Mystery Train

Well faithful readers, 24-hrs from now I'll be half-way through my 22-hr train ride to Novosibirsk.  There I'll hang out w/fellow Fulbrightnik and OG Matt "Mettik" Nelson.  Thence we go to Altai for approximately one week of good times in the Russian wilderness.  Thoreau-style, I'll be incommunicado for a few days.  But don't worry - you can all look forward to a great post when I get back!

One love.

An Artist, (He) Don't Look Back

Last week, my dear friend Lauren (http://laurichka-samizdat.blogspot.com/) emailed me that she had met a performance artist, Kimbal Quist Bumstead (www.kimbalbumstead.com).  This young man, traveling across Russia and doing art pieces along his way, was headed to Ekat next.  This past

 weekend Ekaterinburg joined many Russian and European cities in celebrating Muse

um Night.  On this day, our local museums were open late and presented all kinds of cool events.  Although I’ve heard in other cities, it went all day and the museums were free, Ekaterinburg gets an A for effort!  So, after some email correspondence, I went to see Kim’s performance at the Museum of Fine Arts.

My experience with performance art is nonexistent, but that night, I became not only a spectator, but an integral participant.  Before he began, Kim, whose curly blond hair makes him easy to identify, asked me how I felt about audience interaction and if I was claustrophobic.  I answered good and no, respectively, but if I were clever I might have asked some questions of my own!  From my seat in the front, I could see Kim’s materials: long rolls of butcher paper, string, masking tape, cardboard, a bottle of vodka and a bunch of plastic shot glasses.  Uh oh!

After being introduced, Kim got to work.  He took me by the hand and led me to a museum bench in the center of the performance space (which was actually just the main gallery of the museum).  We sat down and each had a shot of vodka.  Next he taped my hands together, tied me up and laid me down.  Kinky.  Then he started wrapping me up in the butcher pape

r and taping it together, prompting the little boys around me to argue whether I was a Russian mummy or a birthday present.  Finally, Kim poured another shot of vodka down my gullet and covered my face with a piece of cardboard.  He then pulled a man out of the crowd, gave him some vodka, and made him a standing Russian mummy.  Compared to that schmuck, I, lying down and able to move my head and look around, was lucky.  My feet were tied to his torso, so that when he moved my legs were pulled.  Those same little boys wondered if, when the paper came off, the man and I would have switched places.  Then some spectators (actually my friends who Kim had met before the show) got cardboard taped to the palms of their hands.  They were 

given vodka and small pieces of paper and instructed to draw the wrapped bodies.  In the end, Kim taped their pictures to the string connecting me and the man, and then taped the cardboard-handed spectators to us.  WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?  Kim says this is not the right question.  Better to ask, “How does it make you feel?”

I can say with no exaggeration that this was one of the strangest experiences of my life.  As I told the tv journalist who interviewed me afterwards, it’s hard for me to make sense of the piece, since I didn’t actually see it.  But I did have the feeling of losing my wits (from the vodka) and power (from the tape and paper).  Plus, it was hot as hell in there!  

After the performance, I hung out with Kim and some other cool kids he met here.  He is a “couch-surfer,” part of a community that hosts travelers and in exchange gets free accommodations when traveling.  So since arriving in Ekat that morning, he’d met the curator who helped organize his performance, his couch-host, plus another local girl who was currently hosting two super-cool Dutch couch-surfing artists.  As it turns out, Kim is half-Dutch, so they were all talking in that wacky language!  In fact, the aforementioned standing mummy was one of these two, and he has the coolest name since Kimbal Quist Bumpstead: Marnix.  Perfect name for a cool cat, human or feline.

So in the past few days I’ve hung out a lot with this little group, who’ve become a random but loving family.  Last night we all saw Kim off at the train.  His train-car was full of departing soldiers, and some of them had girlfriends, but only Kim had four girls and one very tall boy chasing running the train and waving handkerchiefs.  I’m so lucky to have met this amazing kids and I know they’ll have plenty of crazy adventures on their travels throughout Russia and the world.  Maybe traveling is itself a kind of performance art.  If so, these kids are stars.

Speaking of traveling, in about a week I’m going to Altai with fellow Fulbrightnik and Europe-companion, Matt (http://mattinsiberia.wordpress.com/).  Altai is a mountainous region, famous for its breathtaking natural beauty.  It’s been Matt’s dream to check it out and if there’s one thing I support, it’s living your dreams.  So in a couple weeks, expect some gorgeous pictures and man-versus-nature stories.  Here’s hoping man wins!

They're Gonna Put Me in the Movies

Today I recorded the English-language voice track for a new movie about nanotechnology.  What the hell is that, you ask?  I didn’t know either until I was asked to participate by a professor/producer at Ural State University.  He and his colleagues made a really cool film about nanoscience for both professionals and laymen - guess which category I fit neatly into.  I tried to churn out the best performance I could, but it was hard to sound excited given that I had no idea what I was talking about.  Anyway, the film will be shown at Russian, French and even American (ie-New York) science film festivals, whatever those are.  So I’m gonna be a star!

In other news, my creative writing class is still going strong.  This week we began our speech-writing unit and I taught Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream.”  The kids really responded to it, how could you not?  They all learned a lot about the civil rights movement and American history in general.  Plus King was just such a talented writer, that speech is moving even out of context.  The hardest thing is knowing when to jump in and explain things, cuz the students are pretty shy when it comes to asking for clarification.  It’s also hard to get them to read it aloud with the proper emotion, since in Russian churches, the priests don’t sermonize.  But a couple kids got it right away, and the rest did with only the minimum of prodding.

