bit of everything ~ march favourites

hello dear, welcome to my embarrassing den of wonder, nice to meet you.

sorry i've been away for so long, life just kinda got in the way and i became super discouraged after first week without a post... i know, it makes no sense but that's just how i roll.

anyway, march ended, it's the first monday of april (one of my favourite months) so let's get down to my favourite things.

first things first, food. i'm a massive fan and easter is my jam but! there is something that stole my heart and it surprisingly isn't my 'one-hand brownie' (recipe coming this month). 

fig bar

this the actual bomb. imagine this. you're kinda hungry but there is still a couple of hours till dinner, you don't really like figs but you love raspberries though and the packaging is basically screaming buy me at you. that was me one afternoon 3 weeks ago. and here i am, buying this stuff by a dozen and eating it instead of breakfast (don't kill me please). 

what this basically is, it's a duo of small fig bars (15%) with addition of raspberries, blueberries or solo. they are made from wholemeal flour with some oats. and that's it, no gmo, no trans fats, no milk products, suitable for vegans. sounds really simple, and it kinda is, but i find myself reaching for that instead of chocolate which is really something, i like my cocoa.  

~~~

syoss ~ 10 in 1 essential wonder treatment

when i was travelling in february, i sadly forgot my usual hair oil and my hair was in dying need of something. i couldn't find my usual stuff (why do chain drugstores not offer the same thing everywhere?? isn't that the point??) so i opted for something new, it sounded kinda good. 

now, here's the situation about my hair. i've been dyeing, curling, bleaching it since i was about 13. it's even more damaged after bleaching it for blue-purple in december although now it's in a really good condition. anyway, since it's kinda poorly, every time i wash it, i treat it with oils and some keratin shampoo, masks and all that stuff. i don't really blow dry it but i try to use nice things after washing as well. right now i'm using this and it's basically magical. i haven't heard about it before, but then again i don't really read reviews ever, just used it. and it's so good! smells fantastic, makes my hair really smooth, fixed my cotton candy ends and my hair is finally manageable when dry! now the weirdest thing, writing this post i checked this product online. it turns out that it's not very liked at all! i assume that those reviews are from people whose hair is much healthier than mine used to be. i don't know if it's any good for a pick me up for nice hair but i definitely recommend it for dry and kind of hopeless hair.

~~~

origins ~ drink-up intensive overnight mask

i've been getting kinda into skincare a bit lately, there'll be more about this later, so when the brand origins came to our sephora i was very excited. i've heard a bunch about them, especially their facial masks, this and the charcoal one. the charcoal needs a bit more time for my review but this one is definitely worth the hype! i'm new to the whole overnight mask thing, but it's quite convenient, since you don't have to wait around, and turns out it's good for my skin. this one is very hydrating, as the package says, smells really good too. origins stands for all natural ingredients so this contains apricot kernel oil, plant glycerin and hyaluronic acid to bring moisture, avocado oil and mango butter to lock it in for the morning and japanese seaweed to prevent future dryness. it's very easy to use, just like a normal mask/rich night cream and the results are visible in the morning. the only downside to this is the prize, for now at least, but if you have a coupon, which is frequently, at sephora it's definitely worth it.

~~~

kitty collector

now something purely innocent and for fun. neko atsume. you've probably heard about it but if not, let me introduce you to this just wonderful app. neko atsume (kitty collector in japanese) is kids play but it brings me so much joy. i don't have a cat, and i don't think that i'll be getting one soon, so this is my outlet of being a crazy cat lady. in the game you have a back yard with space for food and cat toys. you leave the food out and cats come to you all on their own. when they leave they give you fish (which serve as money for more food and toys). the premise of the game is to have all the toys, all the food and all the cats! there are 53 cats, i think, they all have different tastes and needs. all you have to do is give them food and change your yard around once in a while. you can take photos of them and name each one differently if you want.

i know, it's kinda immature but let me have my adult fun. i never had a console, i wasn't very into sims (you know the drill, 4 days straight and then nothing for 4 months) so this is my tamagotchi in a phone. 

the game is free for ios and android, you can buy fish but it's not necessary, and it's just good fun.

