London Day 3 People Dance and so do Horses

No class on a Wednesday morning, instead it was off the Victoria and Albert Museum of Design. Now I had heard about the museum from many of my textbooks so I was really pumped to see it in person. Before we could get down to some serious museum wandering and oggling, we first had a workshop to attend to.

Now no one had told us what our workshop we be on, I had assumed it would be on how to use to the museum as a student, or a lecture about one particular section of the museum, but no instead we walked in to find a familiar site. There in front of us were boxes of theatre makeup and mirrors and I knew just what to do. There we met a wonderful makeup artist who was there to quickly teach us some basics. I admit, I had already been taught many of the techniques she showed us but it was still a fun refresher and it was great to see everyone's reaction to being able to play with the makeup. After we were set loose upon our own makeup station and our own victim had been chosen, it was time to play. I paired up with kyle who promptly aged me to the ripe old age of 50 or so, and then we switched so that I could take my turn.  Here are our results

After we had cleaned off our poor pore clogged faces, and faded from cats and old men back into ourselves it was finally time to explore the museum.

WOW, what a museum, the first few rooms were just what I expected, scattered classical statues,  various artifacts in glass cases on the wall, but then I entered into the room with Trajan's column and my mind was blown, because there in front of me, was Tranjan's column. At first I couldn't believe that's what it was. When I saw it I leaned over to kyle and said, wow that looks a lot like Trajan's Column, and then the closer I walked to it, the more I could make out he carvings, and then there was no doubting it, after a quick look at the plaque it confirmed it.

The sheer size of it is amazing, it was so large that the replica had to be displayed in two pieces to fit in an already enormous room. It was something I had read all about in my art history classes and it was just so amazing to see it in person, to see how complex and intricate and never ending it really was.
Trajan's Column wasn't the only art work that had in awe, but it was definitely the most memorable. I'll never forget how small I felt next to such a monumental monument. 

After exploring all the Museum's normal collection, with a stroke of luck, ended up snatching some ticket's to their special exhibition featuring art and design of the Ballet Russe. I knew little to nothing about ballet before I walked through, but I certainly felt much more educated after. The exhibit just kept going on and on and on. I kept thinking it was over when suddenly another doorway leading to yet another room would appear. It was great and really expansive covering so many aspects of the ballet productions from set designs to costume sketches, to props and videos of performances. Also it was packed, shoulder to shoulder with people slowing meandering through the display. With the dim lights and the crowd it was a rather surreal experience, and I was surprised to find the number of hours we spent wandering though the beautiful and eccentric world of the Russian ballet.

We finally emerged into the sunlight once more to find that it wasn't sunlight anymore, but rather a sunset. We quickly got ourselves ready to go because we still had a scavenger hunt to complete before we go to the long anticipated War Horse that night.

The scavenger hunt consisted of questions that were  meant to familiarize us with the theatre section in London around Covent Garden and Picadilly Circus. Luckily we had wandered through many of the areas already in our earlier in our previous adventures so it wasn't too difficult to find the locations listed in the questions. We quickly finished off the survey only to find that we had only enough time to eat and then run to War Horse, so we did. But of course along the way we managed to snap at least a couple photos.

Then it was off to War Horse.
Again. Wow. The puppets just were so amazing. I know the story was great too, but I couldn't help constantly staring at the horses, they were just purely mesmerizing. As I watched I kept noticing more and more about their construction, struggling to find out just how every joint moved and how it was all put together. They were just so beautiful and talk about some talented puppeteers. When the actors just hopped on top of the puppets smooth as can be and were just whisked away but the puppeteers underneath, my mind was blown. Just blown.

After an incredible show, it was time for bed again, and then DAY 4.