Last weekend was a huge holiday here, the 9th of May, Victory (over the Germans in WWII) Day.  This might be a somber memorial, but since it coincides with the beginning of spring, it turns into a huge holiday.  I did everything you’re supposed to do on that day.  I went to the city’s military parade, although that’s sort of redundant since Russia rarely puts on any other kind of parade.  In the afternoon I went with some friends into the forest for a Russian barbecue, which is basically shish-kebob.  The woods were full of people, congratulating each other on the victory.  Then in the evening I went to Ural Technical University for an outdoor concert of a great local, now nationally-famous band, called Chaif.  It was awesome!  I even knew two of the songs, plus they played a Russian-language version of “No Woman, No Cry.”  The crowd was amazing; they knew every word to every song.  It almost felt like being at Blossom.  When it got dark enough, there were two huge fireworks displays.  Everyone was so cheerful (read: drunk), chanting “RO-SSI-YA!” all night.  It was even more fun than New Years, if only because everyone was outdoors.

Then the next night Russia won the national hockey championship, or whatever it’s called.  I didn’t watch the match, but at 3 a.m., I was lying in bed and through my window heard “RO-SSI-YA!  CHEM-PI-YON!” so I figured out that we had won.  People are pretty psyched about this.  Now there’s a big musical event called EuroVision going on.  It’s a competition between singers from all over Europe.  This year it’s being held in Moscow because last year’s winner was Dima Bilan, who is Russia’s....I’m having a hard time coming up with an analogy.  He’s this young pop star who must be really popular, but no one I know likes him.  He’s not as talented as Justin Timberlake, but not as wimpy as John Mayer.  Plus he has such a major mullet that after he won EuroVision last year, the haircut showed up on every boy too young to protest his parents’ wishes.

This weekend there’s a city-wide event called Night of Museums.  Lots of events at all the local museums, should be fun but I’ve heard it’s terribly disorganized (big surprise).  So that’s my so-called life in Ekat.  I have just over a month left and I’m trying to get some more travelling done, just within Russia, before I head home.  See you soon.

Oh yeah, and in case you’re wondering, my metro-falling-horror-story has now become just a funny anecdote.  And the bruise, while still huge, is almost monochromatic.  Hooray!

Baby Take a Bow

So much fun today did I have, but it started somewhat trippingly...

I was asked to be a judge of a local foreign language students’ theater festival.  Of course I was excited for this opportunity!  A little too excited as it turns out.  Rushing to the metro, I fell down the marble stairs.  Ok, that’s not such a big deal.  It’s happened before and may well happen again.  But then, hopping onto the metro, I actually fell in between the car and platform!  My badonk-a-donk saved me from falling all the way to the tracks, but for a moment I was struggling like a person in quicksand.  A strong young man had to pull me out, and then I had to comfort a babushka who practically had a heart attack from watching the incident.  I actually didn’t realize how terrifying it all was until I got over my embarrassment.  To quote Clueless, “Now all night long, I’m gonna be known as the girl who fell on her butt.”  On the plus side, that gap is only a couple inches wide, so at least I’m skinny enough to have faced into this peril.

Anyway, after the most awkward metro ride of my life, I arrived at the Ural Technical University.  This was the first time they’d put on such a festival, and it was a great success.  In the preceding days, there had been performances in German, Spanish, French and Chinese.  Today was English day.  Groups from three local universities (including some of my own students) prepared English-language performances with simultaneous Russian translation.  Get your tissue Mom, “the kids worked really hard on this.”  First two kids did a short William Saroyan piece called “Hello Out There.”  Next, a group from the host university presented an only slightly abridged The Importance of Being Earnest.  Finally, my own pedagogical students presented an original play in which Snow White meets Cinderella.  Fantastic!

My personal attachments aside, Earnest was one of the most incredible productions I’ve ever seen.  Here’s why: these kids had me cracking up with their performances.  Then, the live translation had the Russian audience cracking up with Wilde’s words.  It was really something to experience.  I had only seen this play once, and it was a Cleveland Play House production from which I remember only a feeling of boredom.  But in these hands of these Russian students of a technical university, it really came alive.  Imagine my surprise when I found out that in the past two days, the same kids had given equally moving performances in French and Chinese.  In fact, their production of Yasmina Reza’s Art won them a trip to France.  Way to go kids!

 It was also pretty cool to be part of the jury.  For the first two performances, there was a British man with me.  Unfortunately, he had to leave early, so I had to make the final call myself.  Choosing those other kids over my own students I’m sure will be a huge scandal, but they don’t pay me enough for me to be unfair.  Along with my judging responsibilities, I got a free gross cafeteria dinner and a big bouquet of flowers.  In this country you often see women walking around with such arrangements and I always wondered if they feel as uncomfortable as they look.  Now I know they do.  On the other hand, they’re probably more used to this phenomenon than I am.  They also probably don’t come home and put the flowers in an empty water bottle.

After the performances, I took a long walk with some students who were in the audience.  We had an ice cream and enjoyed the beautiful warm weather.  And when I got back to the metro, I was as careful as if I were carrying a dozen Faberge eggs.