April 27th, 2008. Saturday.
Sorry this is after the fact! We just did not have a lot of time to blog!!!

We arrived in Kostroma by a 7 hour overnight train (more about the train ride soon! Tabitha has pictures...) from Moscow to Kostroma at around 5AM! We were so tired we slept until 1PM did not anything, and abruptly made our way to get our asses to the dance school where we were scheduled to teach a master Bodyslam Class at 5pm. So began our first day in Kostroma. We walked from the hotel to the dance school where we taught a master class to about 25 students. A lovely local Kostroma dancer in her own right, Marina, our tour guide for the walk over, called this stretch of "beach front on the Volga River" their "dirty beach" because it was quite worse for wear... but people like me don't care about that and would prefer the dirty side of things to the glossy and Disney like fakeness...


And our class! Went really well and these students are amazing learners!! Even with our translator and the language barrier, once we made a correction for a dancer, they immediately integrated it into their attempts at Bodyslam! They were extraordinary in this! We were also told by the dance school, that there were some dancers who never took the contemporary dance classes offered by the school, except that they took ours. These dancers were primarily attracted to Hip Hop or what they call "MTV Style" dance... and we were complemented that they took our class - even though they may have expected "breakdance" but oh well! We think they did enjoy it nonetheless...

After our master class, we went to eat (our first meal in over10 hours!!!) at a lovely Russian Cafe. Ravished and ready to eat the napkins on the table...we had pancakes (crepes) filled with chicken & sauce, a small salad with tomatoes & cucumbers and lovely cappuccino!!! It was yummy!

April 26th, 2008. Friday
We are here in Moscow! We visited The Red Square, walked around the Moscow Streets including a cool area know for it's artists and theater types. Walked past the Bolshoi Theater (which is being completely gutted and renovated). We ate at a neat little cafe & had cappuccino, salad & yummy desserts.

In the evening, we boarded an overnight train to Kostroma. The train has sleeping beds that we tried to catch some much need ZZZzzzzzs - but it's so surreal (meaning weird noises, other people snoring, German guys being weird)- you end up only catnapping...

We arrived in Kostroma at 5am, were met by the festival curator and driven to our hotel where we took showers, brushed teeth and proceeded to sleep for a luxurious 8 hours!!!!
We woke up, had some coffee, skipped a meal, and rushed through some sites of Kostroma before we had to teach at the Dialogue Dance Company School. We taught to 25 students who barely spoke "angleeski", or English. We have been accompanied by our friend Anna Timofeeva who is fluent in Russian & English! We love her!!!!

That's all for now - we need to eat... more later...

April 24th, 2008. Thursday.
This is the 300 year old theater we will be performing in! The Kostroma Drama Theatre. WOW.... kinda makes me giddy!

N. A. Ostrovsky, founded the theatre in 1808. This is one of the oldest theaters Russia whose history is linked with the names of eminent personalities and scenes of Russian drama. "A magnificent stone theater like that can hardly be found in the province." The building of the theater to this day is considered to be one of the best in Russia.




Here is a link to interesting tidbits on Kostroma >>
Built in 1559-65, the 5-domed Epiphany Cathedral was the first stone edifice in the city; its medieval frescoes perished during a fire several years ago.





This is Hotel Volga where we are staying for the festival. The hotel is located in the city of Kostroma and is just 2 kilometres from the Volga River.

April 24th, 2008. Thursday.

Well, Tabitha & I head off for Russia this week. We are excited, a bit nervous and feeling very fortunate to be able to have this experience! The flight from Chicago to Moscow is 13 hours, then we meet our friend Anna for an overnight train ride for 6.5 hours to Kostroma.

The dance festival that we are performing in is called DiVersia and is hosted by Dialogue Dance Company. http://di_versia.livejournal.com/