Did Zhao Ming have a deeper understanding of the meaning of life in the process of facing the challenges of major diseases?
Are the teachers and students of the Inner Mongolia Academy of Arts more genuinely thinking about their contemporary values in the face of the legends of the past?
Whatever the reason, when Feng Shuangbai, chairman of the China Dancers Association, watched the latest revised version of the dance drama "Little Sisters of The Heroes of the Grassland" (hereinafter referred to as "Little Sisters") directed by Zhao Ming, written by Zhao Linping and performed by the Inner Mongolia Academy of Arts in the theater, he was deeply moved.
He said that this is a major breakthrough in the field of realistic themes in the creation of contemporary Chinese dance dramas in recent years.
"Little Sisters" tells us that the creation of realistic dances must contain positive concerns about the propositions of the times
The latest revised version of "Little Sisters" is refreshing and shocking! Because, the structure of the whole play is divided into two acts, which are marked as two lessons. In the first lesson, contemporary primary school students read the story of Long Mei and Yu Rong for the first time in class, and the novelty and fun attracted the children. In the second lesson, the deeds of the little sisters of the prairie heroes deeply touched the children, and the tears brushed their eyes and saw a whole new world!
In the face of an old story from the 1960s, the creators directly designed the classroom of the 21st century with a big brain, so that the psychological space of contemporary children and the psychological space of the heroic little sister were promoted in two lines, superimposed and interlaced, and the contrast strongly revealed the practical significance of the old story. This is the crystallization of the creation after the artistic soul soars freely under the circumstance that the choice of realistic themes often makes the artist not free, which is very unique and eye-catching. We must point out that the structural method of juxtaposing the two-line psychological space of the dance drama has special value for the revelation of the meaning of the realistic theme of the play. The above-mentioned two-line psychological space that is particularly noteworthy actually has a main line: the collision of hearts from a contemporary perspective! Thus, an old story is artistically activated!
The dance drama "Little Sisters of the Grassland Heroes" publicity photo wang Xufeng photographed
In the dance drama, the image design of the grandfather and the little granddaughter is even more ingenious and profound. The first lesson is that grandpa carries his little granddaughter to school and takes care of everything; the second lesson, after class, Grandpa habitually carries his little granddaughter, and the little granddaughter who wiped away tears seems to have grown up in an instant, and she held up a parasol for Grandpa... The rare thing about "Little Sisters" is precisely that it preserves the unique beauty of Inner Mongolian national dance, and profoundly touches the soul of contemporary people. The play contrasts the selflessness and fearlessness of the little sisters of the grassland heroes with some of the current phenomena of pampering, coddling and nibbling on the old, touching on the problem of "little emperor" in real social life and touching the distinct propositions of the times.
Stills from the dance drama "Little Sisters of the Heroes of the Prairie"
Only by paying great attention to the propositions of the times can we truly occupy the commanding heights of thought and art in the creation of dances with realistic themes. It takes courage! General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out when visiting members of the literary and artistic circles and social science circles attending the Second Session of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference: "All valuable and meaningful literary and artistic creations and academic research should reflect reality, observe reality, and should be conducive to solving practical problems and answering realistic topics." "Realistic themes, we must have the great courage to observe reality, in order to have the real power to transcend the creation of generalized dance." Dance is an art that infects people with the beauty of human rhythm. Generally speaking, people have a relentless pursuit of dance beauty. However, some dance creators regard this characteristic derived from the artwork as a reason for escaping the creation of realistic themes, thus abandoning the insistence on the spiritual homeland. The advent of "Little Sisters" has given us a lot of inspiration.
"Little Sisters" tells us that the creation of realistic theme dance must complete the creative transformation of modern aesthetics
The creation of dance with realistic themes is a major problem in the creation of contemporary dance as a whole. There are many reasons for this. Two important issues must be addressed.
The first is that the beauty of dance comes from thousands of years of artistic inheritance, forming a fixed aesthetic model and aesthetic experience. Once faced with realistic subjects, how to combine this traditional aesthetic experience with a real, contemporary real-life experience to create a "person of the moment" instead of an actor dancing the "dance of the farming era"?
The second is how to artistically express the "reality" of real life with the "virtual" of dance body language. These two issues involve the creative transformation of realistic theme art, testing all dance creators.