~~~

meΔia meΔea

the last thing i want to talk about it media medea. this is a play being shown in the polish theatre in wroclaw. it's made by marcin liber and marzena sadocha. here is the info from the theatre site. 

my last couple of plays where very disappointing and since i haven't heard any praises of this play i wasn't expecting anything big. i went with one of my school friends, we were just curious really. but what a good decision that was! 

this is a very, very expressive play. there is a lot happening, there are about 4 stories happening at once, intertwining and connecting. each has two actors, medea and jazon. each touches on love, be it young, lost or burnt out. there is also some social commentary on refugees and the way we treat the history of things that are no longer there. there are pieces of betrayal, revenge, loss and being lost. i feel like every body can find something to relate to in this play, the stories of families, repeated archetypes, are universal. every character has a moment of realisation, a breaking point and it's very interesting to see those on stage, with a bang a lot of times.

the practical side of the play is really good too, the costumes are very modern and interesting but they don't take away from the action. same with the use of video clips. i don't know why but our theatre recently uses video in every single play, a lot of the times it doesn't make sense (cause it's a theatre right? live action things should be happening) but here it's quite well combined. the stage is a whole big space but it doesn't confuse the audience when difference scenes are happening. even the nudity is not very overused, which i feel like is an exception in modern plays (but that's a whole another post 'on nudity'). 

go if you want. just beware of quite a lot of smoke machine, and if you don't like cigarettes don't pick a seat in the front right. 

that would be it, it think. i'm sorry again, for not being here, forgive me.

~~~

sockabrate is really coming back, i'm just a total slacker. 

love you,

qofr

szemrany szekspir

i'm a big fan of shakespeare's works. i find classic british humour to be hilarious and roles like hamlet are just wonderful. i've read the major plays, both in polish and english, been to multiple stagings of different interpretations of the genius texts. but i'm not here to fluff around about my love about the guy.

as you know, i visited gdańsk recently and there is this thing there that got me seriously excited. a ''shakespeare's theatre''. sounds cool, right? in reality it's not really but we'll get to that later. 

the theatre is this whole investment and project which was started in the early 2000's and finished 1,5 year ago. it resulted in a building. good fun.

why shakespear? he hasn't even visited gdańsk in his times! it turns out that there was an old theatre (about the time the author was alive), where the new one stands, and they hosted various artists from all over europe. so here's why apparently. 

the idea is great. they built a theatre, designed by an italian architect, which is supposed to be a place for other theatres from all over the country to come and act on a very advanced stage, with amazing technology. 

the biggest thing about this building is the stage itself and the roof. the stage is entirely movable, made of parts that can change the pits hight and make the ''italian stage'' (which is the classic pushed back into the wall stage) into an ''elizabethan stage'' (traditional shakespeare's stage, pushed into the audience, actors can be seen from almost all sides). this poses so many opportunities! like there can be plays just for this stage, much different from the norm, watched from many angles! imagine that...

the seats are movable

italian stage, 

the dark parts can be changed

and here comes the first absurd. even though the stage has so much potential, the guide (he was kinda creepily in love with the whole thing) couldn't name one play that was newly written for this theatre. they don't want to invest in their own troupe (continuing the olden traditions) so the plays depend purely on the guest theatre. oh, and even the true shakespeare plays are on the italian stage! oh my god! such a waste! even the one produced as the first traditional play (they plan on having a premiere once a year of a new shakespeare play, since he wrote so many) wasn't on the full elizabethan stage!

