Things

Good morning, world!

A few recent realizations:
- words can take shapes especially when spoken with your full attention. They 'zing' and you see them all in colours and full-bodied
- people normally love what they do. The reasons though may be different. Some do things for money, other because it gives them the feeling of a fulfilment - either ways are ok. It all depends on your value system.
- it is a bad idea to keep trying to rewind the film when you have the feeling that it might get torn. This is exactly what happens after you think - one last try!

The magic of the Globe

"Pardon, gentles all, the flat unraised spirits that hath dared
On this unworthy scaffold to bring forth so great an object.
Can this cockpit hold the vasty fields of France?
Or may we cram Within this wooden O the very casques that did affright the air at Agincourt?"

Henry V

The wooden O - this is how Shakespeare referred to the Globe theatre. A few centuries later. The wooden O stands on the Southbank in London and in the past few months has become one of my favourite and most magical places in London.

For me going up on stage has been one of the most exciting things I have done in my life. You go up there and you feel that you have this responsibility of being real and honest because people trust you to tell them a story. That is why I am so in love with the theatre - because it tells stories in an incredible way. And we all love stories. This is what sticks with us isn't it? We remember things that happen to us, or to someone else, a movie we saw. We don't remember the theory from the economics books we remember how the theory looks in practice, what happens when forces come into interaction with one another.

When one personality meets another, when two completely different pictures of the world come together. This is how the collective memory of every nation has been passed from one generation to another. From childhood role models are inhibited in our behaviour through the fairy tales we read. Through telling stories in songs, or fairy tales. What else are the holly books like the Bible, the Koran, etc if not stories about someones life.
In Morocco the custom of story tellers survives even today and can be seen on the Medina of every city every evening, not as a tourist attraction, but as a living thing.

Standing in front of an audience you immediately create this space of shared magic where for a few hours you are someone else and they believe you. And you tell them a story of love, friendship, values, faith, whatever. I come to the theatre because I forget about everything else. I go in there, I switch off for two hours and afterwards my world outside seems different, better.

What does this all have to do with the Globe?

I have been lucky enough to be volunteering as one of the stewards at the Globe. One of those people we normally don't pay too much attention when we go to any theatre and we so much don't like for the fact that the make us put away our cameras, or ask us not to talk or whatever else...
Being a steward at the Globe means not only you get to see all of the plays several times (I have seen Romeo and Juliet 7 times so far and few more are coming) but it also means being a part of a dream.

The Globe as we know it today was rebuilt only in the 90s. Before that the Globe theatre fo which Shakespeare wrote his plays burnt down in 1613 - the fire started off when a cannon was shot during the performance of Henry VII and afterwards was rebuilt in 1614 only to be demolished 30 years later by the puritans. Ever since the Globe only existed on old maps in our history books.

In 1969 a person called Sam Wanamaker shocked (by the words of the people who closely worked with him) by the fact that the only thing that signified the existance of the place for which Shakespeare wrote his plays is a plaque started campaining for rebuilding the Globe theatre.

The theatre opened again in 1997 for its first season after 353 years.

As the builders and the guides like to say at the Globe - this is our best guess of how the theatre looked like. The only picture that is known to exist nowadays of how an Elizabethan theatre looked like is a drawing by a Dutch traveller of the stage of the Swan. We know how the Globe used to look from outside only because we can find it on different maps.

I am not going to tell you the whole story of rebuilding the theatre or about the zillion creative ways volunteers were fundraising for it. You can read it all by your self either at the website of the Globe or atthis alternative place dedicated to Shakespeare.

Sam wanted the Globe not only to be a stage, but further more a plce where people from all over the world will come and discover Shakespeare. Today the Globe is a stage, an education centre, a museum.

It is a dream come true. That keeps on living every single day. I was at a Talking Theatre event tonight, which is an open Q & A with different actors. Tonight there we the actors who play Romeo (Adetomiwa Edun) and the Friar (Rawiri Paratene). You should have been there to see in there eyes how much they love being a part of the production. Eventhough they seemed tired after the performance, eventhough I have never seen Romeo smiling when they do the jig, I didn't believe till todya that they not only enjoy being Romeo and the Friar every single night, but they enjoy being Romeo and the Friar in this particular place, for which Romeo and Juliet was actually written to be performed at.

And seeing the faces of people when they come in the theatre for the first time is like me myself coming in again for the first time. It is a magically beautiful place, with oak and thatch and massive two pillars in the middle of the stage :).

