Ekaterina A. (EIE)

I remember one moment. We were performing a scene from Dead Souls: the one with Sofya Ivanovna and Anna Grigorievna. We had those two characters. I played Sofya Ivanovna. We rehearsed for a very long time—every glance, every movement; I became so immersed in the role that even when I came back from camp, two months after it ended, I still felt that I walked like Sofya Ivanovna, spoke like Sofya Ivanovna, and used the same emotional gestures she would.

I meet a friend and, when she leaves, I catch myself repeating her movements, her intonations, her glances, her gestures, etc.

As a child, when I came home from kindergarten, my parents could always tell what kind of day it had been, which teachers were there, what mood they were in, and generally what had happened that day—because when I came home, I had this little chalkboard, and I loved to draw on it and pretend to be a teacher. There weren’t any “students,” but I loved playing school. I imitated exactly the mood and behavior of the teachers that day. They could always tell everything just by watching me.

<…> I want to act in a horror movie. I want a role in a psychological film—not the lead, but a supporting role where you don’t need to say anything, where you just convey emotion so that people understand—emotional impact on the audience without words. A strong role. When you must portray fear, tragedy, so that while the main action happens on stage, I’m in the background—seemingly unimportant, but carrying great weight. I want people’s blood to run cold when they look at me, or for me to scream so wildly that everyone else screams with me and spills their popcorn… To look someone in the eyes and kill without a weapon… to make everyone tremble.

When I recall some situation, the emotions from interacting with the person rise up, along with the general feeling of the situation — whether it was cold, hot, or brown.

A person who can captivate me, someone I can be close to — they will be light brown.

I also have my own color, and when I enter this light brown color, I sort of blend with it. I guess I lack this light brown shade. I want different emotional responses, but the state that’s comfortable for me is always associated with light brown.

If such “vibes” come from a person, I’ll approach them.

The larger mass of people is dark dark green. A simple crowd is dark gray; if festive — light gray, pale yellow. If someone is angry — I become light blue, I will avoid them. I don’t want to let their anger into myself, so I avoid that person.

If someone feels bad — you feel kind of dim too, very heavy, and you want to lift yourself up, but you can do that only by somehow lifting the mood of that person; then it becomes easier. If I’m upset, even if I smile, the person next to me has their smile fade, fade. If I’m joyful, then — why not share it?

I love diving into memories, partly because something seems to be missing in the present. If the present lacks events, I try to find them in the past or think about the future, dream about it.

<...> When a familiar person walks into a room, I can predict their behavior. I guess I very quickly — it only takes a few seconds — unfold images in my mind of what could happen. Roughly speaking, I fantasize. I feel a person’s energy, see their eyes, their hands, and I start filling in the rest. I see little scenes before my eyes: what they might say, what they might do. In class, I’d look at one person, then another. A person is who they are right now, and I begin to imagine them wearing different clothes, with different expressions, different ways of talking on the phone.

A classmate in the future — how he walks there, maybe swims.

I try on different images and find the one that suits them best at the moment, but with the idea of what they might become after some time.