To Russia with love

Tiffany Tinsley Weeks is a senior instructor in the theatre & dance program in the Department of Visual and Performing Arts at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs. Her focus is dance composition and modern dance technique. In addition to her teaching, she choreographs for THEATREWORKS, and performs and choreographs for Ormao Dance Company, where she was Assistant Artistic Director for ten years.
Tiffany grew up in Miami, FL and graduated Magna Cum Laude from the University of Florida with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Dance. She toured nationally as a featured performer and has been nominated for the Peak Area Performer and Artists Award three times.
Before teaching at UCCS, she taught modern dance technique at Colorado College and has been a guest teacher at American College Dance Festival and Pikes Peak Community College. Tiffany moved to Colorado Springs in 2001 and joined the Department of Visual and Performing Arts at UCCS in 2011.
Tiffany is a mother to her two vibrant boys who are currently in 7th and 4th grade.
In the last 3 years, Tiffany has traveled to Russia six times and spent the summer of 2019 living in the center of Moscow in the Smolenskaya district. She typically spends two to three months of the year living in Moscow and has also ventured to the cities of Saint Petersburg and Suzdal.
Her first trip to Russia was to participate in the La Muse laboratory for artists in the beautiful forest of Domodedovo. It was there that she fell in love with Russian people and culture, knowing that she would certainly return and experience going to the dacha and to the banya for herself!



A lady called me this summer and asked about my Russian language class which I’ve been teaching for 30 years at the Pikes Peak community college and the UCCS.
We talked. Her life seemed to me very interesting: not often one can meet here a person who is in love with Russia nowadays, when the Russo-phobia is streaming from all mass media 24x7.
I invited her to meet my students. Her story was so interesting to all of us that I’ve decided to take interview with her. Here it is:



Pavel Kozhevnikov (PK): Tiffany, thank you for your time and desire to give interview to our newspaper*. First, tell us about your theatre & dance program in the Department of Visual and Performing Arts at the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs. What is it and who are your students?

Tiffany Tinsley Weeks (TTW):
It’s my pleasure! Thank you for inviting me to an interview. The Theatre and Dance Department offers a Bachelor of Arts with a major in theatre, dance, or our dual major which covers both, to UCCS students. We focus on acting and dance techniques, directing, choreography, technical theatre (lighting, sound, set design, run crew), and theatre and dance history. Our goal is to help students develop multiple skills that will allow them to be well rounded artists and scholars. Our department encourages cross disciplinary and collaborative work. We have about 150 students in the program who are majors or minors and produce a season of both faculty and student directed work. I’m always impressed by how passionate our students are about creating their own work. They come from differing backgrounds and experience levels but are all equally eager to learn their craft firsthand. We have typical university students who have recently graduated high school, but we also have military, seeking degrees after serving. We have returning adults, students who are parents, international exchange students. UCCS has a diverse population.

 P.K.: What kind of dance you teach your students?

TTW: I teach Fundamentals of Dance Technique, which is a course for beginners where we cover the foundations of several techniques with a little bit of dance history and human anatomy. I also teach Dance Composition. This is choreography, designing bodies in space much in the same way that a composer puts musical notes on a page. I also teach contemporary dance technique.

P.K.: When did you feel a call for dance?

TTW: It’s interesting that you bring this up because I was just thinking about that yesterday! When I was seven years old, my mom took me to a ballet concert in L.A. Everything about the trip was magical for me. It was my first trip across the country, my first time staying in a fancy hotel, and my first time at the ballet. I was absolutely transfixed watching that performance. The dancers moved beautifully to Pachelbel’s Cannon, and the costumes were glittery and sparkly! As I sat there watching, I knew in my heart that I wanted to be a dancer.
The following year, I had an opportunity to audition for a performing arts elementary school in Miami. I was originally recommended for the visual art program because I made an oil painting in my art class at school that won a city-wide contest. But I insisted on auditioning for the dance program even though I hadn’t had any formal dance training. It must have been fate because I was accepted into that performing arts school, and I have been dancing ever since!

P.K: Was anybody in your family a dancer?

TTW: Actually, yes! My mother is a very creative person. She is primarily a musician, but she also danced when she was younger.

P.K.: You performed and choreographed for Ormao Dance Company. Tell us about that theater?

TTW: Ormao is currently celebrating its 30th anniversary season! It’s a local contemporary dance company that presents work from many different choreographers. Our director, Jan Johnson, curates who will be choreographing for every performance. Sometimes it’s an artist who lives here, like me, but we also have guests from all over the country. One of the unique aspects of the company is that the dancers are a range of ages from 20 to 40+. That’s highly unusual in dance, where there tends to be a focus on youth.

P.K:  What brought you to Russia?

TTW: I have a dear friend who was born and raised in Colorado Springs that has been living in Moscow for a decade. He originally went to study at the Moscow Art Theater and then ended up liking the city so much that he stayed. (He recently had a role in the hit TV series “Чики”.) This friend of mine told me about a lab retreat that was happening over the summer in 2018 outside of Moscow. It seemed like such a crazy idea. Russia was not on my list of places to travel, but at the time I was thinking, “why not?!” I had never been anywhere so far away. It definitely seemed like a grand adventure, and I was eager to see what people were teaching on the other side of the world.
 
P.K:  So, Russia was not on your list, but after your first trip to that “crazy-idea-country” you went five more times? Why? Tell me about your image of Russia you have had before the trip and what did you find in reality?

