeroticism on stage. This was such an amazing change from the regular performances that we've been usually watching. Usually we get to see a lot of the classics and things of that sort... obviously without half naked men running around dancing with each other haha


It's always a breath of relief to find spaces where queer culture is fostered and nurtured in rampantly homophobic environments.

Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Day Travels and Busy Times

It hit me a few days ago that it is April. Time flies by so fast. I'll try to get you all caught up on what's been happening with my oh so busy life in Russia.


I have taken a couple of day trips since the last post. The first one was to Rostov which is one of the towns on the Golden Circle. We went on a bus tour accompanied by our lovely Russian friend Alina. It was basically a tour for Russians and with Russians. I'm not going to lie, I'm going to be very honest. I am pretty tired of churches. I am tired of hearing about church this and church that and then going to visit churches. And of course, this trip that was filled with churches. We stopped at a monastery and we walked around the grounds for a bit. The weather was actually pretty nice, the sun was shining! I went on top of a tower and saw this huge frozen lake which was pretty nice. It was quite entertaining to see Russians not only ride their bikes across the lake, but also drive their cars. Our last stop was of course at the Kremlin, We had a tour of the place with the other Russian people and afterwards were allowed to roam free. During our free time, we decided to have lunch at the restaurant inside the Kremlin. It was pretty awesome inside the restaurant, it was like some kind of middle age banquet style seating. The trip was pretty nice. I'll have a link to an album on facebook at the bottom of my post.


The other day trip we took was to the lovely state of Abramtsevo. It's basically a museum that used to be an colony of some of the most famous Russian artists. It's about an hour and a half outside of Moscow. I visited Abramtsevo last semester but that was only with Pat and Amy so it was everyone else's chance to see it. Our conversation teacher and her friend joined us on the trip which turned out to be great. The weather was really nice and the lake/river by Abramtsevo wasn't frozen so it was a really pretty view walking up to it. One of the cool things about this trip was that it was totally all organized by us(the group) and there was no guided excursion. Also there were no churches! Haha ok well that's a lie. There was a tiny church built by the artists for themselves way back when but I was inside for a max of 10 seconds so it doesn't count. I really enjoyed our little outing and I could definitely feel that spring has sprung.


Moscow is FINALLY getting warmer! The sad thing is that I don't think I am going to have a lot of time to enjoy it. One of the main reasons... well actually probably the only reason that I haven't written in a while is that I have been so busy. School and my internship have kept me pretty busy. Although I of course try to make time to stroll down Old Arbat while the sun is still out at 8 PM(What?!?!?!). One of the things that happened recently that was just amazing to me is this long dinner conversation with homegurl Eleonora about gender essentialism, feminism, and gay stuff. She was quite receptive to my ideas, which I was kind of surprised at. It was also weird for me to try explaining some of concepts especially when like this stuff NEVER comes up in Russian class. After our conversation she said to me "You know, I am really glad I met you because you really have changed my perception of what a gay person is. Before I was afraid and didn't like them, but now I know that they're people who deserve respect and love just like everyone else". It was so amazing to hear that. And I am really glad that I made even a small change in this world. Also, another big thing that happened in the home front was the arrival of my new apartment-mate Darcy. She is pretty awesome, and she's from Ohio University. I have lovely dinner conversations with her and we exchange impressions about the Russians, it's so great. So hopefully I will have more time to write in the future.


Link to Rostov Photos:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=159383&id=673767863&l=661a976150