On December 18th and 19th, the newly compiled martial arts drama "The Great Knife King V" of the Beijing Peking Opera House was staged at the Chang'an Grand Theatre.
This play mainly revolves around the life deeds of beijing's historical and cultural celebrity "Big Knife King Five", and depicts the story of the "Great Knife King Five" in the historical period of the "Pengshu Change" at the end of the Qing Dynasty, when the "Great Knife King Five" was loyal and righteous, saved the dead, and finally became a generation of heroes who could sing and cry.
Liu Tong, president of the Beijing Opera House, said before that the development of Peking Opera art has experienced a magnificent history of 231 years, of which martial arts, as "half of the country", accompanied by the whole process of the occurrence, development and maturity of Peking Opera. Nowadays, there is a shortage of martial arts in the newly created repertoire on the Peking Opera stage, and the Beijing Peking Opera House has the responsibility and obligation to revitalize Peking Opera martial arts at present.
In fact, if we jump out of the level of "Peking Opera" and stand at the level of "Beijing Culture" to observe and understand the creation and arrangement of "The Great Knife King V", we will find that it is of great practical significance for us to re-understand and comprehensively understand Beijing culture and excavate the "martial culture" in Beijing traditional culture and the cultural spirit and meaning behind it.
The Beijing Opera House hopes to use such a new martial arts drama to reverse the situation of "emphasizing literature over martial arts" in Chinese Peking Opera, and for the protectors, inheritors, researchers and staff of relevant government departments of Beijing culture, whether they can use the creation, performance and dissemination of this new play to fully understand the traditional culture of Beijing and excavate the traditional "martial" culture of Beijing is probably also very knowledgeable.
Behind "wu" is a kind of cultural character and spirit
Desheng Gate, Xuanwu Gate, Anding Gate, Tong Linge Road, Zhao Dengyu Road... From these place names, you can feel the relationship between Beijing and "Wu": Wu originates from struggle, followed by war, and Beijing's history of more than 3,000 years has interpreted one touching deed after another to resist foreign prisoners and defend the country.
Far from it, let's say that from Yu Qian's retreat to Tong Linge's Zhao Dengyu's anti-Japanese resistance, how many people sacrificed their lives and remained innocent. It can be said that the very existence of Beijing City is a symbol of a nation's patriotic spirit and a symbol of patriotic feelings that save people from water and fire.
In the folk, the people living in Beijing also have a kind of character and spiritual pursuit of eager justice and righteousness, chivalry and righteousness. Ordinary people love to listen to martial arts commentaries and are obsessed with martial arts heroes: from "Three Heroes and Five Righteousness" to "Yongzheng Sword Hero Diagram", from Bai Yutang of the Golden Woolly Rat to Tong Lin Tong Haichuan... The reason why ordinary people like these characters, in the final analysis, is that these martial arts figures eliminate evil and promote good, help the poor and the poor.
Wang Wu's body, on the other hand, blends the spirit and character of the above two kinds of "martial arts", and is the people of Li, the poor masses, the future of the country, and the resistance of the great powers, showing the four words of "the great hero". Just as Liu Tong, director of the Beijing Peking Opera House, said, just like Liu Tong said, "The Great Knife King V" is not only a martial arts character, but also a patriot with patriotic feelings for the country. Our modern revolution began with the Penghu Reform Law, and Wang Wu was the one who escorted it. In the difficult process of the Hundred Days Restoration, what the Great Sword King Five did has exceeded the social responsibility of a dart master and is a brilliant stroke in history.
"Literature" and "martial force" go hand in hand to avoid harm and seek profit
For a long time, people have a misunderstanding of Beijing culture, that is, Beijing culture belongs to the culture of scholars, emphasizing "literature" and paying attention to "elegance", in fact, Beijing's culture, in terms of presentation form, is always "literature" and "martial" complement each other and complement each other. Just like Tan Sitong and Wang Wu, they support each other and grow up with each other. In Beijing's culture, there is no "Wu", and The Wen is weak and weak, soft and soft, such as Tongzhi and Guangxu under the curtain of Cixi; without the "Wen", Wu ze is muddy, brave, and violent, but xiahou Yuan in "Dingjun Mountain".
