Tang Baijing
In 2022, the dance programs of CCTV Spring Festival Gala became popular again. Excerpts from the dance drama "Only Green", creative dance "Golden Face", and creative music and dance poetry and painting "Remembering Jiangnan" set off a wave of artistic "activation". Artifact boom.
"Only Blue and Green" is based on the famous painting "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" in the Northern Song Dynasty. It uses freehand and empathetic artistic techniques to transform the image of green and green landscapes. In the painting, green peaks are stacked and green water is looming; It can be said that "I see how charming the green hills are, and I expect the green hills to see me like this." The beauty of Song Dynasty paintings and the beauty of Chinese classical beauty are in the gait of the ladies on the stage, the mystery of Sanxingdui, the bronze culture, the legendary story of golden face, Fuchun Mountain Residence The vastness of the smoke in the south of the Yangtze River in the picture and the peaceful, indifferent and detached mental state in the literati poems have entered the hearts of the audience...
When the dance encounters cultural relics, it crosses the historical gap between archaeological texts and creates an artistic situation with unique time and space charm, such as dance, which "saturates" the sense of history and culture in the Spring Festival Gala scene, and makes the tradition "active" in the present.
Chinese civilization is the fertile soil, foundation and treasure of Chinese dance creation
There are a large number of cultural relics in China that are closely related to dance, such as Han portrait bricks, Dunhuang frescoes, and figurines of music and dance, all of which have static images showing dance scenes and movements.
In the development of ancient Chinese dance, dance was gradually integrated into the art of opera. Therefore, in the early stage of the construction of Chinese classical dance in 1950, Mr. Ouyang Yuqian first proposed "Chinese classical dance", which specifically refers to dance in Peking Opera and Kunqu Opera.
Chinese classical dance started from scratch. After years of development and exploration, a set of Chinese classical dance teaching system unique to the Chinese nation has been formed.
As a platform for the construction of folk dance culture, Chinese classical dance is the interpretation and inheritance of contemporary people with "revival meaning".
In the discipline construction and repertoire creation of Chinese classical dance, in addition to excavating traditional opera culture, it also deeply excavates historical relics.
The classic dance drama "Flower Rain on the Silk Road" premiered in 1979 made "Dunhuang Dance" born from the method of "reviving Dunhuang murals", created a "national dance language" and created a precedent for Dunhuang dance.
Mr. Sun Ying from Beijing Dance Academy explored the Han and Tang dance styles in traditional Chinese culture, and created classic dance repertoires such as "Yanhuang Festival" and "Bronze Sparrow", especially the dance "Guardian Music" from a contemporary perspective , giving Qin Shihuang Terracotta Warriors a vivid "human flavor", and recalling the cultural accumulation of thousands of years ago in the relaxed and humorous dance rhythm.
Mr. Sun Ying's choreography concept was brought into full play by his student Chen Lin in the dance "Tang Palace Night Banquet" many years later, and the Internet was blasted in the 2021 Henan Satellite TV Spring Festival Gala.
The dance "Soul of the Terracotta Warriors" starring Huang Doudou began to focus on the national spirit shared by ancient and modern times; "Tang Seal", "Tang Palace Night Banquet" and Tian Tian's dance theater "Tombine" series of dances all focus on ancient music and dance The figures, character characteristics and aesthetics of the figurines; the dance drama "Five Stars Out of the East", which will premiere in 2021, uses the Han Dynasty brocade armguards of "Five Stars out of the East to benefit China" as the breakthrough point, and fictionalizes a legendary story that happened in the Western Regions a thousand years ago.
It can be said that in the creation of Chinese dance, the preference for historical relics is enduring. The long-standing Chinese history and culture and the profound Chinese civilization are the fertile soil, foundation and treasure for Chinese dance creation.
Combination of literature and dance, unique ingenuity: creating thousands of miles of rivers and mountains
The dance "Only This Green", which shines on the stage of the 2022 Spring Festival Gala, originates from the dance selection "Blue" of the dance poem "Only This Green" premiered in August 2021. The work is co-directed by the famous choreographers Zhou Liya and Han Zhen. , they make full use of the commonality of visual arts, and they are original and meticulous in choreography.
The composition of "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" also brings together the "three distances" framing and composition rules of flat, high and far-reaching, making the picture ups and downs, full of strong rhythm.
The choreographer was deeply inspired, and the dance started with the composition of Pingyuan. The water waves at the front of the stage created a landscape with deep spatial distance to present a vast and open picture.
From the twisted posture of the three female dancers in the foreground, through the starring "Blue Green" in the middle shot, staring sideways with their sleeves down, there are three or four groups of scattered statues in the distant view, showing a clear and continuous atmosphere of thousands of miles of rivers and mountains.
In the dance section where the dancers gather in a triangle, they turn around slowly and bursting with strength. The dancer stretches out his left foot and taps the center of gravity on the ground to move. This kind of visual composition has the same effect as the "high and far" rule of painting.
There is an old saying: "From the bottom of the mountain to the top of the mountain, it is called high and far."
Gaoyuan is the most suitable method for depicting lofty mountains and mountains. Its eye level is often at the lower end of the picture, and the visual effect is prominent and majestic and majestic.
Therefore, the movements of this dance section also strengthen the rhythm and intensity, in contrast to the previous emptiness and flowing clouds and flowing water, highlighting the green and lusciousness of the precipitous peaks and the high cliffs.
