"Water Moon Roselle": Long sleeves are empty and poignant

Wen 丨 Liu Yue'e

1800 years ago, Cao Zhi left Luoyang, which made him frightened and uneasy, through the vast shores of Luoshui, the divine trance would be beautiful and holy Luoshen, "Luoshen Endowment" was illuminated for thousands of autumns, and Luoshen was also under the pen and ink of the literati of all generations, or metaphorically Cao Zhi's lofty ambition to build a meritorious career, or expressed a love of people and gods that could not be sought, and finally became Gu Kaizhi's "Luoshen Futu", and also transformed into the dance drama "Water Moon Luoshen".

Under the meticulous choreography of choreographer Tong Ruirui, the dance drama "Water Moon Luoshen" highly restores the classic picture scroll of Cao Zhi's "Roselle Endowment": a round of bright moon illumination, a drop of crystal water falling on the lake, a layer of stirring ripples, "Flying like a frightening hong, gentle like a dragon", "Ling Bo microsteps, Luo Socks are dusty" The Roselle travels in the time and space where the water and moon meet... The multimedia images project beautiful pictures and the graceful and elegant dance postures of the water mist, leading the audience to travel through thousands of years of time and space, stop at the Banks of the Luoshui River, appreciate the wonderland of the gods dancing together, and vividly present the cultural characteristics of the Central Plains.

"Water Moon Luoshen" takes "LuoshenFu" as the spiritual core, takes the three kingdoms war disputes in the Wei and Jin dynasties as the background, integrates historical facts and myths, and creates a realistic aesthetic mood through the high degree of "meaning" and "elephant", allowing the audience to appreciate the majestic atmosphere of Cao Zhi and Cao Pi poetry of Jian'an Wind And Bone more than a thousand years ago in a beautiful artistic conception, and expressing the cruel dispute between the princes and the emotional entanglement between Cao Zhi, Cao Pi and Zhen Mi in the form of natural and smooth single dance, double dance and group dance. Personality traits such as Cao Pi's suspiciousness, Cao Zhi's frankness and sentimentality, and Zhen Mi's femininity and tenacity are presented through the dancer's feminine, or rigid, or deformed body movements and facial expressions.

In just 2 hours, the dance drama narrates this bizarre story through Cao Zhi's awakening from dream to dream, and withdraws several times in the dream awakening, and through the interpretation of reality and dream, Cao Zhi's JingtaoWeiluo, prosperous talent and tragic fate are outlined. For example, in the first half, the dance section reflects the meritorious service and brotherhood, "Jian Drum", which presents the dance sections of Wenwu Pilgrimage and Self-Satisfaction, "Chaohe" and "Furong Pond", the dance section "Ya Song", which expresses sorrow and caution, and the dance section "Duckweed", "Tang Shangxing" and "Ruo Li", which reflects the sadness of life. In the second half, the dance section that pays attention to the inner lyricism, "All mouths shoveling gold" and "heart nightmare" lays the groundwork for the dance section "battle", "seven-step poem" and "separation", the story advances layer by layer, to the "fairyland" at the end, the exiled Cao Zhi came to the water's edge of Miao Miao Luo, he has infinite thoughts of Zhen Mi, and his heart is haggard into sleep, and the dream slowly walks towards the beautiful Roselle, and people and gods admire each other. They swam freely in the mist of Luoshui, circling and dancing, flying for nine days...

In particular, the dance section "Water Moon" uses a large round mirror to refract multiple reflections of Zhen Mi dancing under the bright moon and at the edge of Luo Shui, reflecting Zhen Mi's feelings of missing her homeland, and the return of a guqin has caused rumors in the palace that Cao Zhi and Zhen Mi have a private affair between men and women. The dance section "Heart Nightmare" uses several mirrors to illustrate that Cao Zhi not only seized the throne, but also snatched his beloved woman Zhen Mi, doubling the fear and pain in Cao Pi's heart and laying the groundwork for Cao Zhi's exile. The choreographer uses water, moon, mirror, door and other symbolic props to create a poignant and beautiful artistic conception, a real mirror, a virtual mirror, like looking at the moon in the water and looking at the flowers in the mirror. Another example is that the silk falling from the sky is like the Milky Way, the beauty is flowing and endless, metaphorically Cao Zhi does not want to wake up from the lingering thoughts in the dream, and it is also a hint that Zhen Mi hanged herself and died, expressing human emotions through the soft limbs of the dancers, virtual and real, beautiful and romantic.

