In 2005, in order to integrate the high-quality resources of Huangmei Opera and give full play to the celebrity effect, Anqing City established the Anqing Zaifen Huangmei Art Theater on the basis of the Anqing Huangmei Opera Second Troupe (formerly the "Anqing Huangmei Theater Troupe"), with Huangmei Opera artist Han Zaifen as the president. It was also the first theater named after an artist since China's reform and opening up.
From 2005 to 2021, the original intention of 16 years has not changed. Looking back at the past, Zaifen Huangmei has always been moving forward on the road of inheriting, popularizing and developing Huangmei opera. 16 years of exploration and development, Zaifen Huangmei is vigorous and has a steady pace; 16 years of accumulation and leaping, Zaifen Huangmei has formed a unique artistic temperament, walked out of its own development path, and harvested fruitful results.
The Trinity has a height
In 1984, at the age of 16, Han Zaifen became famous for her outstanding performance in the Huangmei opera TV series "Zheng Xiaojiao", winning the first Chinese television Golden Eagle Award in Anhui Province. For more than 40 years, Han Zaifen has been working on the stage of Huangmei Opera like a day.
In 2005, when Han Zaifen restructured the theater, it was full of difficulties and difficulties. At that time, she was in the golden stage of a performing artist, and the management work would consume a lot of her energy. At that time, the belief in her heart was: persistence, perseverance and innovation. She knows that the inheritance and innovation of art cannot be sustained by a single famous person. Therefore, a "Han Bold" led a group of "bold" tenacious exploration and forged ahead.
Inheritance and innovation are the eternal themes of Zaifen Huangmei. Han Zaifen's love for Huangmei opera and her homeland is reflected in her unremitting pursuit of Huangmei opera artistic creation. At the same time, Han Zaifen transferred and released the care, cultivation and painstaking efforts of the older generation to the young people in the theater after all amplification. In the past sixteen years, Zaifen Huangmei has established four echelons of old, middle, young and young. From the youth group to the children's art troupe, from the original generation to the new generation, from the famous artists to the rookies, from individual inheritance to collective inheritance. Form a high-quality, high-grade pattern of Han Zaifen-Zaifen Huangmei-Zaifen Huangmei brand trinity. The quality of the actors is outstanding, not only in the field of study to achieve the highest level in the industry, but also has a strong creativity.
Huangmei opera is a young drama of less than 100 years, the basic skills of the industry are not standardized, the construction of the industry is not complete enough, Han Zaifen asked the actors of Huangmei to practice "skills" and regain the construction of the industry. Relying on "skill", the theater selects young actors with excellent moral character, ability to write and martial arts, solid basic skills and comprehensive skills, and holds the "Top Card of the Day" - a personal special session for young actors. After strict screening, three special sessions have been held at present: "Wenwu Xiaosheng Wang Zexi", "Wenwu Huadan Yuping" and "Wenwu Ugly Student Zhang Heng", which is a persistent strategic measure, as long as it reaches the artistic standard, one will be launched when mature. Next, there will be individual special sessions such as "Old Students" and "Qingyi". The implementation of this measure not only greatly promotes the improvement of the actor's skills, but also enriches the construction of the Huangmei opera genre, making the Huangmei opera performance system more complete and neat.
In addition, Zaifen Huangmei has also established a "performance director, composing music, stage lighting, clothing, shoes and hats, makeup props..." The Zaifen Huangmei Opera Art Inheritance Committee composed of veteran connoisseurs in various trades will inherit Huangmei opera three-dimensional, dotted and comprehensive.
Because Anqing is not a first-tier city or a provincial capital, there are few business collaboration institutions for artistic creation. Therefore, Zaifen Huangmei can only cultivate its own creative talents, create an independent creative team of various lines of Huangmei opera art, and better provide a steady stream of power support for the theater. Nowadays, in addition to the neat cast in front of the stage, the behind-the-scenes creative team has been basically perfected, reaching a large-scale Huangmei drama, basically without external cooperation, you can independently complete all the creation and production, achieving a virtuous circle.
From the front of the stage to the backstage, Han Zaifen has opened up many aspects of the field of theater art. Han Zaifen's personal value is consciously endowed to the members of Zaifen Huangmei, and gradually transformed into the brand power of Zaifen Huangmei. Over the years, talent training has been racing, the creation of repertoire is blooming, and the national tour is full of fire, and the brand value has become more and more prominent. It has basically formed a "trinity" pattern of "Han Zaifen, Zaifen Huangmei Art Theater, and Zaifen Huangmei Brand" in the country, and in more than ten years of tenacious exploration, it has gathered sand into a tower-like construction, climbed high and far-sighted, stood out, and presented a new atmosphere of high quality, high taste and long prospects.
