Shanghai International Arts Festival, China
2021-11-10 15:28
The large-scale contemporary acrobatic dance drama "Hua Butterfly" is another large-scale acrobatic drama created by Guangzhou Acrobatic Art Theater after "Journey to the West" ("Wenhua Award" work) and "Smiling Proud of the Jianghu".
The story of "Hua Fei" comes from the Chinese folk tale "Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai", the love story of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai has been circulated in the folk for more than 1700 years, it can be said that it is a household name, the legend that Zhu Yingtai women dressed up as men, dressed up in disguise, went out to study, and Liang Shanbo was in the same window for three years, secretly had feelings, but her father promised her to Ma Wencai, and urgently summoned Yingtai home to complete the marriage, when Liang Shanbo understood the original committee and rushed to the Zhu family to propose relatives, he learned that he was already one step late, and he could not afford to be ill, and soon died of illness, and Yingtai heard bad news Pretending to agree to the marriage of the Ma family, he got off the car to worship the tomb when the xi car passed by Liang Shanbo's tomb, at this time the tomb suddenly split from it, and Yingtai jumped down, and soon, two inseparable butterflies flew out of the tomb. Created by Guangzhou Acrobatic Art Theatre, this classic legend will bring a new aesthetic experience to the audience in the form of acrobatic dance drama.
The drama has a strong creative team lineup, and the play invites top domestic artists such as general director Zhao Ming, screenwriter Yu Rongjun, art director Ning Genfu, composer Qi Yanfeng, stage designer Qin Liyun, costume styling designer Li Ruiding, lighting design Qin Nianfeng and Liu Fengshu, executive directors Wang Zhenbing and Liu Yinghong, video design Yang Qian and other top domestic artists to participate in the elaborate production.
The innovation of traditional stories on the contemporary stage, reshaping classic love stories with modern methods. Perhaps the audience is familiar with the love legend of "Liang Zhu", and perhaps more audiences have already watched many different versions of "Liang ZhuHua Butterfly" such as operas, dramas, film and television dramas, but when they hear the poignant "Liang Zhu Hua Butterfly" interpreted in the form of acrobatics, they can't help but be very curious. "Butterfly" is beautiful, beautiful in a "love" word, and beautiful in a "regret" word, beautiful in those things that we have long sighed and can not grasp and ponder, and acrobatics, the audience looks at a "skill" word, applauded in a "smart" word, the actor relies on the completion of a difficult performance to win a burst of applause, this "full of color" together, is not to let this lingering mood shatter a mess?
Non-also, non-also. This is also the "unique work" of Guangzhou Acrobatic Art Theater, which truly sets off a piece of emotion and artistic conception with acrobatics, and re-tells the story in a variety of artistic languages such as acrobatics, dance and drama.
In "Butterfly", Guangzhou Acrobatic Art Theater spent two years of painstaking efforts to create many creative projects, including thirty-two acrobatic masterpieces such as empty bamboo, umbrella kicking, shaking bar, etc. While dazzling and admiring the audience, each acrobatic masterpiece fits the development of the situation, or expresses the thoughts of Zhu Yingtai's daughter, or expresses the joy of the two knowing each other, or the scene atmosphere of Zhu Jia, Ma Jia, ShuYuan, etc., and is not outside the context of the story.
For example, Zhu Yingtai longed for the academy to study, the book children and the students showed the youthful and lively atmosphere of the academy with the unique work of "brush skills", and Yingtai was overjoyed, and it was full of yearning for the life of reading; and for example, the "collective fan dance" when Liang Shanbo appeared, which not only showed the communication of the students, but also portrayed the image of The Liangshan Bo Fei Students; when telling the Story of the Zhu Family seeing the money and agreeing to the Ma family's courtship, they used the "funny drill box", one by one representing the money of the villains, like magic, one by one drilled out of the small box, Amused the old lady of the Zhu family with an eyebrow and a smile...
And the most noteworthy is also the most unique "unique skill" of Guangzhou Acrobatic Art Theater - shoulder ballet, you may imagine? The small toe stands on a narrow shoulder, "Zhu Yingtai" is like a butterfly that is about to fly, lightly jumping ballet on the shoulder of "Liang Shanbo", this is an acrobatic, but it is more beautiful, the beauty is the tacit understanding of people inside and outside the story, beauty in this fragile and stable harmony, thus setting off the unique artistic effect of "life and death, all fate and you forever lingering" and "the butterfly love of the world, just to stay on your shoulder for a moment".
Outside the play, as a small Easter egg - the two lead actors Wu Zhengdan and Wei Baohua not only play "Liang Zhu" in the play, outside the play they are a pair of good couples, "shoulder ballet" is their first initiative, on the way to try to combine ballet and acrobatics, the couple after countless attempts, finally found a suitable foothold on the shoulder, and in countless practices, the ballet rotation action made Wei Baohua's shoulder repeatedly worn by the toe and re-scabed.
As a result, the audience can see this precious fruit, the sparkling pearl, and the fluttering butterfly in "Butterfly".
In the process of creating "Butterfly", the general director Zhao Ming talked about the various problems faced by the work.
The first is how does acrobatic art merge with real theatrical art and dance art? The characteristics of modern acrobatics in art can be summarized as "new, strange, difficult, and beautiful", and the skills of all kinds of housekeepers are always necessary to catch people's attention and earn some shouts, while dance is longer than lyrical, clumsy in narrative, and finally, the combination of the two has to tell a love story with ups and downs and twists and turns!
This naturally overwhelmed the creators of the Guangzhou Acrobatic Art Theater. "Butterfly" gives full play to the strengths of the actors' bodies and dances, replacing realism with freehand, driving the narrative with lyricism, and driving the flow of the situation with the change of emotion. From the multimedia and lighting, stage design, "Hua Butterfly" to create an artistic mood with a virtual scene, not only to achieve the artistic effect, but also convenient for acrobats to use props to perform, such as the disc wrapped in steel wire on the stage, sometimes it symbolizes a "cocoon", sometimes it is a round of bright moon shining on a pair of lovers, and sometimes it has become a prop for the actors' performance skills... The acrobats integrate dance into the acrobatic performances, making the acrobatic art detached from the pure technical and technical level, giving the limbs more beauty and dramatic significance.
Because, as mentioned above, the performances of acrobats are not only amazing for their "new, strange, difficult and beautiful", but also give dramatic significance to unique skills such as "brush skills" and "funny drill boxes", so that they carry narrative content and promote acrobatic performing arts to a new height.
Of course, "Butterfly" is also a huge challenge for the actors, on this stage, they are not only acrobats, but also dance actors, theater actors, when focusing on the thin wire under their feet, when focusing on the dance plate in their hands, perhaps when the actor himself as a trapeze is flying in mid-air, when the altar is flying overhead, he also has to remember his other role identity, who is he playing? What emotions should be at this moment? Perhaps the flexibility of fiddling with the body is not difficult for them, but to use their own limbs for lyricism and expression, but it adds a big problem to the actors, for this reason, the actors of the Guangzhou Acrobatic Art Theater have spent a lot of effort to study the script and study the dance drama.
From November 12th to 13th, Guangzhou Acrobatic Art Theater will land on SAIC Shanghai Culture Square with "Hua Butterfly", a unique performance that must not be missed!