~~~

another cool thing about this building, as mentioned, is the roof. you probably noticed that they have a roof, yet the original didn't have those. 

the pattern is really cool though...

i was really confused at first cause a sort of open air theatre gives a totally different feel to a play than a closed space (and the lighting is very different) but they sort of dealt with that.

they have a freaking movable roof! it weights 40 tonnes, although don't quote me on that, and can open in 3 minutes. because it was really gloomy, rainy and cold when i went, they didn't open it for us but you can see photos on their page. tbh looks interesting.

~~~

now let's get to the szemrany part. szemrany translates to dodgy or shady. 

so... the whole thing seems to be very dangerous, from a ''health and safety''. it seems that the architect was really stubborn with the concept but didn't take into account that this is a public use building. almost all the staircases are like 90cm wide, two people barely fit. we went on this terrace thing:

and when the guy was talking he kind of contradicted himself in the next sentences. firstly, he said that this is not available to the general public and they don't open it during performances, yet it's supposed to be a walking trail and he invited us to suggest projects that can happen in these areas... 

another thing. my mum and i bought tickets online to see a play that very same day, yet somehow they failed to inform us that it's canceled. we were there 3 hours earlier! oh, and they suggested we should keep an eye on their facebook page, tf...

to be honest, the last thing i think is the building from the outside. it is very controversial in the gothic architecture in the city center, i can totally see why. it looks like a burnt tomb to me... i even heard some architecture people discussing it in a cafe, to be gentle, they weren't happy. 

all and all, it was a weird, shady and not very enjoyable experience. and it's such a shame, damn it! 

~~~

now, i'd like to know what you think. i know you probably haven't been but what do you think about the building (it costed almost 100 milion zlotys, the bricks on the outside where hand made...). 

i really don't like it, and it looks terrible in connection to the whole panorama, shame...

~~~

okay, here it is. the travelog is coming on friday i think.

this has been your monday dose of architecture banter.

love, 

qofr

p.s. i'm sososososo sorry this didn't come out last week, my laptop refused to turn on and i had to deal with that...

thank you

maria naucza

ok, this is major. i'm like tottaly awe-struck.

since i'm in warsaw, i might as well treat myself to a ticket for a play with a famous brilliant actress, right? good choice, good choice.

~~~

''maria callas. master class'' in och-teatr.

as the title would suggest, this play is about maria callas, a very famous opera singer in her times and until today. she is one of the most important artists, her voice was unique and she was truly an actress on stage.

she was born in america but moved to athens quite early in her life, greek decent. maria started off as a ''hippopotamus'' on stage, with pimples too. fortunately, her artistry was more important than looks, which greatly improved once she lost weight, btw.

la traviata, as violetta

the really sad thing is that her hard and heavy temper affected a lot of her life, thus her talent. even though she was an international star, in 1965, she got kicked out of her opera environment, after years and years of quarrels with her millionaire husband (he didn't want her to sing, she got in trouble with basically everybody because of that).

but... what about the play!

we meet her in 1971, at julliard school of music in new york. callas tried teaching a master class there. the whole performance is centered and played as a lecture with students presenting their works. maria listens but frequently interrupts. there are only 3 students, yet we are watching the stage, from both sides, for nearly 2 hours. it doesn't feel like it.

krystyna janda, a very famous polish film and theatre actress, plays the main role. she's in her 60s but that's not a problem, i feel like if she was younger (even though she already played callas, in a similar play, 10 years ago), you wouldn't see the truth.

i can actually believe she is callas, that's her, with jet black, pulled back hair, and short legs. the actual singer had a very difficult childhood, during war, she was very self conscious, needed love and hate. janda portraits that very well. her monologues are the most moving, her feelings towards her husband, her desperate need to act but not act. even if it is set in a class room, with students actually performing opera, her persona is so sharp that even when she leaves the stage for a break, callas is still there.

one of the most elegant posters i have ever seen

~~~

i know that you probably want to hear about costumes... but there really isn't that much to say. imagine an old diva with a very classy presence, a school accompanist, students who really don't know how to dress themselves and a grumpy janitor. that's it really. but it plays so nicely. 

