"Dance Millennium" is popular out of the "circle", Chinese dance makes Generation Z "into the pit" for a second

The dance variety show "Dance Millennium" is jointly presented by 5 "recommended dancers" and 13 of China's top dance companies to show the magnificence of Chinese dance. Draft: Li Jie

"The desert is lonely and the moon is reckless, and it is all painted in the sleeves of the Qing. Fei Tian Shan Jun went to yi, and the thin hand returned to luan to transform the clouds. The national dance drama "Silk Road Flower Rain", which was first performed in 1979, recently appeared in the dance variety show "Dance Millennium", and then appeared on the Weibo hot search list, and the total number of related topics has exceeded 100 million times, and the dance sections such as "Rebound Pipa" and "Dream Trick Lotte" have been praised by netizens as "Dancing dunhuang that has been sleeping for a thousand years". What amazes the Z generation is not only "Silk Road Flower Rain", the classic dance drama "Copper Sparrow Trick", "Confucius", "Zhaojun Out of the Jam"... The beautiful dance scattered in the long river of art has once again entered the vision of young audiences through the new presentation of "Dance Millennium".

"Dance Millennium" is jointly created by Bilibili (Station B) and Henan Satellite TV, and produced by Xianwei Digital, with 5 "recommended dancers" and 13 top Chinese dance troupes jointly showing the magnificence of Chinese dance. "Dance Millennium" not only integrates real scenes and modern technology, allowing the audience to immerse themselves in the professional presentation of top dancers, but also assists the narrative in the form of film and television dramas, embeds traditional cultural elements, and tells moving Chinese stories with dance. At present, this "treasure" variety show has exceeded 70 million broadcasts on station B, and nearly one million netizens have chased more online, with a score of 9.9 points on the site. Netizens left a message on the bullet screen: "After watching "Dance Millennium", one second into the pit Chinese dance, proud of our traditional culture." ”

Innovative cultural variety shows "open" way, so that traditional culture glows with the charm of people's hearts

In the B station where Generation Z gathers, the "national tide" is showing surging vitality. According to statistics, in 2020, the "Guofeng New Youth" on Station B reached 96.03 million, and the number of people covered in the past 5 years increased by more than 20 times, and the "Guofeng" video creation increased by 331% year-on-year. Also deeply rooted in the field of traditional culture, Henan Satellite TV launched the "2021 Henan Spring Festival Gala", "Lantern Wonderful Night", "Qingming Fantastic Tour", "Dragon Boat Wonderful Tour", "Qixi Fantastic Tour" and other "Chinese Festival" series of programs, attracting a large number of young audiences. Therefore, once the news of the joint production of "Dance Millennium" jointly produced by Station B and Henan Satellite TV was announced, it immediately triggered the expectations of many netizens.

Dances such as "Tang Palace Night Banquet" and "Roselle Water Endowment" frequently "go out of the circle", breaking out of the "traditional culture + new wave expression" variety show new road: excellent stage art "encounter" XR, underwater photography and other high-tech, can create a refreshing "spectacle" for the audience. But for the three co-directors of the show, Feng Zheng, Jiang Xiaowei and Xu Peng, the difficulty in creating "Dance Millennium" lies in the breakthrough after the "spectacle".

"If you blindly stack visual effects, it is easy for the audience to have aesthetic fatigue, and it is more likely to blur the background of the traditional culture of this show." Jiang Xiaowei, one of the producers and general directors of "Dance Millennium", told reporters that he is also a producer of straw hat studio in the B station variety production center. In the filming process of "Dance Millennium", how to make the classic dance segments created decades ago not only maintain the original taste but also present the novelty of the times, requires the iterative update of the artistic language; how to perfectly integrate 13 domestic top dance academies and 24 excellent works into a variety platform, which requires the reshaping and reconstruction of the content structure; how to break through the gap between classical culture, elegant art and the Z generation audience, but also needs innovative breakthroughs in the concept of the program.