In literati landscape paintings, "far-reaching" is the most difficult to express. There is an old saying: "From the front of the mountain to the back of the mountain, it is called far-reaching." But in "Only Blue and Green", the director covers his face with a single sleeve and leans back. The stage scheduling of mopping the floor completes the "far-reaching" visual composition, the "green waist" is focused in the visual center, the "mountains" gather and quickly disperse, and the action of the "female doppelganger" at the back of the stage is repeated, forming the blue and green in front of the mountain and behind the mountain. The visual effect of "reflection" has also achieved the "isomorphism of mind and matter" that the director wants to express the "green" inner illusion, fully realizing the artistic expression of empathy.
Dance "breaks the circle" and "out of the circle" is the innovation of technology to promote the multimedia viewing space
When Henan Satellite TV series "Wonderful Night" dance program "out of the circle", and the cultural drama dance program "Dancing Millennium" on the frequency of hot searches, led the creation mode of party dance video.
The narration of dance images is completely different from that of traditional dance. The dance images allow the audience to watch the dance through the lens and experience the subtle interaction of "playing in the dance, watching the heart in the mirror".
The 2022 CCTV Spring Festival Gala also draws on the integration of dance images and technology, using high-tech technologies such as naked-eye 3D and holographic images in the creative dance "Golden Mask", and specially invited famous dancer Yang Liping to create a pas de deux that spans ancient and modern times, a contemporary girl. Touch the history in the museum, through the bronze human face unearthed in Sanxingdui, "resurrection" of the cultural relics, travel back to the ancient Shu civilization a thousand years ago, the love spanning a thousand years is witnessed by the divine tree, and under the seal of the mysterious golden face, a dance A thousand years, a thousand years of dreams.
The dancer's half-squatting and three-folded hands are unique in the dance characteristics of the southwestern ethnic group. The dance does not blindly pursue the lifting skills of Western ballet pas de deux, but highlights the unity of form and spirit, simple and romantic aesthetics of Chinese dance. Interesting, you can also see the artistic style and originality of the director Yang Liping, "learning from the ancients without ignoring the ancients, breaking the law without contradicting the law", showing the eternal theme of love.
The creative music and dance poetry and painting "Remembering Jiangnan" used cutting-edge stunts such as XR (virtual environment technology for human-computer interaction) and CG (computer animation) to shoot in the studio for a week, and edited for 20 days, and finally presented a three-dimensional picture The dynamic "Fuchun Mountain Residence", the work features several Jiangnan women holding oil-paper umbrellas moving and dancing "into the painting". Through the Jiangnan women's perspective, they gradually meet different characters of "fishing, woodworking, farming and reading" in the slowly unfolding Jiangnan misty and rainy landscape. The image shows the profound traditional Chinese culture in the poems, songs and dances, and expresses the poetic Jiangnan scene of "people dancing in the painting, and the painting moves with the scenery".
The viewing space of traditional dance is the stage and the theater, and the viewing space of dance images has expanded from the television medium to the fusion of the stage theater and the television medium and other multimedia.
Dance images include not only the collision of dance and television art in the language of the lens, but also the fusion of dance and information technology in digital dance images. Today, dance images have gradually surpassed the technical means of the stage and become an independent work.
The innovation of the performance space enables the audience to break the boundaries of history, connect reality with historical tradition through dance art, see people through objects, and feel the humanistic spirit contained in cultural relics. Therefore, at the moment when the performance space is constantly innovating, dance The connection with cultural relics follows the trend, bringing an extraordinary visual experience.
Behind the "national tide" and "poetry fever" is the improvement of national strength and cultural self-confidence
With the continuous improvement of China's comprehensive national strength, from "poetry craze", "Hanfu craze", "Wenbo craze" to "national tide style" and "classical flourishing", all of which are a manifestation of "traditional culture craze".
Today, when the mobile Internet is connected to the world, in the face of great changes unseen in a century, "Chinese culture has always advocated 'collecting the queer texts of a hundred generations, and capturing the rhythms of thousands of years'", and traditional Chinese culture is the easiest way to meet the aesthetics of the Chinese people. accustomed.
The reason for the "traditional culture craze" is, in the final analysis, the manifestation of the cultural confidence of the Chinese nation.
Only by integrating artistic creativity with the value of Chinese culture, and combining the spirit of Chinese aesthetics with contemporary aesthetic pursuits, can the vitality of Chinese culture be activated.
The "Wenbo Craze" has been set off, from "Appreciation of Treasures", "I Repair Cultural Relics in the Forbidden City", "National Treasures", to "Wonderful Night at the Museum" and "If National Treasures Can Talk", etc., through the joint force of multiple programs, TV programs continue to innovate , changed the serious and quiet image of museum cultural relics in the past, and introduced many vivid variety show presentation methods, which successfully attracted the attention of contemporary audiences, especially the audience of Generation Z, to the traditional culture extended from museums and cultural relics.
"Traditional culture craze" reflects the firm cultural confidence and strong national identity of the Chinese nation.
Culture is the soul of a country and a nation, as well as an important source of vitality, creativity and cohesion of a country.
From "Tang Palace Night Banquet" on Henan Satellite TV in 2021, to the dance "Only Green" on CCTV Spring Festival Gala in 2022, etc., the current Chinese dance creations do not lack the theme of traditional culture and love traditional culture. , audiences who appreciate traditional art, so it is even more necessary for the creators to be original and devoted to the traditional cultural treasure house, combined with technological innovation methods, to improve the aesthetic level of contemporary audiences.
The "traditional culture craze" shows the cultural confidence of the Chinese nation. The Chinese civilization upholds the cultural tradition of learning from others' strong points and eclecticism. At present, through creative transformation and innovative development, it constantly displays "Chinese style" and "Chinese style", making Chinese traditional culture radiant vitality.
(The author is an associate researcher at the Yunnan Academy of Nationalities Arts)