In October this year, the acceptance ceremony of Peking Opera performance artist Ye Shaolan was held in Beijing. Zhang Yao and others formally worshiped Ye Shaolan as their teacher. Photography by Li Feng
BEIJING, Oct. 29 (Xinhua) -- "Worshiping Mr. Ye Shaolan as a teacher is a dream I started at the age of 13. In today's parlance, I am Mr. Ye's 'fan'. On October 8, Zhang Yao, a professor at the China Academy of Performing Arts, studied under the famous Peking Opera performance artist Ye Shaolan in Beijing. Recently, he mentioned this matter in an exclusive interview with a reporter from China News Network (WeChat public account: cns2012), and it is still difficult to suppress his excitement, "In the future, I hope to standardize the classic repertoire and create new repertoire under the guidance of Master, and at the same time, I will also sort out the theoretical research of Ye Pai Xiaosheng."
From "fan disciple" to apprentice: the master is calm and calm, and has a rigorous attitude towards art
Zhang Yao has a deep relationship with the art of Peking Opera. At the age of 12, he entered secondary school and began to study Peking Opera, and his enlightenment was the profession of a small student. About a year later, Zhang Yao happened to see the Peking Opera movie "Heroes of the Crowd" starring Ye Shenglan, and was suddenly attracted by the superb performance of this Peking Opera master, "Since then, the image of Ye Pai Zhou Yu, who is elegant and elegant, has been deeply imprinted in my mind."
Zhang Yao and Ye Shaolan took a group photo. Photography by Li Feng
At the beginning of 1985, Zhang Yao accompanied the troupe to perform at the China Grand Theater in Tianjin and met Ye Shaolan, the artistic heir of Ye Pai Peking Opera and the son of Ye Shenglan. Since being admitted to the Acting Department of the China Academy of Performing Arts in 1991, Zhang Yao has successively learned from Jiang Shiyu, Li Jinhong, Xiao Runde, Bi Gaoxiu and other famous artists, and gradually has a clearer understanding of the characteristics of Ye Pai's performance, during which he also met Ye Shaolan many times, and the idea of worshiping the teacher began to germinate.
"Master gives the impression of being elegant, rigorous, kind, and very calm in his dealings." On October 8 this year, Zhang Yao finally got his wish and worshiped under Ye Shaolan's door with 7 other people. He said that after many years of worrying about what he wanted, "Mr. Ye Shaolan's temperament is gentle and elegant, which is the most able to reflect the temperament of Xiaosheng." On stage, he strives to perform every sentence and every figure."
In Zhang Yao's view, Ye Shaolan not only has a very strict attitude towards art, but also considers the details in life, "When visiting the master, the master asked to invite his partners for decades, that is, the band, the costume master, and the helmet box master, because these people understand the master's requirements for art, and when we ask about the art in the future, they can also say a few words."
In the Peking Opera "Heroes of the Crowd", Zhang Yao played Zhou Yu. Courtesy of respondents
"Master is kind to people, has great respect for his peers, teachers, friends, and students and disciples, and when he encounters problems, he repeatedly reasons, and has never heard him say how bad it is to go along." Zhang Yao said that Ye Shaolan is like the old saying, "Good is like water", "this is a kind of style for everyone".
Inheritance and development of Peking Opera: Newly created repertoire cannot deviate from the characteristics of ontological art
Zhang Yao is from the Jiangsu Huaiyin Peking Opera Troupe, and after graduation, he stayed in the China Academy of Performing Arts to engage in front-line education work, giving classes to undergraduate and graduate students. He said that if Peking Opera has always been conformist, it has no vitality, "I am the same in teaching, first teach students the compulsory classic repertoire, give them the methods and keys to shape the characters, and then talk about innovation."
Generally speaking, students in the Peking Opera Department of the China Academy of Drama have to learn two plays every semester, counting the compulsory cultural classes, which is very tight. Zhang Yao generally teaches chanting, body and skills first, at the same time, he must also explain the performance characteristics of different genres, character personalities, etc., and finally "join the classroom" with the teaching of other characters in the play, "It is common for students to practice dozens or even hundreds of times a body every day."
Zhang Yao. Courtesy of respondents
With the development of the times, the ancient Art of Peking Opera began to draw on some modern elements such as sound and light, and a number of newly created plays appeared when the content was combined with the present. Zhang Yao introduced that like the modern Peking Opera "Xiang Nong", which tells the deeds of rural party members and cadres who have served the people wholeheartedly, etc., it is very good, "The classic repertoire of Peking Opera reflects the excellent moral concepts and aesthetic characteristics of the Chinese tradition, and the newly created repertoire in the new era has not deviated from these."
"The innovation of Peking Opera must be based on inheriting the tradition, and the newly created repertoire must also be closely related to the times from the two aspects of content and form, so as to have vitality." Zhang Yao believes that in the process of innovation, the stylization and freehand of the form of Peking Opera performance cannot be lost, "If there is no real understanding of the essence of Peking Opera art and blind innovation, then the result is likely to deviate from the Peking Opera itself, which is what everyone does not want to see." (End)