After more than 8 months of planning, filming and polishing, "Dance Millennium" continues the "variety show + drama" temperament of the "Chinese Festivals" series, and constructs a story background that spans time and space: the legendary divine book "Twelve Winds Dance Chronicle" records the most beautiful dance in the long river of history, and 5 "recommended dancers" travel through ancient and modern times to find and enter the most beautiful Chinese dances for this classic. In this context, many well-known dance troupes at the national and provincial levels have successively appeared on the stage to dance, stringing together the main plot of the program.

In addition to the dance with great aesthetic and historical charm, "Dance Millennium" also presents the "hard-core" knowledge related to historical stories, culture and art, and costume etiquette. In order to ensure the accuracy of art guides and interpretation of historical materials, the program team invited experts from professional institutions such as Beijing Dance Academy and Shanghai Museum to check the pass. The new dance variety shows that run through the vein of China's thousand-year-old civilization dance to promote the deep penetration of traditional culture in multiple circles.

A dance that moves through history and connects classic artworks "seamlessly" with Gen Z

Luo Yi crossed from the wind and long sleeves, and an ancient disc inspiration led the audience as if they had traveled to the Han Dynasty. "Xianghe Song" selected from the dance drama "Bronze Sparrow Trick" landed on the first issue of the dance variety show "Dance Millennium" and quickly broke the circle, and the number of views on topics such as "Xianghe Gebei Dance Student Weiya Hung 37 Times" and "How Beautiful is the Group Portrait of Dancing Xianghe Song Women" exceeded 100 million views.

Since the dance drama "The Brass Sparrow Trick" premiered in 1985, many of the video materials that the variety production team came into contact with were recorded in the 1980s and 1990s. Although the video medium at that time was relatively old and the shooting method was slightly rough, the appeal of classic stage art still deeply touched the director team. Inspired by the portrait bricks unearthed in Sichuan in 1956, Sun Ying, a professor at the Beijing Dance Academy, boldly imagined and created dances based on the image of the Seven-Plate Dance painted on the bricks, reproducing the romantic style of the ancients dancing on the sun, moon, and stars. "A dance touches a piece of history, and a story contains a true feeling. We hope that "Dance Millennium" can make Chinese classical dance go out of the palace, and we look forward to the moving Chinese story entering the hearts of young audiences. Jiang Xiaowei believes that Chinese dance has its own timeless and peaceful charm, has the power to soothe people's hearts, and the body language that emerges from the cultural heritage can instantly bring the audience into poetry.

How can stories from more than 2,000 years ago, artifacts unearthed 65 years ago, and dance dramas created 36 years ago be "seamlessly" connected with Gen Z? "Dance Millennium" not only creates an immersive stage space and presents a beautiful dance art, but also mixes the narrative methods of film and television dramas to present the character arc of the characters. In the view of the main creative team of variety shows, dance is good at lyricism and clumsy in narrative, resulting in the audience's interpretation of the cultural connotation of dance works often becoming roundabout and complex; and "Dance Millennium" can use film and television means to integrate dance emotions into the story and lead the audience to touch its emotional core.

In addition to the new way of presenting the integration of dance and plot, "Dance Millennium" also notes the creative inspiration and related cultural knowledge of the original work. The audience thus learned that behind the graceful dance of "Xianghe Song", there is also a deep historical and cultural origin - in the eyes of the Han Dynasty, the disk is the Big Dipper, the drum is the sun and the moon, they put the sun, moon and stars under their feet, flying and singing, so there is a disc encouragement (seven-plate dance).

The feminine "Xianghe Song" pins on the woman's true feelings for her lover, the heroic "Shujian" is full of Confucius's desire to spread peach and plum, and the gentle "ZiGui" contains Zhaojun's deep longing for his hometown... "Dance Millennium" uses dance to tell Chinese stories, uses dance to interpret Chinese culture, and uses dance to express Chinese feelings and aesthetic imagery. Station B emotion, music, dance, life and other communities have been linked, many netizens sent the background of popular science art creation, recommending related historical and cultural books. Some viewers said with emotion: "Thank you for taking me back to those times and seeing those dances and stories. It is those things that shine that make me have a deeper identification and love for the identity of The children of China. (Reporter Xuanjing)

Source: Wen Wei Po