And I thought tonight of Sam and how he was dreaming of the place. Unfortunately he never lived to see it open. But I am sure that with every smile and a silent sigh when Romeo kisses Juliet and a painful oh! during a stage fight he actually lives. In each of those people. Because every day his dream lives with every person going in to see a performance, with every actor walking on stage and being shocked by the audience staring in his face and being a few milimeters away from him.

This is what matters, ladies and gentlemen. Making things real. Dreaming and making dreams a reality. Never again in your life believe someone that you can't do something. Ever. Please. And above all - do not ever tell someone that are not capable of achieving things. It might make them even more ambitous, but there is a big thread they actually might believe you and thus ww all might loose something extraordinary.

Sorry, no energy for emptiness

You might have noticed that I significantly minimized the amount of information on my FB profile. I have also deleted 179 'friends'. Mainly people who I don't remember how I know them and where from and/or I have never spoken to.

The actual trigger for all this was a random call I got on my UK mobile:

Phone: one missed call from a Russian number, one voice message in Russian: 'Hi this is ... [an articulated name I don't recognize] I thought we haven't spoken in a while and just wanted to say hi.'

Me: Oh, cool someone from my Russian friends wanted to say hi! (Still not thinking that very few of my Russian friends know my UK number and I would recognize most of them on the phone)

Phone same Russian number (a translated conversation): Privet!

Me: Privet!

Phone: How are you?

Me: I am really well, I am really sorry, but who is calling?

Phone: [an articulated name I don't recognize]

Me: Who?!?

Phone: [an articulated name I don't recognize for the second time] from Baku. We met and than I was waiting for you to call but you didn't call and I thought I call you.

Me: I am really sorry, but you must have dialed the wrong number.

Phone: Is this Ira ?

Me: Yes, this is Ira, but this is not my sirname.

Phone: Are you in London?

Me: Where do you have my number from?

Phone: I found it on the internet!

Me: I am sorry, but I don't want to talk to you. You have the wrong number. Please, don't call me. Bye.

Now when I type this I start to feel kind of sorry about the guy, because he obvioulsy really wanted to talk to that other Ira, or at least it sounds like it. But on the other hand all of a sudden I felt that everything about me is out there exposed to every single person (not that my blog is not).

Good bye personal info on FB, good bye!

I totally restricted my profile only for people that I know.

And it is not only this random call, but in the past few months I have so much limited the people I talk to, go out with, call, communicate online to an absolute minimum of people I know that really care to know what is going on with me as well as I am truly interested to know how are they doing.

I am really sorry, but everything else is hypocrisy. And you can throw stones at me, but when I am on skype and people send me a FB message instead of talking to me or simply picking up the phone? What is this called?

I don't have energy for such relationships. I like my off line life too much recently. I can't write long answers to the question 'How are you?' simply because I know it is a totally empty one.

I consider my self a very senstive person: I feel easily and I get influenced quickly by a song, smells, colours etc.
Thus I feel there are these real relationships I currently have that are like trees and gardens and when I give them my energy they give me back theres. And there are those empty questions: how are you? that only suck out my energy and are plastic, unreal and just so far away from me.

Sorry, but if you haven't spoken to me in ages, don't send me an email, you have me on skype, and even better - you have my mobile number - give me a call. I will be really glad to hear your voice.

For now: thank you for keeping up with my life :)

City of dreamers

There are many reasons to love or hate London. And some of my friends have a very strong 'I don't like it!' feeling about it, where as others say 'This is the best place to live in.'

I fall in between those two. There are days when I completely hate London and there are days when I couldn't have wished for a better place to live. Truth is London is what you make out of it.

From London

It is a colourful city of dreamers. Yeah, right! I hear many saying. Think about this: London is and has always been an immigrants' city, not just people coming from other parts of Britain, but people coming from all over the world.
People move from one place to the other in the search of a better life, or in search of a life giving them something that they were missing.
This is what has happened to London - it has managed to gather a colourful crowd of every possible dream on earth. There are all these tranquil, colourful, passionate, quiet, old, new, messy, organized capitals around Europe, but there is no other city that would combine all of those at the same time.

That is why I said London is what you make out of it.
It can be the city from your English text book in school - with Big Ben, Buckingham, St. James, Trafalgar, Shakespeare's Globe etc.

From London

It can be the city for modern arts and new ideas - with the Tate, the Museum of Design, the Southbank centre, Bettersea park and every single art project that you can see around the streets every day - like the Play me I'm yours pianos around town.

From London

It can be the city of street culture and incomparable street fashion - with Camden and Portobello and all the girls that would have looked totally out of the way were they walking the streets of Prague for example and not London.

From London

It can be the city of gardens and nature, of the greatest sales this side of the ocean, the city of greedy bankers and people looking only how to make more money and the city with the most useless and expensive public transport probably in the whole world.

