我在莫斯科的一个学期

I spent a lot of my time in high school studying the sciences. 学了三年微积分， two years of chemistry and physics, etc. However, I had another passion — 剧院. But I didn’t have many opportunities to pursue it.

然后我找到了火博体育.

在这里，我可以学习 包括科学和艺术. And now I find myself running between a geoscience lecture and an actor’s voice class, between the GIS (Geographic Information Systems) lab and play rehearsal.

But I still wondered, what would it be like to focus on one thing? 只专注于 剧院?

It was this curiosity that put me on a plane to Moscow, Russia for a 学期在国外.

为什么俄罗斯?

Before I left, people kept asking me, “为什么俄罗斯?”

Well, the Moscow Art Theater School (MXAT) is an immersive experience with one of 世界一流的剧院. And several Skidmore-MXAT alumni have gone on to 做一些令人印象深刻的事情. 

That said, given modern Russia’s representation in Western media, I was a little nervous.    

“哦，很好.”

我的担心并没有持续太久. And in retrospect, my nerves seem so silly now.

Moscow was the cleanest city I had ever been to. 没有人乱穿马路. 地铁站 看起来像大教堂. The traffic control and public transportation are nearly perfect. I felt safer there than in many other cities. 

This is not to say that Russia doesn’t have its challenges. 但在莫斯科是 跟人们想象的完全不一样. I had a lovely experience with nearly everyone 我遇到了. It was a lesson in not judging a country by its headlines. 

Probably my favorite experience, or at least the funniest, was when I went to a cандуны, 俄国澡堂. 

Picture you and your friends melting in a 200-plus-degree room, sweating so much that you’ve drenched the towel you’re sitting on.

下一个 to you, your friend groans “xорошо” (good) with an abysmal accent. 然后,从 across the bathhouse, you hear a stranger respond in 俄罗斯-infused 英语, “Ohooo, 很好.”

The room erupted in laughter (which in Russia is a light chuckle) and we truly felt 就像我们属于彼此. 

翻筋斗和打斗

I signed up for a nice, easy schedule with nine courses. (开玩笑. 他们是认真的 他们说这是一个“沉浸式”项目.我从早上10点开始上课.m. 到下午6点.m. 星期一至星期六. Of course, we also had rehearsal before and after class.

I learned somersaults, headstands, backwards rolls and a lot of partner acrobatics. 我尝试过芭蕾舞. 我很坏，但我很努力.我学会了如何安全地编舞 舞台上的暴力.

I learned about 俄罗斯 cinema and gained a sense of all the moving parts that make 俄罗斯戏剧成功. But the highlight of it all was acting. 

执行和过程

We focused on devising etudes, which are essentially moments that change every character 在现场. We acted out everything from a partner getting caught cheating to someone vomiting during a yoga class, to someone robbing a bank, to a father returning from 康复中心.

We also did scene work from “The Seagull” and “The Cherry Orchard,” both by Anton 契诃夫(毕竟这是俄罗斯). And boy, we drilled those 14 scenes for about seven 周. I think I threw a fake dead bird across the floor 100 times.

While I was absolutely learning about being a better performer, and adapting to a new culture, the biggest takeaway for me was this:

Everything in life is a process, and if you don’t learn to enjoy it, 这将是艰难的.

在进步中做梦 

这个学期是一段疯狂的旅程. And going to Russia, I had huge expectations that I'd transform into a confident and accomplished actor based on the impressive work of 火博体育的MXAT校友.

But that kind of thing doesn’t happen overnight, or even over a semester. 它发生 with many high highs and low lows over a span of years — even decades — and what ties those moments of bliss to those of defeat is a sense of process.

What Moscow gave me were the tools to assess, work through and get lost in that “process.” Thus, it seems counter to my process to end my story with some flashy conclusion or 完美的答案. Instead, I’ll leave you with the word I heard most often in Moscow: давай! (让我们!)