The stage image of "Little Sisters" is very beautiful: the water and grass dance is rich and flexible, the Zhu Lan dance is gorgeous and solemn, the horse dance jumps with temperament, and those little sheep dances make people feel happy. On stage, Long Mei and Yu Rong are lively and lively, with outstanding personalities and beautiful personalities; their interactions with the lambs, especially their mutual relationship in the blizzard, are tear-jerking. The most rare thing is that all these dances are tightly surrounded by real-life image shaping in "Little Sisters", and tightly buckled on the portrayal of the artistic image of the dance drama.
In recent years, whenever I watch a national dance drama, I am afraid of seeing an "exhibition-style" national dance that is completely divorced from the plot. Because, the exhibition is easy, dancing out of the capital "people", more difficult! "Little Sisters" precisely achieves the vivid unity of national dance style and characters, and uses dance to depict the images of living contemporary Mongolian heroes, which is amazing! According to this, "Little Sisters" solves the first problem mentioned above.
Stills of the dance drama "Little Sisters of the Grassland Heroes" photographed by Wang Xufeng
In the face of realistic themes of dance creation, if you uphold the attitude of "realism" to solve the problems of plot, conflict, characters, emotions, etc., I am afraid that it is "thankless". In the two-line dance drama structure, with the help of the ingenious help of multimedia forms, "Little Sisters" carefully designs and extends the dramatic psychological space, skillfully transforms the psychological space into the evolutionary power of the theme, and properly portrays the image of the little hero.
There is a unique picture in the dance drama: the moment her sister Yurong in the hospital bed wakes up, everyone in the audience holds their breath - how can she bear such a great pain in her life! The sister, who was lying side by side in a hospital bed, did not dare to face the torn soul, and buried herself in pain in lonely sobs. As a result, the sisters at the beginning of the dance drama are amused, and here a strong contrast scene is formed, which is painful to the heart. This is the artists' ingenious dance drama design, and it is also an extremely bold exploration of the profound and complex psychological world of human beings by the creative team led by Zhao Ming. Not avoiding the real inner conflict, daring to "hard and hard" to reveal the huge contradictions and conflicts in the hearts of the characters is the valuable experience provided by "Little Sisters" in the creation of realistic themes.
The artistic exploration of "Little Sisters" contains a lot of valuable artistic experience. It tells us that the creation of dances with realistic themes must "borrow from false words", and the "virtual" here is actually the human psychological world that dance art is very good at. That is to say, we must firmly rely on the sorting out of the emotional world of the characters to express the actual value and meaning of real life. We must go deep into the field of human nature, deeply excavate the rich inner trajectory of the characters, and accurately find the psychological motivations of the people in the play.
Another enlightenment is that the "virtual" of dance creation with realistic themes must not be separated from the "reality" of life, and must be "said to have things" - the "virtual" of the emotional and psychological world must be derived from the real life of real themes, and the essential and typical character images should sublimate the real life process and value significance from the times and historical reality. The combination of plot and character fate, the combination of psychological emotion and figurative life, the combination of mysterious dance and the details of life, a sentence, the combination of virtual and real, should be the essence of the creation of realistic themes.
Starting from a stylized dance rhythm? Or do you start from the character and emotional world in the creation of realistic themes? This is an old problem that has plagued contemporary Chinese dance creation since the new era of the 20th century. "Little Sisters" gives us a clear and powerful answer: from the colorful real life for the dance drama characters to find the life action in line with the plot, and from the emotional and character trajectory of the characters in the play to find psychological motivations, if it is a national life theme, it is necessary to find a stylized dance language motivation for the people in the play, and then convert the above three motivations into dance motivations on the stage, as a breakthrough, so as to accurately portray the dance drama characters, revealing the great practical significance of the reality theme dance and dance drama creation. The completion of the mutual transformation of the above three motivations also completes the "transformation of modernity" of traditional folk dance in the contemporary aesthetic sense. According to this, "Little Sisters" solves the second problem mentioned above.
To tell the truth, the advent of the latest revised version of "Little Sisters" is not also a good art lesson for the creative phenomena such as "false big void", thousand faces, uniformity, formatting, formulaization, and patterning that are still spreading in the dance world under the pretext of formal beauty?
Wen 丨 Feng Shuangbai Chairman of the Chinese Dancers Association