At the end of 2021, a sudden new round of the epidemic disrupted people's lives. Punching in to work has become home office, video conferencing, travel that has been prepared for strategy has become a "cloud tour" on the network platform, and the long-awaited performance has been postponed... In this kind of working life, people insist in different ways, just to light a lamp for the city.
Under the epidemic situation, while doing a good job in epidemic prevention and control, the vast number of literary and art workers in our province have actively participated in the practice of literary and artistic creation and forged ahead along the forward direction of literary and artistic undertakings in the new era. So, what are these creators doing? How do they create and think? Today, let's walk into their world together.
Song "Big White" MV (video screenshot)
Tell the story of China well with music
"I stayed at home to study, recharge, create new works, and pay off some of the 'literary debts' I had owed before." Shang Feilin, chairman of the Shaanxi Musicians Association, has a complicated work on weekdays, and the time left for his own creation is very limited, and this time at home has given him more time to create. From a large number of anti-epidemic theme songs such as "We Walk Together" and "Sealed And Controlled Poems", to the planning and creation of related musical works participating in the national "Five One Project" Award; from the writing and editing of the book "Northern Shaanxi Folk Song Dictionary", to the text revision and improvement of the northern Shaanxi folk song and dance "Yellow River Song", the intensive creative arrangements every day make him happy.
In 2017, "Ballads of the Yellow River", which shows the changes in the lives, emotions and social development of people in northern Shaanxi, made its debut at the 4th China Northwest Music Festival and won the gold award. Since then, the play has moved from Shaanxi's local public welfare performances to coastal cities, creating a new idea for the development of folk song performances in our province and becoming an attempt to innovate and develop folk songs in northern Shaanxi. How to make this drama better play a role in cultural dissemination, so that more people can appreciate the unique charm of folk songs in northern Shaanxi and the profound accumulation of Yellow River culture? Shang Feilin, who is the chief planner of the show, has been thinking about this problem.
On December 7, 2021, at the symposium on the inheritance and innovation of folk songs in northern Shaanxi and the cultural development of the Yellow River in Jiaxian County held in Yulin, the major cultural boutique project "Ballad of the Yellow River" in Shaanxi Province was signed and settled in Jia County. In order to maximize the value of the era of folk songs and Yellow River culture in northern Shaanxi, in recent days, Shang Feilin has once again revised the text of "Ballad of the Yellow River" in an effort to make the play have a more wonderful interpretation in future performances.
At the same time, Shang Feilin also seized the time to complete the writing and editing of the lyrics of the folk songs of northern Shaanxi in the book "The Great Dictionary of Folk Songs of Northern Shaanxi", which he was the editor-in-chief. As a project of the National Publishing Fund in 2019, the book aims to comprehensively sort out and study the concept, development, lyrics, lyric aesthetics, musical style, singing art of northern Shaanxi folk songs, as well as the lyrics of northern Shaanxi folk songs, composers, singers, etc., so that northern Shaanxi folk songs can be comprehensively, systematic, scientific and three-dimensional. Recently, the book has been selected into the special plan for national key book publishing in the "14th Five-Year Plan" period.
"This project will fill the gap of large-scale publishing projects targeting folk songs in northern Shaanxi, and is of great significance to the in-depth excavation, collation and rescue of folk songs in northern Shaanxi, a national intangible cultural heritage." Shang Feilin said, "Previously, we have held many coordination promotion meetings, that is, we hope to complete the compilation of this book faster, better and more comprehensively, and fulfill our responsibilities for the protection and inheritance of music and art with local characteristics in Shaanxi." ”
Along the line of thought of protecting and inheriting the folk songs of northern Shaanxi and inheriting and carrying forward the Yellow River culture, Shang Feilin, as a member of the Provincial Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, completed the "Proposal on Taking Local Music Culture as a Breakthrough point to Tell the "Yellow River Story"". He said: "It is the duty and mission of music workers in the new era to increase the intensity of music creation with the theme of the Yellow River, create classic musical works such as "Dongfang Hong" and "Yellow River Boatman's Song", and tell the story of the Yellow River and the story of China well. ”
Song "My City, I'll Keep It" MV (Video Screenshot)
Record the colorful civilization between the high heavens and thick earth
"Rivers have a close interdependence with humans. In a sense, the history of the river is the history of human culture. I want to describe this cultural history as realistically as possible. After spending three years writing, publishing and reprinting the long documentary essay "A Thousand Rivers and a Thousand Rivers and Walking the LuoHe", at the end of 2021, Bai Feng, vice chairman of the Shaanxi Critics Association, began the creation of his next book manuscript. This time, he locked his eyes on the Yellow River Basin, hoping to present readers with a broader and far-reaching Yellow River culture through thematic documentary writing with geographical space as the narrative object.