Different from other dance dramas, "Water Moon Roselle" uses a combination of silent dance and sound poetry recitation, and selects classic poetry fragments, supplemented by an imposing chorus, to convey to the audience the protagonist's strong emotional appeal: longing for beautiful and pure love, eager for the ideal of meritorious achievement, and helpless and miserable psychology after being crushed by reality. While showing the protagonist's personality ideals and spiritual dilemmas, the dance drama also conveys the universal feelings of ancient and modern human beings. This is also one of the important reasons why "Water Moon Roselle" won the "Lotus Award", the highest award for dance. When the desperate Cao Zhi tearfully wrote under Cao Pi's sword: Boiled beans burn beans, beans cry in the kettle. Ben is born from the same root, and he is too anxious to fry. Accompanied by Cao Zhi's poignant chanting, the magnificent music accompanied the vicissitudes of history paved the way, and everyone present was in tears.

The reason why "Water Moon Roselle" is so loved by the audience is that in addition to the ingenuity of the choreographer, it is closely related to the performance of the actors. Gai Zheng (as Cao Zhi) believes that every action performed by the dancer must be carefully considered, and before the performance, the actor needs to infiltrate the brain with words or thoughts, so that each action has its own emotional temperature, so that each action will produce dramatic significance. Actors in the expression of specific emotions are not like we express instantaneously with the help of language, but need to be slowly extended from the body, such as Cao Zhi to help Zhen Mi wipe a tear, Cao Zhi toss the silk in his hands and other such life-like details, in the dance drama need to be carefully polished, and strive to make every subtle action fully express the emotions of the characters.

Yi Xingyan (playing Roselle) believes that to show the spiritual temperament of the characters, it takes a lot of time to understand the historical background of the story, including some classical poems that appear in the play, and only when you understand, can you better interpret the characters. For example, the dance section "Ruo Li" shows the tragic fate of Zhen Mi who survived the war because of her appearance in the city, and in order to save her family's life, she was taken to the Xiang Mansion by Cao Pi and missed her family and couldn't help herself. Yi Xingyan shows Zhen Mi's inner entanglement and nervous heart, which has a strong artistic appeal.

Every action performed by the dancer on the stage must be the dancer's silent recitation of words in his mind dozens of times, countless times on the stage fell and climbed up, and finally refined into steel, there was a natural and smooth dance, or strong and powerful, or flexible and delicate, and the light tone with strong subjective emotions was perfectly integrated, with rich body language, facial appearance and divine performance of the character personality, psychological changes, the character will be ready to come out, the audience into the dramatic situation. Wang Yang (as Cao Pi) compares the dance section "Furong Pond" showing Cao Pi's proud and proud feelings and grandeur with Cao Pi's "Heart Nightmare" showing Cao Pi's frightening inner portrayal of Cao Zhi's dream of seizing the throne and marrying Zhen Mi, and through his vicious and frightened expression, distorted and exaggerated body movements convey Cao Pi's inner world very vividly.

Someone once said that everyone has a Roselle in their hearts, but sometimes the shadow is blurred by reality, but when the ripples are exhausted, she is like a round of water moon, reflected in your heart, so that you spend your life to pursue... The dance drama "Water Moon Roselle" integrates Chinese classical dance with Western modern dance, and with the help of the meaning of classical poetry, the softness of the water sleeves, the sound of the piano like crying, the crystal clear water moon, and the real mirror, the profound ancient culture of the Central Plains is presented with rich dance beauty, not only borrowing the feelings of modern people from the ancients, but also exerting the beauty of classical poetry to the extreme.

[Editor-in-charge: Liu Hanlu]

[Source: Hunan Daily· New Hunan Client]