The Three Hills of Misfortune 3

This is my last post with a picture of the Three Hills of Misfortune.  Again, I thought it was a beautiful ballet.  The costumes reminded me a bit of Ukrainian dance (particularly the men's costumes).  This is my favourite photo from Three Hills of Misfortune.  I couldn't get a non-blurry photo because I had to turn off my flash and the dancers wouldn't stand still for long enough for me to get a good shot.  I think the blurriness kind of adds to, rather than detracts from, this photo, though.  :)

In other news, I had a rather unfortunate and unsettling incident on the bus yesterday.  I started off this week on top of the world.  I didn't tell you before, but at the ballet on Sunday night, I met a boy.  I really like him.  He's cute and smart and really, really nice.  We made plans to go to the opera together this coming Saturday.  And we might bake a pumpkin pie together for American Thanksgiving (even though it's not Thanksgiving for me).  I was so excited about meeting this awesome guy, I felt nothing could ruin my good spirits this week.  Nothing whatsoever.  I was wrong.  Yesterday, I was assaulted on the bus.  For doing nothing at all.  I was sitting there, just minding my own business, when this crazy rabid bitch (a person, not a dog) attacked me.  She punched me in the face (she had a wimpy punch, though, so it didn't hurt), kicked me in the legs (again, she had a rather wimpy kick, so it was ok), and then she grabbed handfuls of my hair and pulled as hard as she could (that /did/ hurt).  Then, she starts bashing my head against the wall in the bus.  She had my head down and she was pulling my hair, so it was hard for me to put my head up to see, but I tried to hit her back anyway (I mean, I had to protect myself).  Finally, at last, I managed to grab on to a handful of her hair, and I think I was actually just about to get the upper hand when two people got in between us.  Funny how when she was kicking the shit out of me, none of the Mongolians on the bus got up to help, but when I started to fight back, there were immediately two guys in between us.  She is a lucky bitch.  At the risk of making myself sound like a crazy bitch, I wanted to pummel her.  I wanted to pummel her face over and over and over again.  I wanted to beat that bitch black and blue.  I wanted to knock her down and kick her senseless.  I did muay thai for three years, and I believe I would have been capable of this.  Never in my life have I ever wanted to beat someone up as badly as I wanted to beat her up (I have actually never ever until yesterday even remotely had the desire to even slap a stranger, but when you're attacked out of nowhere for nothing, it makes you want to fight back).  She is extremly lucky I didn't fight back (much).  She's lucky that the only fighting back I did was in the interest of defending myself.  She's lucky that I did not fight back in the interest of defending myself and of hurting her.  She's just incredibly lucky, that's all I can say.  I don't know how I held myself back (I could have gotten past those two guys in between us), but I did, and I guess that makes me a better person.

As I'm typing this, I'm reminded about the incident a few summers ago on the Greyhound bus in Canada.  I guess I'm lucky the crazy bitch didn't have any knives or guns on her, or else things might have been much, much worse.  As it is, my hair is considerably thinner today than it was yesterday (yesterday, after the incident, as I ran my fingers through my hair, I was also pulling out handfuls and handfuls of hair), and my neck and shoulders are killing me, but other than that, I am fine.  I need a hug.  I need someone to hug me while I cry.  But I'll be fine.  It doesn't make me think too much of Mongolians right now.  When I look at my colleagues or my students, I try to remind myself that they are not the same as the girl on the bus, that the bus incident is an isolated incident, that the people who are normally around me are good people.  Still, I can't help feeling that when my contract finishes, I will be out of here so fucking fast, they'll never see me go, and I never plan on looking back.  The only thing that is getting me through this week now is how much I'm looking forward to seeing the boy this weekend.

The Three Hills of Misfortune 2

Today, another post about the Three Hills of Misfortune.  I really loved this ballet.  For me, it's right up there with The National Ballet of Canada's presentation of the Four Seasons, Alberta Ballet's Carmina Burana, and the Royal Winnipeg Ballet's interpretation of The Magic Flute as far as favourite ballets I've ever seen.  One thing that really struck me about The Three Hills of Misfortune was the amount of flexed footwork (the second photo of this post is a great example).  I've never seen so many flexed feet in a classical (character-classical?) ballet, and it was BEAUTIFUL!

The Three Hills of Misfortune

When I went to see the Three Hills of Misfortune last month, I didn't really know what to expect.  I wasn't even entirely sure whether I was going to see a ballet or an opera, but I was delighted to find that it was a ballet!  I adore the ballet!  I did ballet for twelve years when I was growing up, and I did Ukrainian dance for ten years.  Since there was some overlap in the time I did ballet and the time I did Ukrainian dance, I actually danced for thirteen years.  Now that I'm getting to be an oooooo-la-looold lady, that's just under half my life that I spent dancing, but it's still a pretty significant chunk of my life, particularly considering that I don't remember most of my first three and a half years, but I do remember all the years I spent dancing.  But I digress...

