The Party Journal!! discussion

Here Marya!If you want to can change the title and add more Topics on this Folder if you want! Can't wait to see what you do with it!

Natasha's Dance

Inspired by Orlando Figes’ book Natasha’s Dance: A Cultural History of Russia

“Natalya Ilyinichna,” my uncle whispers.
“Dance.”
I shake my head.
I don’t dance.
Not in front of strangers.
Not with music I’ve never heard before
The accordions squeeze in rhythmic harmony
violins wail in alien melodies
boots stamp,
tambourines clash
weaving into one song,
flying through the air
piercing the listeners’ hearts
with a strange sensation.
At once, the strange music fills me with
love, loss, and joy
in the same moment
transporting me
to a distant world
of corn fields and wooden huts
and peasants marching home from a long day’s work
a world alien to me yet part of me.
“Natalya Ilyinichna,”
my uncle whispers
“Dance.”
I shake my head again
and close my eyes
shivering under my shawl
which can never cover the goosebumps
that I feel
listening to the music of my supposed homeland.*
Alien to my ears
alien to my memory
but not to my heart
“Natalya Ilyinichna!”
my uncle demands
“Give me your shawl.”
“Why?” I ask
“Dance.” he insists
And I find myself nodding, smiling even.
Stepping before a thousand faces of strangers,
taking one more step
and beginning to dance,
not knowing what I should be doing,
but only what I feel
three steps to the right
three steps to the left
turn.
Three steps back
three steps forward
turn.
Four stomps with the right,
four with the left,
three turns…
But before I take another step
the song changes.
The singing stops
boots stamp harder
the accordions soften,
joined by small triangular lutes**
leaving the violins to rise high above
crescendoing into a wild melody
that I think impossible to dance.
Yet I dare continue
stomping harder,
spinning faster
as the melody takes root in my soul
reaching its peak,
where the tambourines stop
where the accordions silence
where no one dares strum a lute.
Waves of silence fill the room,
so that all I hear are my own stomps
with a lone violin weeping the final
strains of melody
which fade far away.
Soft.
Softer.
Silent.
I stop my tracks mid-turn
to acknowledge the quiet
How did I dance this way?
I ask.
The only answer could be
that the eternal land of my ancestors live within me
even when I never knew it.

*In Natasha’s era, most aristocratic Russians were educated in a “European” manner, knowing little of their heritage.
**balalaikas, a traditional Russian folk instrument

Wow! That was beautiful! The writing was enticing!

thx

I may post part of my dnf-ed contemporary romance about a theater geek with Asperger's syndrome.

I also want to scan some chibi drawings I made of characters from musicals and post them here.

Okay! Looking forward to it!

So here's the beginning and I probably won't put anymore. I can't think of a good summary of what happens yet.

I opened the car door, clutching my backpack while mom parked outside the arts center where they hosted the theater summer camp I had signed up for.

“Good luck, Sonia,” Mom called, half staring at her phone. She had theater business of her own, some crazy musical adaptation of Macbeth rehearsing in Berkeley, which had her on her phone at all times she was home. Dad had work too, which meant my sister Katy and I were home alone a lot. It sometimes worried mom, so she was glad to have me out of the house for eight hours, even if my feet came back sore.

My backpack fell from my hands.
I cursed violently. Several heads swiveled around to stare.
“Sonia?” Katy asked.

My cheeks began reddening, as I added no public swearing to my sea of life lessons learned the hard way. I had a lot of regrets in life, no matter how hard I tried not to embarrass myself.
I pulled my schedule out of my backpack while approaching the door. A camp staff member greeted me at the door.

“Sonia Donovan?”
I nodded.
“Room 22b.”

A tap on my shoulder prompted me to turn around. Jasmine Soo, my neighbor stood behind me with her own backpack and a tome of Michael Crichton.

“Hey,” she said.
“Hi.”
“How’s the depressing song about death going?”
“Done. I’ll show it to you at snack break.”

We hurried through the doorway and down the hall to room 22b - intermediate drama and the circle of chairs in the middle of the blue tile floor. Light streamed in from a pair of rectangular windows behind the teacher’s chair.

The bell from a nearby church chimed eight as the teacher rose from her chair, clutching a beach ball in both hands.

“When I give you the beachball, tell me your name, age and school,” she said.

We followed the circle with our eyes. A blond boy, Graham, took the ball first. A fifteen-year-old going to Blackberry Creek High, he had a faint Australian accent and a haircut that looked straight out of a boy band. It was beyond me why anyone would desire such a look but it was his problem.

Next to him sat a quiet ginger guy who Graham said was also fifteen but attending Wheatfield High, my school. It puzzled me that I didn’t know him whatsoever yet there was something vaguely familiar about him.

I stared at my lap as the set of near-indistinguishable blondes and brunettes introduced themselves, only remembering that Helena Grayson, in the direct middle, had pink highlights that matched her yoga jacket. A few seats away from Helena sat Briana or something, unusually tan for the group she sat with.
A silence ensued.

I looked up to find half the room staring at me, with the exception of I-couldn’t-care-less Graham and stoics Jasmine and the ginger boy. I took the ball from Briana’s waiting hands.

“I’m Sonia - I’m an incoming sophomore at Wheatfield.”
The rest of the room nodded.

After Jasmine introduced herself, we played a few rounds of the usual drama games before delving into scenes and monologues. Five minutes after the same church bell chimed nine, Jasmine and I stood in tank tops and leggings inside dance studio three. Our snack break bell rang two hours later.

“So this is the song?” She asked.
“Yeah, in need of revisions.”
“Definitely. Change the bridge.”
I dropped my head and exhaled, trying to suppress the cold tide rising in my chest. I knew criticism was good for the music I’d only been writing for a year. However, I took criticism more seriously than others, an unfortunate part of me I blamed on my Asperger’s syndrome.

It wasn’t like my condition was a huge deal in my life, but the role it played became small but crucial, especially with the onset of adolescent hormones. The main impact it had on me was that I cried as an expression of slight anger or speaking about something I believed strongly in. As I grew up I started wondering if it also impacted my lack of popularity, close friends, or a boyfriend.

Around my twelfth or thirteenth birthday, I started wondering if it was the reason why I seemed to take everything harder than my peers. I was a sore loser highly influenced by insults mocked and babied by half the girls who stood above me on the preteen social pyramid. It would do no good to explain, I told myself. All the girls would just take it as a further excuse to view me as some special baby whose brain should be treated like some alien species and talked over by cheesy scientists who lectured in condescending voices how “she is different” and all that. I didn’t need it. In the big picture, I was hardly different from any other girl my age and if no one noticed it, it didn’t matter.

The intercom buzzed.
“Please go to your next class.”

I like it! I feel like it could however, have been spaced better, it seems to jump from one place to the next rather quickly. But the writing itself was really descriptive and detailed. I like how you added in the part about the criticism, that was a nice touch. And the part when she mentioned "no public swearing to my sea of life lessons learned the hard way." that was a creative way of writing it, it gave a more realistic vibe to your character. All in all....Well done!