~~~

i'm really sorry this is late, but the play... it was soooooo goooood. go see it if you have the chance, please. you'll thank me in unicorn tears.

this has been your monday (wednesday) dose of culture vulture.

love,

qofr

into the woods

at first i didn't intend to make scenography and set design for this project. i'm not really into that domain of theatre so i just wanted to go with raw industrial. un/fortunately, my tutor thought of a whole stage set when she heard about the costumes, told me about it, so, since i'm the type that if something is stuck in my head it's for good (gonna stay there till i realise it), i got to work.

since the most important things on stage were the lit costumes, i focused on the lighting.

this is the finished product. to be fair it actually came out almost just like i imagined (the temperature of lights could be more alike but you can't have it all)

the whole set is basically just 3 paper screens and lights, but what an effect!

this is the raw set, no light. looks bare and not really interesting but the scale is quite big. each screen is about 3 meters in hight and 2.5 in width. it was an exhausting task, thank you jagoda for helping me, i still have a bit of scarring on my hands (i had to lift like a 60kg roll of paper). each piece is hung from the celling in two places, held together with a wooden bar. the one thing i need to remember in the future is to make them a bit longer, so they don't slide that much.

behind the screens there was a spot light and on the sides two slide projectors. and i mean those old ones, with single frames and film.

the shapes are inspired by the same things as the costumes, i just simplified them a bit, to make things more clear.

you would think i'll use digital projectors with scans of my inspirations, right? well, first thing, there weren't that many just available since ''light day'' is a school thing and there were many other performances. second thing that it actually didn't work that well in practice. i did a lot of monotype designs with different motifs but the scan wasn't good enough and i would have to clean all of them by hand, no way...

luckily, my teacher suggested just drawing the needed shapes on see-through foil and putting it in film frames, worked great and it was easy to copy for two screens. an even better thing was that since the actual image wasn't visible, the audience couldn't see the imperfections.

~~~

ok, that's it. listen to this and enjoy the photos (taken by jagoda as well):

this has been your monday dose of pure coolness

love,

qofr

en garde!

yesterday i had the pleasure of seeing ''the three musketeers'' play in the musical theatre here. it's a mega production, comes in at just under 4 hours and has lights, costumes and fire. very well then.

as you know i'm very interested in the costumes and characterisations in this whole theatre thing, but before i dive into that, i'll tell you more about the play.

the official poster

the three musketeers is a book written by alexander dumas in 1844. the action takes place in the XVIIth century in france under the rule of louis XIII. it's full of history, love, fights and intrigues. good read, only the language can be challenging sometimes.

the play is based entirely on the book and is very faithful, not a modern telling. there are two acts and definitely the first one rules. the action is well presented, even if the love stories and songs are a bit soppy. and i loooove the fight scenes, big fan of historical reconstructions. 

on the technical side of things, the stage is so well prepared. the capitol has a fantastic stage in itself, it has 3 or 4 moving parts and can be two-storey. additionally, they made 3 or 4 columns, two-storey as well, that could move and twist around. the coordination of changing the scenery was amazing, i wandered how long they've practiced all that. 

in the second part there was a lot more tension, i feel like it was dragged out a bit. the only thing that really hold it all together was milady de winter, the main culprit of all the intrigues. justyna szafran, the actress behind milady, has a great chemistry and sexual energy with the rest of the cast, and i love me some erotism on stage.  

it took me a while to warm up to d'artagnan in this production, mostly because the last time i saw this story the role was played by logan lerman in the ridiculous 2011 film with orlando bloom as prince buckingham, and this guy doesn't resemble him one bit. 

~~~

now, let's get down to the good stuff, clothes! 

in general, i'm very content with their interpretation of historical wear. it can be hard, and i personally prefer a bit of a traditional approach. the only big thing i really don't like are the bare arms on women, other than milady de winter, cause with her it looks gorgeous. 

like look at this, of course it's beautiful but it's not XVIIth century france! there was another scene on the ball (which, to my disappointment, wasn't really that big) where the queen was dancing in some sort of eastern dress with lots of flowy fabric, it's just not the right atmosphere. but the rest of the ball was devine.

the musketeers looked great, even poor d'artagnan. 

atos, portos and, my favourite, aramis where so manly, just like a soldier should be. i'm not really into muscles but i'm a sucker for a man in a military wear.