... back to the ballet!  It was incredible!  It was classical ballet, but it managed to make me nostalgic for both ballet and Ukrainian dance at the same time (usually, I only ever miss one or the other, but not usually both at the same time).  It was incredible.  It was beautiful.  It was moving.  It made me want to cry (I sound like a big baby, don't I?), and I'm not usually one to be moved to tears by art or dramatic presentations.  It was just incredible.  The storyline, itself, was little more than a Mongolian adaptation of Romeo and Juliet (from what I could gather-- I was too cheap to buy a programme), but the sets, costumes, and especially the dancing was were all absolutely amazing!  If you ever go to Mongolia and have the opportunity to see this ballet, please do. You won't regret it!

The Fountain of Bakhchisarai

Tonight, despite the cold outside and the invitingness of my bed and my comfy blankets, and the fact that I've developed an attachment to sitting by my window sipping delicious hot chocolate made with hot milk, I made it to the opera.  Tonight's opera was "The Fountain of Bakhchisarai".  Because of the title, I was expecting a Mongolian opera, but then, when I went to buy my ticket, I saw a notice on the wall that said it was an opera by Puccini, so then I was expecting some kind of Italian opera.  Imagine my surprise!  It was closer to a Mongolian show after all!  So, when I got home, I googled "Fountain of Bakhchisarai" and found that it was actually originally a poem by Pushkin.  But, my surprise didn't actually stop at the fact that it was a Mongolian-type performance.  I was also surprised to find that I was watching a ballet, not an opera.  The poster outside definitely said that the show was an opera, but I adore the ballet, so I was so happy to find that the sign outside was misleading and we were watching the ballet version of this story, instead.  And it was so cool.  It was part classical ballet, part character ballet, part Ukrainian-type dancing, part belly dancing (en pointe), and all beautiful.  This is my second Mongolian ballet that I've seen.  I have to admit that I think I enjoyed the other Mongolian ballet (The Three Hills of Misfortune) slightly better, but really only slightly.  Maybe tomorrow, I'll post some pics from The Three Hills of Misfortune so you can see what I'm talking about, and later on either next week or next month, I'll post some pictures which I took from The Fountain of Bakhchisarai.

State Opera and Ballet Theatre 4

I am all out of ballet and opera tickets.  Horror of horrors!  I bought about six tickets, and the last ticket was for this past Saturday.  Actually, I have a small confession to make: for the past few weeks in a row, when it came time to go to the Opera House to use my ticket which I had already bought, I looked out my window at the cold day in Ulaanbaatar, I looked at my cosy, comfortable bed, I looked back out the window, I looked back at my bed, I considered which piece was being performed, I considered the money I would be wasting (less than $5, in both cases), I checked the schedule to see if I could catch the piece later on in the year, and I dove into bed and placed my covers over my head and fell soundly asleep.  Two weeks in a row!  Well, now I'm out of tickets, and I'm thinking that maybe if I'm going to pull that stunt very often, maybe I shouldn't buy any more tickets, but noooooo!  I love the State Opera and Ballet Theatre.  Once I actually motivate myself to leave my apartment and go out into the cold day, and once I actually arrive at the theatre, I love it!  I seriously love everything about this theatre!  Tomorrow, when the box office opens up, I'll buy maybe eight more tickets... that should keep me entertained until January.  And by the way, I really want this painting!

State Opera and Ballet Theatre 3

The other week, I arrived at the State Opera and Ballet Theatre to find a before-the-show performance of throat singing and traditional instruments (and free wine!).  Check out the morin khuur (pronounced 'moron whore', remember? check out my earlier post "A Moron Whore" for the whole spiel on pronunciation) and the badass horsehead contrabass!  Also, with regard to the weird circular dot in front of the morin khuur, I'm not sure what it is or how it got in the picture.  None of the pictures which I took either immediately before or immediately after this one (within seconds of taking this one) had the same dot on them, so I don't think I had anything on my lens.  The only other explanation I can think of is a ghosty... we all know that opera houses and old theatres are all haunted, anyway, so it's a likely story...

State Opera and Ballet Theatre 2

When you walk into the State Opera and Ballet Theatre, this is what you usually see.  There is also a coat check to one side, and a kind of sad-looking concession to the other side (you can buy Bounty bars there-- I have never been to a ballet or opera where I could purchase Bounty, Mars, or Snickers bars at intermission!), but I'm not showing you a picture of that, because if you ignore the kind of sad-looking coat check and the extremely sad-looking concession, it is an extremely nice theatre.  I also really like this ballet Benz ad they have rocking the foyer at the moment. More to come about my total unexpected love for this theatre later on...

The State Opera and Ballet Theatre

Lonely Planet describes the State Opera and Ballet Theatre as the salmon-pinkish building at the Southeast end of Sukhbaatar Square, and they definitely not wrong about that, but maybe I'm reading a little too much into it, but it seems like the author of LP doesn't think much of salmon-pinkish buildings, as though he thinks the State Opera and Ballet Theatre would have been better suited with a different colour.  To be honest, yes, it is a weird colour, but I've never seen a building that colour before, so it's interesting to me (incidentally, UB has at least three buildings that are a salmon-pinkish colour-- maybe they got a huge discount on stucco/paint that colour).  I also like th big concrete lions at the entrance and the Corinthian columns.  Walking into the theatre on a day when there is an opera or ballet is really very exciting.  Stay tuned to see what the inside of the theatre looks like (which I'll put up in a later post).