As a collection of documentary prose works that describe the Luohe River, a tributary of the Weihe River, from the aspects of historical geography, cultural folklore, and the source of civilization, the 2018 Shaanxi Provincial Party Committee Propaganda Department's key funded book "A Thousand Rivers and a Thousand Ravines Walking the LuoHe River" is currently the first long documentary essay on the history of the Luohe River. "The writing of this book is like a reclamation, and there is no special book to learn from. While collecting and reading a lot of relevant materials, I also need to trek through the high sky and thick soil to conduct fieldwork. Thanks to walking again and again, I saw the magnificence of the Loess Plateau, heard stories and legends that have not been put on the pen, felt the rapid changes in the Land of China, and also had more thinking about the origin of Chinese civilization. Based on this, I had the idea and thematic framework for creating a second full-length documentary essay. Bai Feng said that literary writing not only needs to reserve a wealth of perceptual knowledge, but also needs to be immersed in the scene in order to stimulate the interest in writing. After the end of this round of outbreaks, he will go to the Yellow River Basin for fieldwork.
As a literary critic and writer, Over the years, Bai Feng has published a large number of articles on prose theory, ancient and modern prose studies, and foreign prose studies. Recently, he has summarized and supplemented articles that have not been collected and published, forming a collection of prose research covering prose aesthetic theory, writing research, criticism and other content. "It took a long time to write. Now that I have checked it out, I dare not say how many new insights there are, but even the wonderful fragments of the listed essayists quoted in it can also make friends who have no time to read the original prose but love prose to appreciate the splendid chapters in the history of mainland prose for more than a hundred years. According to Bai Feng, the manuscript has entered the editing stage and is expected to meet with readers this year.
Create more sincere and moving works
For more than 20 days, She has been busy almost every day: filling out new repertoire submission materials, making new projects literary frameworks, and preparing musical script materials that will soon be written. At the same time, she also created a number of anti-epidemic theme lyrics from different angles and styles.
Among them, "White Soldier" is the earliest anti-epidemic theme song launched by the Shaanxi Provincial Song and Dance Theater, and its lyrics focus on the "warriors" who are pioneers and charge in the frontline of the fight against the epidemic, strong and powerful, with high morale, as if the charge is full of strength. The song "Great White" uses the tone of a little girl and uses the nine "hearts" of "warm heart, carefulness, enthusiasm, whole heart, confidant, patience, caring, love, and one heart" in the lyrics, showing the dedication of "Big White" and people's heartfelt thanks to them. The song "My City I Come to Guard" outlines the determination and belief of the people to help each other in the same boat and fight the epidemic hand in hand, firm and imposing.
After the outbreak of the epidemic in Wuhan in 2020, Duan Luchen wrote 3 songs such as "Hero's City", which is still very touching to hear. When she learned about the hardships and difficulties in the process of fighting the epidemic, she had a deeper feeling. "When I composed 'My City,' I wanted the chorus to join the chorus and reflect the combined responsibility from one person to many people, but I also knew that this was difficult to achieve under the epidemic conditions. Thanks to the support of all parties, more than 30 singers and dancers of the Shaanxi Provincial Song and Dance Theater recorded audio with their mobile phones, and the composer Dai Yimin mixed the production, showing the strength of unity of purpose by leading the singing, rotating singing and chorus. Duan Luchen said, "When colleagues appeared in the MV of the song as volunteers and singers, I was very touched every time I watched it, because this song is also full of the collective wisdom and collective efforts of our Shaanxi singers." ”
From young writers to young songwriters and screenwriters, Duan Luchen crossed the three fields of literature, music and drama. On the road to creation, her love of writing and focus on the present has never changed. She said: "Style is only a carrier, and thought is the essence of expression." Many moving realistic themes are waiting for us to excavate, and many excellent traditional cultures and historical stories are waiting to be re-examined and lyrically written with the current vision. Integrating myself into the times, in-depth interviews, learning instead of inventing imaginations out of thin air, and creating works that are sincere and moving and have positive energy are what I have always insisted on and worked hard to practice. ”