Promote the high-quality dissemination of China's excellent traditional culture (adhere to the "two innovations" to write epics)

Source: People's Daily

Pictured: Stills from the program "China in the Classics". Actor Ni Dahong performed the story of Fusheng's protection of the Book of Shang. Pictured: Stills of the dance "Getaway" in Henan Satellite TV's "Chongyang Fantastic Tour". Actor Hu Yang uses dance to show Li Bai composing poems. Pictured: Stills from the show "National Treasures Show Season". Actor Liu Jia used dance to pay tribute to the border guards.

Core reading

Cultural variety shows have a wide audience, great influence and good communication effect, and are one of the important forms to promote the creative transformation and innovative development of China's excellent traditional culture

Inheriting and carrying forward the excellent traditional Chinese culture requires not only long-term achievements, but also great efforts and brains, creative use of new technologies, new ideas, and new expressions, and skillfully cast the Chinese aesthetic spirit into it, so as to truly promote the high-quality dissemination of China's excellent traditional culture

General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out in his speech at the opening ceremony of the 11th National Congress of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and the 10th National Congress of the Chinese Writers Association: "The broad and profound Chinese civilization is the unique spiritual identity of the Chinese nation, the foundation of contemporary Chinese literature and art, and the treasure of literary and artistic innovation. "China's excellent traditional culture is a unique resource for telling Chinese stories well. Cultural variety shows have a wide audience, great influence and good communication effect, and are one of the important forms to promote the creative transformation and innovative development of China's excellent traditional culture. In recent years, cultural variety shows have attracted wide attention. Television media and online audio-visual platforms have continued to exert efforts to launch multi-themed, multi-level and multi-type cultural variety shows, which have promoted the high-quality dissemination of China's excellent traditional culture, which has certain cultural value and innovative significance, and its creative characteristics and experience are worth summarizing.

Expand the content coverage and present the historical thickness and spiritual height of China's excellent traditional culture

In terms of content presentation, cultural variety shows expand the content coverage, in addition to poetry, opera, cultural relics and other fields, but also extended to classics, Chinese music, traditional festivals, acrobatics, etc., in terms of ideological penetration, cultural influence, artistic appeal and other aspects of full efforts. The program "Chinese Archaeological Conference", jointly produced by the Central Radio and Television Corporation and a number of units, focuses on the major archaeological discoveries, cultural relics, and relics in the centenary course of Chinese archaeology, integrates archaeological excavation research and Shi Hai hook into one furnace, and sorts out the historical context of the origin and development of Chinese civilization. Henan Satellite TV's "Lantern Wonderful Night", "Dragon Boat Wonderful Tour", "Mid-Autumn Festival Fantastic Tour", "Chongyang Fantastic Tour" and other "Chinese Festival Series" programs have deeply excavated the traditional Chinese festival culture and depicted the historical style, and its national style, national rhyme and national tide have triggered a round of viewing boom and network hot discussion, which has resonated with the audience. The second season of the program "China Geographical Names Conference" takes the knowledge of geographical names as the carrier, showing the thousands of weather of the Chinese land from various angles such as geography, history, language, folklore and literature, guiding people to discover the profound humanistic heritage behind the place names, and arousing the audience's feelings of home and country.

In terms of theme excavation, the historical thickness of China's excellent traditional culture has been further presented. The Beijing Satellite TV program "Shangxin • Forbidden City" adds a fresh breath to the simple and elegant architecture in a novel form. Zhejiang Satellite TV's program "Ten Thousand Miles of Single Riding - China in heritage" allows the audience to follow the guests to explore the beauty of Chinese civilization, which is both professional and interesting. The CCTV program "China in the Classics" explores the vast number of classics, picks up gold in the sand, and uses the classics as the carrier, from the origin of civilization to the contemporary inheritance. The program takes "Shang Shu", "Zhou Yi", "Chu Ci", "Analects", etc. as the objects of interpretation, and tells the history of the classics in the long history of Chinese civilization and the moving stories in the book in the way of "film and television + drama". The Chinese classics represented by the Book of Shang have built a system of ancient Chinese civilization; the scientific and technological classics represented by the "Tiangong Kaiwu" record the whimsical ideas of ancient craftsmen and craftsmen, and inscribe the practical ideas of the sages through the ages... The dual-line empowerment of drama interpretation and expert interpretation effectively helps the audience understand the charm of China's excellent traditional culture.

