Chinese New Year's Eve the Year of the Tiger in 2022, people once again saw a phenomenon-level "breaking the wall" and "out of the circle" of traditional Chinese cultural aesthetics. On the CCTV Spring Festival evening watched by hundreds of millions of viewers, the dance epic "Only This Green" became the explosive point of the entire program, igniting the enthusiasm of the audience. This program, which was praised by the audience as "beautiful" and "beautiful to cry", quickly became a hot search, igniting a wave of network brushing screens and forwarding.
This scene is almost the same as the circle of "Tang Palace Night Banquet" at the Spring Festival Gala in Henan last year. The same is the use of dance to tell the story of cultural relics, the same creative overtology, the same through the Spring Festival Gala platform that does not lack attention.
If the success of "Tang Palace Night Banquet" is accidental, the success of the "copying" of "Only This Green" seems to prove that this wenbo fever that continues to "go out of the circle" has mastered the traffic code.
It's the same: from ancient artifacts
Artistic transformation into modern dance
"Only This Green"
On the stage, when the dancers in green hair and high bun danced, "stunning, ancient style" is almost the common feeling of all audiences. Looking further down, the emotion followed.
The dance "Only This Green", through the seven chapters of "exhibition volume, asking seals, singing silk, searching for stones, learning brush, quenching ink, and entering painting", tells the story of a young researcher of the Forbidden City who "crossed" back to the Northern Song Dynasty and "peeked" from the perspective of "exhibition volume person" to see the 18-year-old genius painter Wang Ximeng create the famous painting of the Northern Song Dynasty "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains".
Due to time constraints, CCTV Spring Evening presents a group dance clip of "Only This Green", expressing the artistic conception of the mountains in the painting. The green and green colors in "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" are extracted and abstracted into the female characters on the stage. When the dancers present different shapes and changes in posture, they are simulating the layers of mountains.
The details of the dance also highly restore this symbolism. The dancer's towering headdress is like a mountain stone in "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains"; the heroine "Green" actor Meng Qingyang's first shape in the opening chapter has a sagging sleeve, like the texture of a mountain, which can also be imagined as a mountain waterfall. It can be said that "Only This Green" presents the audience with an audiovisual feast of "every frame is a painting".
The heroine's "green" dancers have droopy sleeves, like the texture of a mountain, or like a mountain waterfall.
Part of "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" (Source/Palace Museum)
In the eyes of industry insiders, the most important reason why "Only This Green" is out of the circle is that the artistic conception of "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" has been restored. "The famous painting "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" has provided a fairly mature artistic motherbook, and its exquisite color setting, the majesty of the composition, and the rich meaning are themselves a great aesthetic enjoyment. "Only This Green" almost makes a one-to-one reproduction of the artistic conception of the picture, and this respect for traditional culture has also received a rich 'reward': the dance drama naturally shares the aesthetic level of the picture. Poetry and pictorials are essentially different categories of art. "Only This Green" successfully realized this artistic transformation and achieved the penetration of the qi vein. ”
The successful "transformation" of this artistic aesthetic is also similar to the "Tang Palace Night Banquet" that came out of the circle last year. The dance "Tang Palace Night Banquet" tells the interesting story of a group of Tang Dynasty female musicians in the shape of Tang figurines in the museum on the way to the banquet. The 14 dancers wore one-piece dance suits stuffed with sponges and cotton in their mouths, just to reflect the plump image of the Tang figurines. The crescent-shaped makeup at the corners of their eyes also reproduces the "oblique red makeup" that was popular in the Tang Dynasty. The audience seemed to see a group of real Tang figurines, "resurrected" on the stage.
The dancers of "Night Banquet at the Tang Palace" recreate the "oblique red makeup" that was popular in the Tang Dynasty
Whether it is "Only This Green" or "Tang Palace Night Banquet", many viewers issued a similar sigh: "The national treasure is really moving!" This is Chinese culture! There is no shortage of viewers shouting: "Please roll up the Spring Festival Gala according to such a program standard." ”
The same: the advent of the era of revival of traditional culture
"Tang Palace Night Banquet" was out of the circle last year, and "Only This Green" followed this year. It seems that it is an inspiration and reference for the former. In fact, it is a "unanimous" at one time.
