Last Week in Athens

Group of Aphrodite, Pan, and Eros Me in the Odeon Herodus Atticus Theater!
Me violently performing in the Odeon Herodus Atticus Theater!
Alicia Peterson, me, and Ingrid Jorud (in order) in our Greek dancing costumes
Sara Chojnacki, Marit Geston, me, and Erik Berg in our acting workshop make-up

Alright, it's been a while since I've blogged and so much has happened since the last time I wrote, that I'm going to have to sum up my favorite parts of the last week. Otherwise this post could be longer than you're willing to read and certainly longer than I'm willing to write.

One of the funner activities we got to do was Greek dancing lessons. We were given 2 lessons which lasted 2 hours each. I've never been much of a dancer but I really enjoyed the Greek dances. It's usually done in a circle, either holding hands to the person next to you or grabbing shoulders. The steps are fairly monotonous--so if you have any balance at all you should be able to perform the steps. However, The Zorba dance is a little different. If you've ever seen the movie, you know what I mean! It is done in lines instead of a circle and is very difficult and very fast. Of course, I executed it perfectly! I seem to dance better in Greece, you know! The last night of our lessons we were put into traditional Greek dancing costumes. While I look a little like the Virgin Mary (it's supposed to be a bridal outfit) the boys looked like Aladdin from the Disney movie! I hope I can remember some of the steps so I will be able to perform for you all when I get home.

Another highlight was the National Archeological Museum. We went to many museums here including the Cycladic Art Museum, Benaki Museum, Jewish History Museum, Acropolis Museum, and a few others which names I can't recall. The Archeological Museum was my favorite though. It housed some very famous Greek statues, as well as the world famous Mask of Agamemnon. The only picture I put up from that visit was the Group of Aphrodite, Pan, and Eros, which was my favorite. It is basically showing the goddess Aphrodite (goddess of love) being forcefully propositioned by Pan (god of the shephards and flocks) with Eros coming to her rescue (Eros is the god of love, lust, and sex). Take a good look at the statue, it's so cool!

We also were given the amazing opportunity of visiting the Odeon Herodus Atticus Theater. It was such a fluke that were able to enter at all actually! It's under rennovation right now and they usually never let anyone go inside. I don't know how my professors did it, but somehow they finagled us in with their wily wits. Not only were we allowed to go inside, but we performed scenes from plays we've read on that very stage! We've been working on these scenes for a week and performed it as a project for my theater class. My group and I did a scene from The Birds (a very different play from Hitchcock's movie). It is a crude and ancient comedy which includes some wonderfully fun slap-stick violence (as pictured above). It was really fun to do in the Odeon--where these plays were really performed thousands of years ago!

The last thing I'm going to write about is the acting workshop we went to yesterday. It was a 6 hour workshop and pretty intense. We were all very tired after it was done. We performed scenes from the tradgedy Ajax, which is a very powerful and intense play. We all played The Chorus members and, to get into character, put on make-up and wore head scarves. The make-up made us look like death--which, I suppose, was the point. It was a very long workshop and perhaps not my favorite of activities, but don't we look horrifying?

There were many other wonderful events over the last week or so--far too many to write about now! I've taken hundreds of pictures already though and will be happy to show them to all who are interested when I return. I hope that everyone is staying warm in their respected areas of the world. I started snowing here in Athens today. I'm very upset the weather felt the need to follow me here. I will pray to the god Apollo tonight for some sunshine!!