Ma Chenghu:
Let the Murals of Mogao Grottoes "Live" (Family and Country Feelings Serving Sangzi Series Reports (1))
Reporter Sun Yahui
"People's Daily Overseas Edition" (10th edition on January 13, 2021)
After graduating from Sheffield Harlem University in the UK and returning to China, Ma Chenghu started his own traditional cultural dissemination.
In 2018, he and his team jointly transformed the images of musical instruments in the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes murals into real objects, allowing ancient Dunhuang art to be "resurrected" in front of the audience through the transformation of space and reality through the combination of technology and rationality, giving traditional culture With a new perspective.
Exquisite murals take root in my heart
Ma Chenghu was born in Lanzhou, Gansu, Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes, a treasure of Chinese culture, has more unusual significance for him.
From the first time I saw Mogao Grottoes when he was young, the rich and colorful murals and vivid colored sculptures deeply shocked him, and they were inscribed in Ma Chenghu's memory.
After graduating from Southwest University for Nationalities, Ma Chenghu chose to study abroad. He wanted to explore a larger world and experience different cultures.
"The two years of studying in the UK are an important experience in my life, and it has also brought a lot of help to my future work. As a creative capital, the spillover effect brought by the creative industry in the UK has driven tourism, hotels, and catering in the UK. The development of a series of industries, including shipping and shipping, has not only become a driving force for sustainable benefits, but also a symbol of national soft power." The rapid development of the British creative industry has also brought new thinking to Ma Chenghu while studying abroad: After returning to China, can these achievements of studying abroad be applied to the domestic cultural and creative industries and transformed into useful and practical experience that can guide practice?
"For us international students, no matter how far we go, we can't forget why we started." Ma Chenghu said.
When he graduated from graduate school, the domestic policy support for the cultural industry and the vast market space attracted him. Without any hesitation, Ma Chenghu decided to return to China to start his own business.
"Most of the overseas students have learned advanced scientific, technological and cultural knowledge, have strong innovation and entrepreneurial capabilities, and at the same time have international vision and experience, but also full of sentiments and desires to serve the country. The advantage of studying abroad is that they have both domestic growth experience and overseas life experience. This kind of cross-cultural exchange experience has given us a unique advantage in cultural and creative innovation-we can tell Chinese stories and spread Chinese voice in ways and methods that foreign people can hear, understand, and listen to."
At this time, the first thing that jumped into his mind was the Dunhuang Mogao Grottoes in his hometown of Gansu.
Presenting Dunhuang music from a new perspective
"There are 240 cave murals in the Mogao Caves with music and dance scenes, more than 4,000 musical instruments, more than 3,000 musicians, and more than 500 groups of different types of bands." Ma Chenghu is familiar with this set of data.
How to innovate the communication method of traditional culture?
After returning to China and cultivating the cultural field for a period of time, an idea gradually formed in Ma Chenghu's heart: if the musical instruments on the Mogao Grottoes can be "taken down" and made into real objects, more people can understand these musical instruments more intuitively. Feel the artistic charm of Mogao Grottoes from a new angle, so as to deeply appreciate the glory of ancient Chinese music.
Zheng Ruzhong, a music and dance expert from the Dunhuang Academy, has conducted research on the musical instruments on the murals for decades and has achieved fruitful results.
Based on Zheng Ruzhong's research, Ma Chenghu and his team decided to restore the instrument.
Moreover, the restored musical instrument should not only look similar to a mural, but more importantly, it should be able to be used for performance.
The team has traveled to Shanghai, Suzhou, Yangzhou, Beijing, Henan, Hebei and other places, and found more than 30 craftsmen of ethnic musical instruments. A total of 245 sets of 97 musical instruments were restored and produced, including plucking, stringing, and wind. The four categories of percussion basically cover all kinds of musical instruments on the mural.
The restoration process of ancient musical instruments is not easy.
The first is spatial transformation.
In order to "turn" musical instruments from a two-dimensional mural into a three-dimensional object, the Ma Chenghu team can only see the musical instrument on the mural, but cannot see its internal structure, and even the lanyard cannot grasp it.
“We have been traveling back and forth between musical instrument factories across the country for half a year, constantly communicating with Mr. Zheng Ruzhong and the production craftsmen to determine the size, structure, material selection and other specific techniques, and finally realize the spatial transformation of musical instruments.” Ma Chenghu said. .
The second is the conversion between virtual and real.
"The mural is not photography, and the content it presents is not 100% real, which causes the musical instruments on the mural to be inconsistent with the real musical instruments." Ma Chenghu said.
For example, there are both four-string pipa and six-string pipa on the murals. These need to be distinguished.
At the same time, it is necessary to determine the temperament system, because the temperament system of various musical instruments in ancient China is not the same, but the murals cannot tell the temperament system of each instrument.
In order to make the instrument play smoothly, the Ma Chenghu team finally decided to set the tone according to the current twelve equal law.
In order to show the exquisiteness of the mural musical instruments as much as possible, Ma Chenghu and his team considered every aspect of the details in the process of restoring the musical instruments.
Vienna plays the ancient Chinese rhyme
In September 2018, at the Third Silk Road (Dunhuang) Cultural Expo, the fourth batch of Dunhuang murals imitated and developed musical instruments got the first public appearance.
More than 100 musical instruments gathered in Dunhuang, with graceful sounds, and the audience seemed to step into a space-time tunnel, and they could hear the ancient charm.
A few months later, at the Chinese New Year Concert in Vienna, music from Dunhuang reverberated over the auditorium of the Vienna City Hall and won warm applause from the audience at home and abroad.
Players carrying ancient musical instruments such as pipa, huqin, 筚篥, and 箜篌, traveled across the Millennium Silk Road and sent the oriental instruments in the Mogao Grottoes murals to Vienna, the capital of Western music.
"After the musical instrument is restored, you can also form a band on this basis to play melodious music and let the ancient culture come to the public. This is also the inheritance and protection of Dunhuang culture." Ma Chenghu said, participating in the restoration of ancient musical instruments, also let the team Learned about the prosperity and prosperity of ancient Chinese music.
"For example, there are more than 30 different forms of pipa alone, which are much richer than today. We must strengthen our cultural self-confidence, and while passing on, create more contemporary glorious cultures."
During the performance, due to concerns that the high and low number of ancient music would affect the spreading effect, Ma Chenghu and his team did not rigidly believe that the Dunhuang mural instruments can only play Dunhuang ancient music, but chose to perform music that conforms to the appreciation habits of modern people.
In his view, the relationship between inheritance and innovation is not necessarily one of the two, but must complement each other.
In addition, the innovative promotion and development of traditional culture must also handle the relationship between culture and the market.
“High-quality cultural resources must be market-oriented, integrated into life, cultivate consumer communities through integrated operation and marketing, strengthen cultural identity, and generate economic benefits. At the same time, inheriting and promoting excellent traditional culture must be combined with modern science and technology. For example, Throughout the restoration and production process, we adhere to a rational and scientific attitude, and fully consider the internal structure, regulations, materials, etc., so that we can achieve the restoration of musical instruments, rather than retrospect. Only by enabling technology to empower traditional culture can we continue Open up new ways of communication." Ma Chenghu said affirmatively.