The two wings of the body have depth
The cultivation of talents in Zaifen Huangmei is not one-way. It is not only rooted in the soil of the development of Huangmei opera, but also keeps up with the times, combined with the reality of Huangmei opera, and innovatively forms a talent training model of "one body, two wings" and "three-dimensional interaction". "One body" refers to the Zaifen Theater, the two wings refer to colleges and universities that mainly cultivate professional talents, and the second refers to the provincial key research base of humanities and social sciences "Huangmei Opera Art Development Research Center". For more than a decade, this three-dimensional, theory and practice are closely "entangled" in the training mode, quality, skill, ability... All can be comprehensively improved, so that zaifen Huangmei's talent team is not only vibrant, but also very neat.
In addition to emphasizing the basic skills, Zaifen Huangmei's talent training also attaches importance to broadening horizons and cultural construction. Zaifen Huangmei has cooperated extensively with Anqing Normal University, Anhui University, China Academy of Performing Arts, Shanghai Theater Academy, Tongji University, etc., or participated in various ways such as joint education, talent training, or teaching practice. Nearly half of Zaifen Huangmei's young actors graduated from Anqing Normal University and two graduated from the China Academy of Performing Arts; many creative personnel such as directors, lighting, and choreographers went to the Shanghai Theater Academy for further study, and Zaifen Huangmei Art Theater is the teaching practice base of many colleges and universities.
In 2020, Zaifen Huangmei and Anqing Normal University set a precedent for close cooperation between schools and enterprises in art education, and promoted the construction of the first liberal arts opera laboratory in Anhui Province. Integrating practice into teaching, art and scholarship are two wings each other, so that they can not only show their true kung fu on the stage, but also have a high cultural literacy and have professional "master" teaching ability. This is another new measure for the creative transformation and innovative development of Zaifen Huangmei in the exploration.
The pursuit of ecological aesthetics has a breadth
As we all know, the growth of towering trees requires fertile soil. The soil of Huangmei Opera, after nearly a hundred years of sowing, is still difficult to accumulate. The land of Huangmei Opera needs to be supplemented with nutrients in order to present water spirit and abundance; it is necessary to rough up the essence, and Huangmei Opera can have personality and new charm. Over the past ten years, Han Zaifen and Zaifen Huangmei have accumulated time and time, creating a context, opening up space, and establishing a Huangmei opera inheritance mechanism for interaction inside and outside the theater, and the theater troupe and the government, with universities, with the audience, with social organizations, and with folk troupes stimulate each other and absorb each other; lead to appreciation and cultivate social aesthetic psychology. Today, the artistic ecology built by Han Zaifen and Zaifen Huangmei not only shows a time chain structure, but also has a three-dimensional shape; it not only presents a heavy sense of history, but also has a sense of the times, and initially opens up the ecological aesthetic space.
Let's review the major events of the past sixteen years:
★ Insisting on the national tour, until now, the Zaifen Huangmei Beijing National Centre for the Performing Arts season has been extended to 13 seasons, the Zaifen Huangmei Hefei performance season has been extended to 11 seasons, and there are countless large and small tours in other cities. Zaifen Huangmei has played everywhere in the land of China, performing classic quality and golden signboards.
2020 Performed "Huizhou Past" at the National Centre for the Performing Arts
Hefei performance season
★ From 2006 to 2009, Zaifen Huangmei experienced the planning, preparation and construction of an Anqing Huangmei Opera Art Center, and was completed. As a result, Anqing City has since had a normalized commercial performance theater. Now, more than 100 performances from all over the world are presented in Anqing Huangmei Opera Art Center every year, especially other types of art come to Anqing to show, so that the audience in Anqing can see all kinds of wonderful performances, but also let Huangmei opera continue to absorb new nutrition.
★ In 2010, the Zaifen Huangmei Youth League was established, and so far, it has held activities such as "Zaifen Huangmei Inheritance and Development - Zaifen Huangmei Youth Group Fifth Anniversary Assessment Report Performance", "Zaifen Huangmei Today's Top Brand - Youth Famous Corner Special", "Youth Huangmei Drama and Youth Come to Sing" May Fourth Special Session, "Zaifen Huangmei Shouzheng Innovation - Zaifen Huangmei Youth League Tenth Anniversary Exhibition". After more than ten years of hard training and targeted training, a group of young actors have become or will soon become the pillars of zaifen theater, showing a charming style.
★ In 2013, the theater founded (renovated) zaifen Huangmei Mansion. In the past eight years, insisting on perennial performances has not only provided a platform for young actors to exercise normally, but also increased the taste and weight of drama for Anqing, a city with drama. Zaifen Huangmei Mansion is also known as "Anqing City Cultural Parlor".
★ In 2015, in order to reflect the joys and sorrows in the reality of young actors, in order to better expand the audience of Huangmei opera, Zaifen Huangmei took the lead in planning and producing a new media series of TV series "Backstage Is Very Hot" in the field of opera, using the Network to spread to the whole society to promote the great integration of "opera - actors - network - literature and art - public - stars".
★ In 2015, Han Zaifen Huangmei Opera field and Anhui Province won the first "second degree plum"; Wu Meilian, the head flower of Zaifen Huangmei, won the 27th Plum Blossom Award for her role as "Xianglin Sister-in-law".
