At the beginning of the new year of 2022, the nearly 100-year-old building of the Former Naval Club in Shangsheng Xinsholi incarnated into Dunhuang Caves, and during the day, it presented the first offline multimedia special exhibition "Dunhuang Wonderland - The Mystery of the Legendary Cave 220 Caves" officially authorized by the Dunhuang Research Institute. On the evening of the weekend, the music and painting interactive song and dance drama "Flowers on the Other Shore" staged dunhuang's love affair.
The stage of "The Other Side of the Flower" is the Navy Club Auditorium of The New Institute of Shangsheng. Nearly 300 square meters of performance space in the auditorium has created a 250 square meters four-sided projection curtain and 360 ° surround audio-visual original music. The 90-minute full-length performance with the blessing of science and technology is the fusion of Dunhuang aesthetics and cutting-edge multimedia art and music, and the audience passes through the mottled murals and dreams of the dream Dunhuang of thousands of years ago.
"The Other Side of the Flower" tells a dream that has been entangled for several lifetimes, and the dream contains the unrelenting pursuit of faith. Obsession is a shackle in everyone's heart, but it has unlimited vitality and penetration. Sentient beings are separated on this shore and gather on the other shore to present a wonderful journey back to the western region of the Tang Dynasty. The creative team used this drama to pay tribute to the watchmen of Dunhuang over the past century and those who once insisted on their dreams and continued to move forward.
The reason for the creation of the story comes from the Northern Wei mural "Shami Shou Jie Karma" in Cave 257 of Mogao Caves. The main creative team interprets the aesthetics of Dunhuang with the aesthetics of contemporary people, starting from people's emotions and desires, and extends a moving story that is connected with ancient and modern times to show the contemporary people's understanding of the original intention, persistence and belief. Producer Xu Ling said: "We have always paid attention to the contemporaneity of Traditional Chinese culture, how to express the IP of Traditional Chinese Culture in a contemporary context, so that more young people can understand our Chinese classical aesthetics. ”
The new media art team allows computers to generate artistic expression language, creating a generative visual and perceptual immersive performance atmosphere. The ending of the story is voted by the audience in real time, and the new interactive mode allows the audience to be both a spectator and the final pusher of the plot.
Nian Zixuan, a digital media artist and stage director, transforms everything in the world into a computer digital language, and uses the current popular visual language to present the visual elements of this Dunhuang dance drama. "We inherit the aesthetic tradition of Dunhuang, but we use a lot of bold images and graphics on the picture, which is the visual innovation of "Flowers on the Other Side"." Guo Xiaotong, the art director of the dance drama, explores the reflection of time and space with material sense and image, triggering the unity of soft and sharp opposition.
Composer He Wenxiang, a musician and composer who specializes in creating atmospheric experimental music and algorithmic music, composed a 90-minute melody, creating a magnificent and epic musical atmosphere. He Wenxiang said that in the process of creating the music of this work, there is often a feeling of being involved in a vast wonderland, and he can truly feel the nurturing and nourishment of Dunhuang culture.
In the view of Wu Qiongfang, deputy director and associate researcher of the Cultural and Creative Research Center of Dunhuang Research Institute, the vivid telling of Dunhuang's story is worthy of continuous exploration. "What word you think of when you think of Dunhuang, we once had an investigation. The first three answers to the final statistics are mysterious, distant, and flying. This shows that despite decades of hard work by our researchers, the understanding of Dunhuang is still very limited. As an academic research institution, we have the responsibility to hand over value-oriented information to the public and show the richness of Dunhuang culture in a new way, and this exhibition is an innovative attempt for us. ”
The fusion of traditional culture, contemporary aesthetics, and urban cultural space is accompanied by the upgrading of creativity and imagination. The narrative thread from the specific theme has become another exploration of the creative transformation and innovative dissemination of the digital achievements of the grottoes of the Dunhuang Research Institute.
(Look at the news Knows reporter: Wang Linlin, Lv Xinquan, intern editor: Yin Yixing)