In terms of aesthetic expression, cultural variety shows focus on highlighting the beauty of the spirit, the beauty of the sublime, and the beauty of humanity. In 2014, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out in his speech at the symposium on literary and art work: "Chinese aesthetics emphasizes the unity of knowledge, affection, intention and action, conciseness and moderation, both form and god, far-reaching artistic conception, and emphasis on the unity of knowledge, affection, intention and action. "This requires literary and art creators to establish a big historical outlook and a big era view, create programs and works with ideological penetration, cultural influence, and artistic appeal, and better highlight the spirit of Chinese aesthetics." Zhejiang Satellite TV program invites calligraphy masters, cultural masters, calligraphy enthusiasts to participate, starting from the "world's first line of books", using 5 chapters to trace the origin of the five major calligraphy styles of xing, grass, seal, li and kai, and profoundly expressing the theme of "pen and ink when the times are contemporary". The program pays attention to the humanistic exploration behind the calligraphy works, "Lanting Collection" reflects the folk customs of the old "Lanting Xiuyu", observes the change of mood when Wang Xizhi writes, and gives birth to different schools of calligraphy from the style of calligraphy to Kai... The integration of historical stories makes the program meaningful and interesting.

Innovative use of new technologies, new ideas, new expressions, highlighting the spirit of Chinese aesthetics

The development of Internet technology has provided a broader imagination space for literary and art workers, so that new technologies, new ideas, and new expressions have more possibilities and stronger feasibility. Better dissemination of China's excellent traditional culture is inseparable from the concept innovation, form innovation and technological innovation of cultural variety show creation.

In recent years, themed, serialized and cross-form have become prominent features of cultural variety shows. The CCTV program "National Treasures" adheres to the creative concept of "making national treasures come alive", launched the "Exhibition season" series of programs last year, and opened up a cultural variety subdivision content track - the "theme- secondary permutation and combination of national treasures", "translating" the beauty of cultural relics for the audience, exploring the source of ancient civilization and art in the historical dimension, and refining and sublimating the spiritual atmosphere behind them. The third season of the program "China in the Story" interprets classic fragments, interviews the main characters, and reproduces the emotional forces behind the real story through the comprehensive expression of "drama + film and television + variety", and selects a classic story for drama interpretation and diversified presentation in each program. The program "Dance Millennium" jointly launched by Henan Satellite TV and the website adopts the standard of film and television dramas, produces story-based variety shows, displays Chinese dance classics with variety shows, and realizes the integration of multiple forms of film and television, dance and variety shows.

At present, more and more cultural variety shows use advanced technology to integrate virtual scenes with real stages, so that the poetic stage of ancient customs can highlight the dazzling Chinese aesthetic style. The CCTV program "Classic Yong Chuan - Tribute to Heroes" is an innovative musical adaptation of the classic Chinese texts, showing the vivid and perceptible aspects of historical figures through artistic techniques, and showing the heroic character of indomitable, resolute and tenacious. For example, in the ninth program, in the stage of blending scenes, "Last Night's Book" interprets the delicate thinking and soft intestines behind Yue Feizheng's iron bones, and vividly interprets Yue Fei's heroism and national spirit. In this immersive 3D audiovisual experience, the audience resonates strongly with the hero's expression of home and country feelings.

In terms of communication, through the linkage of production and broadcasting, multi-screen linkage, deep integration, and all-media communication, accurately grasping and making full use of the law of media communication, and promoting the word-of-mouth dissemination of programs are beneficial experiences for cultural variety shows to "break the circle". Television stations and online media achieve close linkage throughout the process in production, broadcast and other links, comprehensive interaction inside and outside the field, and timely interaction between large and small screens, so as to comprehensively improve the communication effect. Henan Satellite TV's "China Festival Series" program has in-depth cooperation with a number of video websites, and Zhejiang Satellite TV and Beijing Satellite TV's cultural variety shows have cooperated with websites such as iQiyi and Tencent Video, etc. These experiences of integrated communication are worth summarizing well.

Inheriting and carrying forward the excellent traditional Chinese culture requires not only long-term achievements, but also great efforts and brains, creative use of new technologies, new ideas, and new expressions, and skillfully cast the Chinese aesthetic spirit into it, so as to truly promote the high-quality dissemination of China's excellent traditional culture. We look forward to more cultural variety shows that embody Chinese characteristics, Chinese style and Chinese style in the future, which will continue to impress us, nourish us and inspire us.

(The author is Zhang Guotao, a researcher at the Communication University of China)

Draft: Zhao Kairu

People's Daily (2022-01-06 20th edition)