As far as Peking Opera is concerned, since Tan Xinpei, there has been a saying of "literary opera and martial singing", and since Yang Xiaolou, there has been a saying of "martial opera singing". Tan Xinpei was originally born in Wusheng, changed to Laosheng, although his voice was described by the people of the time as soft and called the sound of subjugation, but in fact, his martial arts and martial arts skills, let him act in the drama is not soft but more heroic and tough, so he can not only listen to "Selling Ma Dang Gong" "Shopkeeper Dong..." or "Wu Peng" in "Did not speak..." instead of Huang Zhong in "Dingjun Mountain" and Shi Xiu in "Cuiping Mountain".
Similarly, Yang Xiaolou's "martial arts singing" is not to sing martial arts to the warmth, but on the basis of understanding the plot and characters, the martial arts are performed to "culture", so that the martial arts skills and actors obey the characters and obey the plot, so that the plays performed have taste, chewing heads, and pondering, and only in this way can the ideas embodied in the dramas in the martial arts, the spirit displayed by the heroes of the generals, and the concepts infiltrated by the martial arts skills be completely transmitted.
People understand what is called "great loyalty" through the big gun of Gao Deng; through Gordon's fan, people understand what is called "great evil", and people know what is called "great slave" through Huang Tianba's golden dart. This is a kind of mission of the play "The Great Knife King V" on the current Peking Opera stage.
Behind the "wu" is a considerable city of all kinds
In order to better shape the character image of "Big Knife King V", the lead actor Zhan Lei personally went to the old site of the "Yuanshun Dart Bureau" to visit, but unfortunately the thing is not human, and today's "Yuanshun Dart Bureau" original site only has that nameplate to tell people that it once existed.
But in the old Beijing, there were many dart boards, and even many traditional art works mentioned the dart bureau and the bodyguard industry, such as the traditional cross-talk "Big Bodyguard". In the old days, Beijing was full of dart bureaus, and the bodyguard industry was popular, the most important reason was the prosperity of Beijing, there were many merchants, in today's words, there is a demand for services.
At the same time, the people engaged in dart walking come from all over the world, north and south, showing a kind of integration, which once again proves that Beijing, historically, is not a closed and conservative city, but a culturally diverse and inclusive capital. Although the dart line and dart board are only a small tributary in the process of Beijing's historical and cultural development, excavating and studying the dart line and dart board in Beijing, especially the history and current situation of these dart boards distributed along the central axis, plays an important role in our further understanding of the central axis culture.
In addition, the prosperity of darts and darts in the old Beijing also further illustrates the accumulation of martial arts and martial arts culture in Beijing. Although the dart line attaches great importance to the rules of the jianghu, it attaches more importance to the real strength, and it cannot protect the dart without real skills. And the martial arts people and martial arts talents who really have the ability, in today's words, are also idols in the hearts of the people. Therefore, in the old sky bridge, you can see two kinds of "martial arts": one is to rely on strength to sell art, the audience looks at the ability; the other is to rely on flower racks and mouths to "cheat", the audience is purely looking at the hilarity, a little bit of lack of heart and eyes, Bao Buqi will buy a powerful pill, walk on the road when cutting cakes to eat.
Martial rather than aggressive
With the passage of time, today's Beijing is peaceful, and "Zhongzheng he'an" is the style of today's Beijing. However, the spirit of "Shang Wu" can still be reflected in all aspects of Beijingers' lives. During the creation and rehearsal of "The Great Knife King V", the artistic creators of the Beijing Opera House once went to Wanfangting Park to collect wind and communicate with the masters of the Majiapu martial arts team. In Beijing, such folk martial arts organizations and martial arts enthusiasts are not in the minority, and martial arts have become a way for the people of Beijing to strengthen their bodies.
In addition to martial arts, Beijing's wrestling rings are also in the ascendant, and many young people like the traditional Peking wrestling. All this shows the spread and inheritance of "martial culture" in Beijing.
Fundamentally, Beijing's martial arts culture emphasizes "shang wu" rather than "aggressiveness", and uses martial virtue to restrain and regulate oneself, rather than using force to deceive people and suppress people with force, but to use "martial" to strengthen people's physique, shape people's character, and temper people's will, which is indispensable in any era.
The new martial arts drama "The Great Knife King V" may really allow us to face up to and pay attention to the "martial" culture in Beijing, and we can also re-understand the Beijing people, the hardness and righteousness in the bones!
Text/Beijing Youth Daily reporter Man Yi
Photo / Beijing Youth Daily reporter Wang Xiaoxi
Editor/Ying Qiao