TTW: I knew so little about Russia on that first trip that it’s embarrassing. It was a mysterious country to me. I imagined stern people, poverty, corrupt police, inexplicable bureaucracy…I was concerned about a government person taking my passport and forcing me to pay money to get it back. I was worried about the quality of the drinking water. I knew there would be old and beautiful architecture, but I was stunned by how gigantic and impressive it really is in person. I’ve seen the Stalin buildings many times now, and I’m still struck by how huge they are. I also had high esteem for Russian arts and literature. I grew up knowing that Moscow was the theatre capital of the world, and that the Bolshoi was one of the premier ballet companies.
My theatre and dance excursions in Moscow met and exceeded my expectations. The quality of work and discipline is outstanding. In reality, I found that Russia has a lot in common with the US. Capitalism brings similar issues wherever it goes. Moscow is filled with huge shopping malls and a clear difference between those who have wealth and those who do not. Luxury cars are crammed all over the sidewalks just like the working people are crammed into the metro. Big cities like Moscow and Saint Petersburg have cutting edge business, technology, cuisine, arts, education, but the villages seem almost forgotten. I think this mirrors the disparity between urban and rural areas in the US.
What made me fall in love with Russia is the people and the culture. The people I got to know in Moscow were quite warm and more genuine than friends I’ve had for years in the US. I was moved by the depth of conversation and the interest in me as a person. I have a wonderful circle of friends in Moscow now. I even fell in love with a Russian man on that first trip and we have both been going back and forth between Russia and the US to be together for the last three and a half years. Russians are known for their epic love stories and now I have a love story of my own!

P.K: Your story is similar to my wife’s Gail! Thousands of ordinary Russians and Americans discover that only politicians divide people, who have a lot to share with each other…
So, how different the dance culture is there in Russia from the American one?

TTW: In the US, there is a larger focus on contemporary dance. In Russia, the focus is more on classical dance-ballet specifically. Bur dance is a universal language, so there are also a lot of similarities in the dance culture between both places.

P.K.: What traditions did you like there?

TTW: My favorite Russian tradition is such a simple one, but it’s something that I have integrated into my own life. Having a cup of tea every day with family and friends! I love sitting in the kitchen with tea and something sweet to talk with people.
I also love going to the dacha and to the bania. One of my most memorable experiences in Russia was the first time that I went to the bania. The bania itself was wonderfully relaxing and invigorating. But the special moment was when I was leaving the bania. The owner asked me to sign his guest book because he knew that I was American, and it was my first bania. I was happy to do so, and I thanked him. He asked me to wait for a moment and went behind a door. When he came back, he had a key chain in his hand that he was presenting to me as a gift. Then he said in English, “we are not enemies”. This Russian man reaching out to me was deeply touching and I’ll never forget this moment.

Of course, I have to mention the Russian New Year! It’s a lot of fun for me to celebrate this holiday because it’s just as big as Christmas in the US. My favorite foods for New Year’s Eve are caviar on buttered bread, and medovik!

Every day Russian food is great too. Bliny are my favorite, the sweet and the savory. I also like pelmeni and make it all the time now. The Georgian food in Russia is so delicious that I can’t understand how it’s not as popular as Asian food in the US. America is really missing out!

P.K.: You have to explain now for our American readers what those Russian words mean – Bania, Pelmeni, Bliny, Shashlik and Dacha?

TTW: Well, Bania is a wet steam therapy inside of a closed space at high temperatures, similar to sauna. It’s tradition to smack the skin with a birch branch as part of the process. Often times there is an element of extreme cold after the body is really hot, like plunging into the snow or showering in cold water.
Medovic is a heavenly dessert. It’s a composed of several alternating layers of honey cake and cream.
Pelmeni is the Russian version of ravioli, a pasta with filling, typically meat or mushrooms.
Bliny are pancakes that are much thinner than American pancakes. They are more like a crepe and are usually served with sour cream (smetana), fruit, honey, or meat.
Shashlik always reminds me of the dacha because it’s skewered meat that’s often grilled. Perfect for a dacha barbecue.

 Dacha - going to the dacha is one of my favorite things to do in Russia in the summer. Not every family has a dacha, a country house where vegetables and fruits are grown, but my boyfriend’s family does. It’s a great place to spend time together away from the city. Their dacha is near a river. We swim, barbecue, visit bania, sunbathe. It’s lovely!

P.K.: What do the Russian people think about the USA, about American people?

TTW: Most people are curious about Americans. There are not a lot of Americans in Russia, so it is a bit of a novelty for them. Some of the diehard communists hate the US and its tendency to involve itself in countries where it doesn’t belong. Russians don’t identify with their government in the way that Americans can. It’s very easy for them to separate the two. A Russian person can have many American friends, dream of moving to the states and still hate the US government.

They do have stereotypes about us. That Americans are dumb, ignorant of the rest of the world. That every American is rich, and most are fat. That we are idealistic, fake, and weak. But most Russians were enthusiastic to speak with me and quite friendly. I made friends quickly and easily.

P.K.: I know that in both countries, the USA and Russia, there are people who are brainwashed by propaganda. I hope people like you will be melting the ice in the relationship between two countries.
Thank you for this interesting interview.

TTW: Thank you for this interview! It’s so lovely to connect with you and your readers. I wish everyone happy holidays!
-------------------
Горизонт, Денвер, СЩА