At the Bird's Nest, a snowflake that warms the world comes together

On the evening of February 4, the opening ceremony of the XXIV Winter Olympic Games was held at the Beijing National Stadium. After the entrance ceremony of the athletes from all over the world, the snowflakes in the hands of all the delegation guides converged into a huge snowflake in the center of the stage. China Youth Daily, China Youth Network reporter Li Junhui / photo

Snowflake-style Chinese romance is pushed to a climax at this moment.

A pillar of light descends from the sky, and an olive branch weaves small snowflakes with the names of participating countries and regions written on them, and combines them into a large snowflake. Large snowflakes flutter in the air, and finally form a snowflake platform, which slowly rises in the eyes of the whole world.

At the opening ceremony of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics, 96 dancers from the Beijing Dance Academy dressed up as 96 falling snowflakes and successfully completed the dance performance called "Building a Snowflake".

"No snowflake is the same, different snowflakes converge in Beijing to become a human snowflake." Zhang Yimou, the general director of the opening ceremony of the Beijing Winter Olympics, once revealed the meaning of this program.

"Construct a snowflake", the theme is grand, how to convey it in the form of dance, is the mission of 96 "little snowflakes".

When the performance ended, Han Linqi, secretary of the Youth League Committee of the Beijing Dance Academy, sighed: "This group of young people has a more struggle, and behind the rise of the snowflake platform, every snowflake has meaning." ”

After the athletes' entrance ceremony, the audience darkened. 96 dancers light up the signs and gather from all directions of the Bird's Nest to the center of the field, gathering into a perfect circle. The lead teacher, Li Yuan, exclaimed, "This is the roundest one!" ”

"Building a Snowflake" chooses the dance form of modern ballet. However, among the nearly 100 performing teams, only 21 students are from ballet majors. "For most people, it's almost a new lease on deck." Li Yue, the lead teacher, said that the most difficult thing was that "96 people danced like one person."

In Beijing in January, it snowed a few times, the cold was overwhelming, and the bird's nest was as cold as an ice cellar. In order not to let the clothes "eat" the action, the students took off their down jackets and wore sweaters and sweatshirts to rehearse.

The essence of modern ballet lies in the subtleties, the way of exerting force, the amplitude of movements, the mood and the feeling, which are different from other dances. Chen Qian, a folk dance major, tried the dance genre "cross-border" for the first time. "If you don't pay attention to it, the style of national dance will come out." Chen Qian said that in order to polish the standardized dance style, everyone often spends a few minutes in one action, "the position of the starting hand, the height of the leg, and finally the formation of muscle memory." ”

It is not only the limbs that are neatly pointed, but also reflected in the transformation of the formation, from the oval to the perfect circle, and then spread out into an arc, "a person slightly deviated, from a distance to see the error is very obvious." Li Yue said, "In order to solve the problem of roundness, the program team did not get on fire." ”

There were several rehearsals, Chen Qian was about to be frozen, "the whole body froze", but the director shouted "start", 96 students ran to the round position in the center of the stage together, "the wind whistled in the ears", turned back several times down, Chen Qian found that some of the classmates around her were blown to tears by the wind, and some people had frosted eyelashes.

At the opening ceremony, the beautiful floor screen made the audience shine. However, the flowing picture it deduces adds a lot of difficulty to the actors' positions. "During the jump, we try to find each other with the afterglow." Chen Qian said that everyone will discuss each action and then remind each other. In Li Yue's view, the tacit understanding of 96 people is cultivated in this way, "looking at the six roads and listening to the eight directions."

96 small snowflakes came on. Li Yue closely followed their every move during the live broadcast. When the first circle was perfectly gathered, the stone in my heart fell to the ground, "This matter is stable!" As the snowflake slowly rose to the sky, he said excitedly, "It's the best show ever, it's never been so good!" ”

Until the 30-minute countdown to the opening ceremony, the program was still changing. In fact, the choreography of "Construct a Snowflake" has undergone at least 50 changes.

"Until the last big row, details and flaws were still being corrected." Li Yuan always stood on the stage to watch the rehearsal, silently "finding mistakes" in her heart, but she rarely talked about these with her classmates, "Professional problems are solved by directors, and I am more concerned about the status of my classmates." ”

Once in the platoon, she wanted to persuade a team member with a bad foot to go down to rest, but unexpectedly, this classmate comforted her, "It's okay teacher, I can't walk, I can't dance!" ”

"The students cherish this precious opportunity." After months of rehearsal, almost no one was left behind and took leave. In order to better adapt to and master the props, before the official performance, everyone almost did not wear gloves, and many students were scratched by the props. Li Yuan said: "Everyone's morale is very high, and they have been saving this momentum. ”

The team had 96 players on the pitch, but there were actually 99 guys, and the other 3 were substitutes.

Even if she may not be able to participate in the official performance, Wang Ying of the national standard dance department is still ready to play at any time. She worked hard to learn all the dance moves in the show, making up positions for four or five of her classmates.

The day before the third rehearsal, Wang Ying received a notice to prepare a substitute and would play a solo dancer in the main position. After dozens of rehearsals, she successfully completed the task and stood on the stage of the opening ceremony.

Striving to complete the mission with the highest artistic standards and the best mental state, in 2021, the Beijing Dance Academy established the "Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics Provisional Party Branch". Han Linqi served as the secretary of the provisional party branch, and Li Yue and Li Yuan were members of the branch.

Han Linqi believes that for the freshmen after 00, participating in the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics is the integration of artistic practice and ideological and political education, "their improvement of artistic level, blooming on the world stage is experience and growth, they are born in the best era, immersive feeling of the prosperity and strength of the country is the refinement and sublimation of ideas." ”

Li Yuan remembers that on the day of the opening ceremony, the students watched the live broadcast of "Li Chun" and the flag-raising ceremony together in the waiting area, and the voices of admiration rose and fell, "We want to be as perfect as them!" ”

"That's how my classmates came on." Li Yuan admitted that just a month ago, she was still "bottomless" about the effect presented by the whole show, but when she finally saw 96 small snowflakes spelled together into a big snowflake, the sense of surging and reverence sprang up, "This performance also inspired young people's reverence and admiration for the stage and the country." ”

In order to do a good job in this ideological and political lesson, in the sprint stage of preparing for the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics, Han Linqi led the team to organize a propaganda meeting, inviting seniors who had participated in the centenary of the founding of the party and the 70th anniversary of the founding of New China to share their experiences. During the rehearsal process, many students actively submitted applications for joining the group and applying to join the party.

Han Linqi said that this is the first time that the Beijing Dance Academy has recruited young people from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan in a large-scale activity to ensure that they have recruited 3 Taiwanese students and 4 Macao students, and they have felt the strength of the motherland a little bit.

China Youth Daily, China Youth Network reporter Liu Shangjun Source: China Youth Daily