Three years ago, "Only This Green" was launched. "Only This Green" is jointly produced by the Palace Museum, China Oriental Performing Arts Group Co., Ltd. and People's Network Co., Ltd. In 2019, China Oriental Performing Arts Group intends to create a work that shows the charm of traditional Chinese culture. The creative team considered "Qingming On the River Map" and "Han Xizai's Night Feast Map", but finally chose "Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains". "Because the vast rivers and rolling mountains in the painting are full of rhythm and have something in common with dance."
In order to create "Only This Green", the choreographers first studied "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", and then almost read the poetry and paintings of the Song Dynasty. Chief editors And directors Zhou Liya and Han Zhen once revealed that the pre-creation of the play alone took more than a year, and it took 5 months to create and rehearse, and the team repeatedly discussed and exchanged with experts from the Palace Museum. In the end, after nearly 1 year and 8 months, "Only This Green" was officially put on the stage.
Before landing on the Spring Festival Gala of the Year of the Tiger, "Only This Green" has been recognized by the market. Since the first "exhibition volume" of the National Centre for the Performing Arts in August 2021, "Only This Green" has been performed more than 50 times in 16 cities including Shanghai, Suzhou, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, and has won a double harvest of popularity and word of mouth. On the Xiaohongshu social platform of Meng Qingyang, the actor of "Green Green", many fans left messages asking when their city would have a performance of "Only This Green".
What's even more rare is that from the premiere to the tour, the creative team has been collecting feedback from the audience and modifying and adjusting the dance. Zhou Liya said: "There is no final version of 'Only This Green', only the best version. ”
From the innovative creativity, to the exquisite pre-creation, to the continuous adjustment after the performance, "Only This Green" finally ushered in the Spring Festival Gala. The famous painting "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" unfolded on the stage in a different way, and also let modern audiences feel the peak experience of traditional Chinese aesthetics.
Some viewers commented: "After watching the program, I actually cried tears, and it turned out that the most touching thing was traditional culture." The vigorous and thick guqin and the rigid and soft dance interpret "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" to the fullest, as if going back to more than 900 years ago, I saw the eighteen-year-old Wang Ximeng struggling to write. ”
Back to "Tang Palace Night Banquet". On the way to the banquet of the Tang warrior maidens, in the lively and delicate and humorous fights of the young girls, cultural relics and national treasures such as the good owl, the lotus crane square pot, and the JiaHu bone flute appeared interspersed on the stage.
"Tang Palace Night Banquet" also incorporates elements of "Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains".
From "Tang Palace Night Banquet" to "Only This Green", the modern art team invariably seeks creative inspiration from ancient national treasures and forms a scale effect, which also shows the arrival of an era of traditional cultural revival.
Cultural self-confidence: seeking roots and innovation for the new century
This revival, through the dancing "Tang figurines" and "green green", has also ignited the audience's cultural confidence in traditional Chinese culture again and again.
"By virtue of cultural self-confidence? Just by virtue of the fine products of traditional culture. After watching "Only This Green", the audience Tang Nan commented, "This is the fine product of Chinese culture, and the national is the world." ”
"Only This Green" starring Meng Qingyang interpreted his "green" role in this way. "A purely freehand character, like the boldness of a green color in "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", needs to open the imagination when interpreting. This dance is no longer the femininity of women, but more of a magnificent thing, representing a kind of age and atmosphere of traditional Chinese culture precipitation, and also representing the confident side of our culture. ”
Bringing to life the artifacts collected in museums, the heritage displayed on the vast expanse, and the words written in ancient books has become the consensus of the moment. Since the moment of the birth of creativity, "Tang Palace Night Banquet" and "Only This Green" have been beneficial attempts to promote the creative transformation and innovative development of China's excellent traditional culture. The success of "Tang Palace Night Banquet" and "Only This Green" is also an interpretation model for cultural relics to "come alive" and "move".
Cultural relics carry splendid civilization, inherit history and culture, maintain the national spirit, and are important resources for enhancing cultural self-confidence. In 2021, Chinese archaeology ushered in the 100th anniversary of its birth. In 2022, standing on the occasion of the new 100 years, Wenbo fever continues to "break the wall" in various ways. Whether it is the collection of "Tang Palace Night Banquet" or "Only This Green", what is out of the circle is not only the excavation of national treasures, national styles and national tides, but also the journey of root-seeking and innovation starting from the homeland for the new century.
The audience has reason to expect,
NextThe Tang Palace Night Banquet"
Or the arrival of "Only This Green"!
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Author: Junna Li
WeChat Editor: Nano
Proofreading: song