Commemorating the 1000th Anniversary of Wang Anshi's Birth, "Listen, See Yin Ling Wang Anshi" online performance

Stills from the performance of "Listen to Yin Ling Wang Anshi".　Photo by Xue Yun

Ningbo, December 18 (Wang Title Xue Yun) 2021 is the 1000th anniversary of the birth of the historical minister Wang Anshi, and December 18 is also the birthday of Wang Anshi. On the same day, the original script reading meeting "Listen, See Yinling Wang Anshi" commemorating the famous northern Song Dynasty minister Wang Anshi officially began online live broadcast performance in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province.

Wang Anshi was a famous thinker, politician, writer and reformer of the Northern Song Dynasty, who spent his life running around as an official and changing the law to the people, which had a far-reaching influence on Chinese history. He has known Yin for three years, is diligent and honest and loves the people, dares to innovate, has the courage to take responsibility, eliminates corruption and laziness, and actively promotes the economic and cultural development of Ningbo and even the entire eastern Zhejiang region. So much so that later generations often say that Wang Anshi "became an official for a thousand days in Ningbo, but influenced Ningbo for a thousand years."

In order to commemorate this famous political doer of the Northern Song Dynasty, in October 2020, Wang Xiaojing, a national first-class screenwriter and vice president of the Ningbo Cultural Tourism Research Institute, together with Ma Min, a young screenwriter of the academy, and Zhou Dongxu, a young cultural scholar, collected and sorted out Wang Anshi's historical deeds in Yinxian County, and devoted themselves to creating the script of "Listening to Yinling Wang Anshi", in order to reproduce the feats and spirit of the prince in those years to the present.

The script of "Listening to and Seeing Yin Ling Wang Anshi" is divided into three acts: "rejuvenating water conservancy, running county schools, and promulgating new laws". In order to enhance the sense of characters and enrich the inner world of the characters, the three screenwriters opened the whole drama with Wang Anshi about to leave Yinxian County and have an air dialogue with the little girl who died early and was not yet named and buried in Yinxian County. A thousand years later, the early death of the wang daughter (yin girl in the play) was reborn on the stage of the drama, incarnated as a storyteller, strung together Wang Anshi's achievements in Yin county, and also became the emotional main line of the whole play, passing on the spirit of Wang Anshi to face difficulties in the past to today's Ningbo people.

As a high-quality cultural project of Ningbo Cultural Tourism Research Institute, the "Listening and Seeing" series is an experimental cross-border integration, with drama, reading, music, dance, musical instruments and other arts, which not only upholds the freehand charm of the traditional Chinese stage, but also integrates the diversity of modern art performance, presenting a new stage style to interpret the story.

The creation of "Listening to Yin Ling Wang Anshi" this time also dared to break the presentation method of the previous "original script reading meeting" like Wang Anshi in the past, broadened the means of expression of "listening and seeing", and boldly made new attempts.

In December 2020, "Listening, Seeing Yinling Wang Anshi" was auditioned at Baicui Workshop in Jinhui Town, Historical and Cultural Block, Yuehu West District, and director Jerova used this traditional house to create an immersive drama in which the actors and the audience moved synchronously from three moving viewing perspectives, and the audience responded enthusiastically and also satisfied the appetite of Ningbo's theater circle.

How to let the audience have a better perception of the drama has always been the direction of the "Listen and See" series.

Under the epidemic situation, online drama viewing has become a new trend of drama viewing around the world, and a large number of excellent foreign drama recording works have been continuously introduced into China for exhibition and broadcast, which is different from the dual products of art and technology of film and television works, and has also greatly broadened the theater vision of everyone.

Based on this, this year's "Listen, See Yin Ling Wang Anshi" tries to take the courtyard real-life immersive drama recording and online exhibition, on the one hand, it can expand the dissemination of the work and explore the lens language of the drama.

To this end, the three screenwriters re-rectified and polished the script, increased the thickness of the text and the story, and provided more possibilities for artistic presentation, and on November 26 and 27, it was officially recorded at Yunzai Academy (Ningbo Drama Study) in Yuehu Jinhui Town.

Director Jerova diverged from the black box theater, on the basis of drawing on a large number of environmental drama expression means in the past, learning the application of the current avant-garde drama to the lens language, making full use of the boxy courtyard of this Ming Dynasty building to create a multi-dimensional theatrical show.

She enters the play with the "script reading" before the drama rehearsal, combined with the main plot line of the script, so that the actors naturally wander under the camera, and the scheduling of the whole play is not only as free and relaxed as reading the play and rehearsing, but also has the rigor and smoothness of the main play.

It can be said that "Listening to Yin Ling Wang Anshi" adheres to the experimental nature of the "Listening and Seeing" original script reading meeting, and with the blessing of environmental drama and camera lens, it has enough modern artistry to realize the concept of online exhibition and broadcast by the main creative team.

Since December 5, Ningbo has reported a number of confirmed cases of new crown pneumonia, and the epidemic prevention and control work is tense. In this context, "Listening to Yin Ling Wang Anshi" chose to be broadcast online, which not only commemorated Wang Anshi's birthday, but also paid tribute to the anti-epidemic workers who faced difficulties, and also allowed people who were at home to prevent the epidemic to still enjoy local original drama works and fight the epidemic with art. (End)