 atos

portos

aramis

the leather is very nice, i wasn't close to the stage but even i could tell they paid attention to the details. anna chadaj, did a great job.

~~~

do you like historical plays or other works? on the 5th i'm going to see a retransmission of 'hamlet' from national theatre, we'll see how this works.

this has been you monday dose of bravery.

love,

qofr

ps. watch the trailer here.

you don't need fireworks to make a show

bonjour

has anybody seen the bjork extravaganza that is biophilia project?

i hope so, and if not you need to fix it right now. although not now exactly, cause the dvd of the london final concert is coming out later this month but at least listen to a few of my favourite tracks:

bjork playlist

later on in the playlist there are some tracks from her previous albums, i just love them.

bjork makes a very alternative kind of sound. i've heard of her before, a few years ago she shook the icelandic and world wide music scene, but i never got the chance to listen to her actual tracks. 

my mum got us tickets for a retransmission of her live performance. i was very sceptical cause, come on, how good can a concert be if it's in a cinema? 

it was amazing

the production value was so good. the outfits were so good, the choir was so good, the special effects on the video were so good. so good.

i wish i could find some more photos from the actual performance but i guess they'll be available later.

but just look at this, the costumes are gorgeous. i already pre-ordered the dvd so there is probably going to be more on them.

ok, i don't know, i just wanted to show you my new obsession.

by the way, i was thinking of doing monthly favourites? yes, no?

till next time,

love

qofr

jewels

so the other day i went to see the transmission of a ballet 'jewels' from the bolshoi theatre. the play was originally choreographed by george balanchine in 1967 for the new york city ballet and now the bolshoi got the permission from his foundation to re-stage it in moscow.

the ballet has three acts but it doesn't really matter since it's not story driven. each act symbolises one kind of jewel, emeralds, rubies and finally diamonds. the choreographer wanted to bring a forth jewel, sapphire but, in the end, it wasn't finished.

it is said that balanchine was inspired by the rich and wonderful jewellery stores down the fifth avenue in new york. each jewel symbolises different ballet schools. emeralds are like the delicate and elegant french ballet, rubies are classic but with a musical ballet twist like the american ballet and the crowning jewels, diamonds, are as sophisticated and precise as the russian ballet.

the music also matches the symbolic meanings. emeralds dance to extracts from Gabriel Fauré's Pelléas et Mélisande (1898) and Shylock (1889), rubies twirl to Capriccio for Piano and Orchestra (1929) by Igor Stravinsky and diamonds shine to the tones of  Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky's Symphony No. 3 in D major (1875).

so now that we have the general overview, let's get to the really exciting part, the costumes! 
i was really excited, like imagine how many things you could do with costumes for not only a ballet play but picturing jewels! i was so pumped. 

it turns out i overshot the creativity of the costume designer, Barbara Karinska. i know, it's probably a shock, she designed so many wonderful costumes. 
and now hear me out. i'm not saying the costumes aren't wonderful. they are so well crafted and beautiful, they kinda look like i could imagine them but come on... so much more could have been done to them!

photos for reference:

 emeralds

 rubies

diamonds

in each act there are the 'main' dancers and of course the back... (i don't know, i know the minimal things about ballet). the problem for me was that there wasn't much difference between the main and others... like none at all. i suppose it was a conscious decision, since those are the same jewels, but i was just so disappointed... 

the thing i thought was really well thought out was the style of the costumes. they were quite nicely fitted to the choreography and music. but they didn't look like jewels and i think that was the main point.

 emeralds

look at this. the tulle is so nice, the colour is perfectly matched. but the design on the front is just so generic.

 rubies

this is even more generic. the 'rubies' skirt doesn't move with her dance. after rubies i sort of lost hope for these costumes.

 diamonds

these sort of restored my peace of mind. for me it was the best part.

i think i'm done here. have you seen it by any chance? what do you think of the costumes?

btw do you like those 'review' things?

love,

qofr

ps. the photos are not mine, taken by damir yusupov and elena fetisova, curtesy of the bolshoi theatre website.