★ In 2016, Zaifen Huangmei took the lead in using the network platform to broadcast the "Zaifen Huangmei 2016 Chinese New Year Opera Gala" to the world, winning more than 6 million viewers around the world and watching it from a different place.
★ In 2020, Zaifen Huangmei took the lead in launching the national style serial comic "Female Horse" in the field of Huangmei opera, which grafted the IP of Huangmei opera with contemporary popular elements by animating the opera story, taking art as the bone and innovation as the wing, attracting young audiences and helping Huangmei opera "break the circle".
★ With the opportunity of "elegant art entering the campus", Zaifen Huangmei insists on performing in colleges and universities across the country every year, cultivating young audiences, crossing 30 provinces and cities across the country and entering more than 100 colleges and universities; innovatively holding more than 50 "Love Signing - Students Entering the Theater" activities, inviting students into the theater, experiencing Zaifen Huangmei, and perceiving Zaifen Huangmei, so as to respect art and love art.
★ Zaifen Huangmei has been recording and rescuing the precious historical materials of Huangmei opera, publishing "Shi Bailin Research", "Huangmei Opera Gong and Drum Classic", "Xu Daiquan Singing Cavity Works Selection", "Cheng Xueqin Singing Cavity Works Selection", "Xilin Street No. 31 - 1957 to 1967 Anqing Huangmei Drama Troupe", "Ma Cai Lou's Artistic Life" and other professional and historical books related to Huangmei opera; in parallel with this, "Zaifen Huangmei" also thought about and recorded his own growth trajectory, publishing a comprehensive, complete, rigorous, The elaborate "2014 Zaifen Huangmei Annual Report", "2014·2015 Zaifen Huangmei Biennial Report", "2016·2017 Zaifen Huangmei Biennial Report", "2018·2019 Zaifen Huangmei Biennial Report", "Zaifen Huangmei Ten Years of Grading", "Drama in the Folk" and other books.
★ In the past sixteen years, Zaifen Huangmei has created a number of new plays, such as "The Past of Huizhou", "Lonely Hanqing", "Promoting Officials by Virtue", "On the Way", "Deng Jiaxian", "Blessing", "Duck Sister-in-law", "Golden Powder Family", "Immortal Proud Yang", etc.; rearranged classic plays such as "Female Pony", "Tianxian Match", "Luopa Ji", "Cow Lang Weaver Girl", "Jade Hairpin", etc.; transplanted more than ten large-scale Huangmei dramas such as "Spring River Moon", "Five Daughters Worship Shou", "Meng Lijun", "Dream of Midsummer Night", etc., and at the same time revitalized and created nearly seventy folding plays and small plays. It was quite affirmed by the society and warmly welcomed by the audience, and strived to meet the requirements put forward by General Secretary Xi Jinping - "... Excellent literary and artistic works should be both ideologically and artistically successful and welcomed in the market."
★ Always keep up with the trend of the times, grasp the pulse of the times, and create a Zaifen Huangmei self-media matrix, which currently has the official WeChat signal of "Zaifen Huangmei", Douyin number, micro video, Weibo number, B station number, watermelon video number, Kuaishou number... These platforms have become an important window for the audience to understand Huangmei opera, and have played a huge role in the promotion and dissemination of Huangmei opera.
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This series of activity trajectories, from time to space, from horizontal to vertical, from tradition to innovation, from elegance to fashion, from stage to public, all aspects, interlocking, one does not fall, covering the reconstruction and development of the artistic ecological architecture in an all-round way. The layout of the plot, the beginning of the book, follow the laws of art, the pursuit of truth, goodness and beauty... The artistic ecology built by Zaifen Huangmei is closely linked to the development of Chinese drama, and is associated with the changes in the aesthetic form of fashion and the aesthetic requirements of the public. Zaifen Huangmei has achieved fruitful results in the construction of the aesthetic ecology of drama.
With the persistence and tempering of more than a dozen cold and summer, and the hard work of autumn to spring, "Zaifen Huangmei Brand Drama" has occupied a place in the hearts of the audience. However, the times are developing rapidly, society is constantly progressing, and the wheel of history will never stop. Zaifen Huangmei must also keep pace with the times, open up a new road of traditional Chinese opera in the new era, complete the transformation of "Zaifen Huangmei brand drama" to "Zaifen drama Huangmei era", and use the form of drama welcomed by audiences in the new era to tell the story of the new era. To achieve such a leap forward, Zaifen Huangmei must organically combine the height of the brand, the breadth of space, and the depth of aesthetics in the inheritance and development of drama art, and the combination of these three brings the audience an epic aesthetic feeling. Zaifen Huangmei wears the stoic spirit of water drops and stones and the feelings of huichuan into the sea, waiting for the joy of "Zaifen Huangmei Brand Drama" to "Zaifen Drama Huangmei Era Huangmei" fragrant garden.