London is the place that keeps challenging me every day to know more and look for more. To see different. To look into myself and at the same time be a part of a great community.

Next time you are around - try to get away from the crowds. Do something you have never done before. Go to a part of London you have never been before. Walk the deserted City streets on a weekend, go to a concert in the Barbican, or simply try to find yourself around the messy cultural centre there :), sit on the Southbank watching the sun set behind St Paul's. Stop being a part of the tourist crowd and feel yourself a part of the city of dreamers.

And I am sure you will find your London that you will keep in coming back to as an old friend.

Dudamel, Gothenburg, Verdi and generally about life

Some of my friends told me it is now officially confirmed I am out of my mind when I told them I have booked a ticket to go to Gothenburg all by myself, just like this, just for one night and just to see a classical concert.

Now, omit the just. It wasn't just a music concert. I guess nothing in life is ever 'just' something.

Let's start from the beginning. Think about someone you admire, or someone who made you smile, or someone who made you feel proud, etc. Can be anyone - an artist, an actor, an athlet, a politician (I doubt this though), anyone.

Now remember their eyes. What did they say? Were they smiling? Were they happy? Were they tired?

Why their eyes? Because eyes is something that don't lie (yeah, I know trivial, but true, no?) eyes show the true emotions anyone experiences at a present moment.

Eyes are honest.

I personally admire honest people, when I feel a genuine emotion I stand in owe. Feeling something so pure, so true and so honest is a blessing in the plastic and artificial world we all live in.

This is the reason I so much admire what Gustavo Dudamel does. Go and Google him or even better - go for one of the concerts he is conducting. Forget about the boring classical music concerts you were dragged as a student in school. Forget about the faces of conductors and musicians that look frozen and show no emotion.
Gustavo Dudamel is someone who is capable to unlock real emotions, honesty and beauty with a wave of his baton (that's my dear friends the stick the conductors are waving around).

And what this honesty does to people is that it makes them better. It somehow turns any negative energy flow 180 degrees around. People 'produce' negative energy when they feel insecure, scared and threatened. When instead they are met by someone who smiles to them and believes in them they relax, and give into that smile. They focus on the purpose of their work and on the fact they actually enjoy what they are doing. And, oh yes, stop taking them selves too seriously.

I kind of thought to tell you the whole story of the concert and the introduction to the new season when Gustavo arrived with a funky old car with his wife followed by the brass section of the GSO, but this doesn't really make sense...

Someone else has already done it and in a much more beautiful way than I could.

I so much want more people to be able to get in touch with classical music. And I wish for people really doing what they enjoy doing, being themselves, being genuine. We have enough of plastic around us to be plastic ourselves.

Find your 'cause', 'purpose', 'religion' and make it happen. And if you don't have one - find it, but don't start looking for it measuring and evaluating everything around you. Give into the process of exploring new things, bring into life old forgotten things you loved doing, challenge yourself to do things that scare you or you thought you can't do (like running, or acting, or drawing).

And above all - stop taking yourself too seriously. You are a brilliant person, with a very special story and so is everyone else around.

Which brings me back to the beginning where I told you to delete the just. There is never a story that is 'just' or that is 'too small' or 'unimportant'. There is only the way we think about it.

Music...

“But the most important thing was the feeling the music gives me,” she said. “You feel as if you are flying.”

I owe a bigger story about the Verdi Requem and how at moments I wanted to jump off my seat and how Gustavo Dudamel looked more real through my lens than looking at him on stage... But the sentence above sums everything I admire about classical music and the people who do classical music.

Read the artical, go to a classical concert where a young, passionate orchestra is playing with their heart and soul and you will never be the same again.

I promise you.

My Gothenburg trip...

More coming soon...

Short life updates

Just bought Of Mice and Men and 75 Short Stories (love short stories! and O'Henry).

My Amazon Wish List is getting longer and longer and with books ranging from Architecrure through Shakespeare to Drama and Performance.

Looking forward to an extremely exciting weekend by myself in Gothenburg with Gustavo Dudamel, Verdi, Yulian Konstantinov and the Gothenborg Symphony Orchestra.

Won a photo competition at work with a picture I made while actually testing my camera.

Thanks to the LSO tweets won a pair of tickets for the George Fenton concert on 7th of June at the Barbican.

Saw Comedy of Errors at the Globe and so deeply enjoyed it that I was ready to jump if the someone on the stage said 'Jump!'.

Looking forward to enrolling to a Drama class at the Central School of Drama and Speech in autumn.

And generally really enjoying myself!