Our Natasha

30.07.2016

What does an artist need to know in order to perform successfully on stage? It is very important to communicate with the partner, to know the dance steps by heart, to join the musical phonogram in time. Still the main thing you need to learn is the ability to speak correctly. Natasha Gorbas, a stage speech teacher, trains the project participants this difficult task every day.

 Natasha is a graduate of the Moscow Art Theatre Studio School, one of the most famous theater universities in the country. Now she successfully acts at the theater named after M.N. Yermolova. Natasha comes to our project for the fourth time in a row and enjoys working with the kids on stage speech and acting. It is at her trainings that the children develop their speech apparatus, learn to breathe properly, and try to understand who they really are.

What makes working with children so special?

 Children are more direct, they engage in the process quicker. This is very important, because the game is the basis of all the trainings we conduct. Children are much quicker than adults to get involved in this game. Although, sometimes it is hard for some kids to socialize, to get out of the box. I help them do it.

Natasha, you have been on the project for several years. What makes you come to NucKids repeatedly?

 I really like working with children, it inspires me a lot. Because, while working with kids, I learn many new things about myself. It helps me to improve myself and deal with my personal issues”. In addition, in fact, it is just interesting. In my opinion, this is the main thing!

At your trainings, you teach the kids the basics of stage speech. Do the kids, in turn, teach you anything?

 Yes, of course! However, it is very hard to explain in words. When you have some new experience, it takes time to digest the whole range of feeling about this experience. It is exactly the way I feel. When I come back from a project, I need two or three weeks to come to my senses and make some conclusions. I think the kids teach me freedom, they teach me not to be afraid of myself and to say what I feel. This is very important and necessary when you live in such a big city as Moscow and are engaged in such a difficult profession as an actor.

What is the main purpose of your trainings?

 Speech and acting classes aside from the profession really help to grow as a person. In addition, I want to show the kids that you can also learn about yourself and the world around you. It is very interesting, you learn much more about yourself when you are silent and someone else is talking about you. Of course, at every training I tell them about love, about the need to share love every day. There are terrible things happening in the world today, so it is important to have time to say the most important words to your loved one.

 The most important thing for me is to help a child understand who he or she is. Because when you are 13 or 15 years old, this is one of the most vital, important and one of the most difficult questions. I’m just a little bit helping kids to understand something about themselves. I think that is my main task.

And what is missing?

Despite the fact that I work with the kids almost every day, I still lack communication with them. At our trainings, I am the one who speaks, so it is more of a monologue than a dialog. Sometimes I just want to sit down and talk to them instead of training. About what they like, about what bothers them, about what they need. I want to talk to them more. I want to have a simple, friendly and trusting conversation. However, I realize that it is unlikely to happen, because the main thing for us is to stage the musical.

Natasha, you had an experience of working in a children’s theater, when you played in a show for Moscow kids. How do you think Moscow children differ from the ones who come to the project?

 It seems to me that they are living in the overprotected conditions. I can imagine what the Nuclear Kids Project means for children from small closed cities. What a chance it is! Children who come from such towns absorb everything like a sponge, they work one hundred percent. It is important for them to learn everything. They want to come to my classes again and again, all the time they want to learn something new. I like that very much!

Lev Suslov,

Specially for nuckids.ru