The dance programs of the 2022 CCTV Spring Festival Gala are once again popular "out of the circle", and the excerpts of the dance poetry drama "Only This Green" are selected, the creative dance "Golden Face" and the creative music and dance poetry painting "Remembering Jiangnan" have set off a wave of artistic "revitalization" of cultural relics. "Only This Green" is based on the famous Northern Song Dynasty painting "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", using freehand and empathetic artistic techniques to illusion the imagery of green landscapes, in which the qingfeng peaks are stacked and the green water looms; the dancers have dignified eyebrows and high lips; it can really be said that "I see how feminine the green mountains are, and the green mountains see me as I should be." "The beauty of Song paintings and the beauty of classical Chinese poetry in the gait of the ladies on the stage, the mystery and bronze culture of Sanxingdui, the legendary story of the golden face, the vast smoke and waves of Jiangnan in the Fuchun Mountain Jutu, and the quiet and indifferent and detached mental state in the poetry of the literati have all entered the hearts of the audience...
When dance encounters cultural relics, it crosses the historical gap of archaeological texts, creates an artistic situation with unique time and space charm of dance, and "soaks" the sense of history and culture at the Scene of the Spring Festival Gala, so that tradition is "active" in the present.
Chinese civilization is the fertile soil, foundation and treasure of Chinese dance creation
There are a large number of cultural relics in China that are closely related to dance, such as Han portrait bricks, Dunhuang murals, music and dance figurines, etc. all have static images that show dance scenes and movements. In the development of ancient Chinese dance, dance was gradually integrated into the art of opera, so in the early days of the construction of Classical Chinese Dance in 1950, Mr. Ouyang Yuqian first proposed "Chinese Classical Dance", which refers specifically to the dance in Peking Opera and Kunqu Opera. Chinese classical dance has been developed from scratch, and in the years of development and exploration, a set of Chinese classical dance teaching system unique to the Chinese nation has been formed. As a platform for the construction of national dance culture, Chinese classical dance is the interpretation and inheritance of contemporary people with "revival significance".
In the discipline construction and repertoire creation of Chinese classical dance, in addition to excavating traditional opera culture, it also digs deep into historical relics. The classic dance drama "Silk Road Flower Rain", which premiered in 1979, created "Dunhuang Dance" from the way of "resurrecting Dunhuang murals", created a "national dance language", and created a precedent for Dunhuang dance. Mr. Sun Ying of beijing dance academy explored the Han and Tang dance styles in traditional Chinese culture, and created classic dance repertoire such as "Yanhuang Festival" and "Copper Sparrow Trick", especially the dance "Shu Gong Le" to give the Terracotta Warriors and Horses of Qin Shi Huang a vivid and vivid "human taste" from a contemporary perspective, and recall the cultural accumulation of thousands of years ago in the relaxed and humorous dance rhythm.
Mr. Sun Ying's choreography concept was played by his student Chen Lin many years later in the dance "Tang Palace Night Banquet", which exploded on the Internet in the 2021 Henan Satellite TV Spring Festival Gala. The dance "Qin Figurine Soul" starring Huang Doudou began to focus on the common national spirit of ancient and modern crossing; "Tang Yin", "Tang Palace Night Banquet" and Tian Xiang's dance theater "Figurines" series of dances all paid attention to the character image, personality characteristics and aesthetics of the times of ancient music and dance figurines; the dance drama "Five Stars Out of the East" premiered in 2021 took the Han Dynasty brocade armband of "Five Stars Out of the East and Benefits China" as the starting point, and fictionalized the legendary story that occurred in the Western Regions a thousand years ago. It can be said that in the creation of Chinese dance, the theme preference for historical relics has endured for a long time, and the long-standing Chinese history and culture and the profound Chinese civilization are the fertile soil, foundation and treasure of Chinese dance creation.
The fusion of culture and dance, ingenuity is unique: to create a thousand miles of rivers and mountains
The dance "Only This Green", which shined on the stage of the 2022 Spring Festival Gala, originated from the dance excerpt "Green" of the dance poem "Only This Green" premiered in August 2021, which was co-directed by the famous choreographers Zhou Liya and Han Zhen, who made full use of the commonalities of visual art and was unique and meticulous in the choreography.
The composition of "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" also brings together the framing composition rules of the "three far methods" of pingyuan, high and far-reaching, making the picture ups and downs and full of a strong sense of rhythm. The choreographer was deeply inspired, and the dance opened with a flat composition, and the water waves at the front of the stage created a landscape, presenting a vast and open picture with a deep spatial distance. From the twisting posture of the three female dancers in the foreground, through the starring "green green" side of the gaze, the distant scenery of three or four groups of staggered layered statues, the layers clearly present the continuous weather of thousands of miles of rivers and mountains.
In the triangular dance segment where the dancers converge, the slow and bursting force turns, the dancer stretches out his left foot to tap the center of gravity of the ground to move, and the abrupt and intermittent discrepancies of the rhythm of the breath form the image of "looking horizontally into the mountain side into a peak, far and near different heights", this visual composition is the same as the law of "high and far" in painting. There is an old saying: "From the bottom of the mountain to the top of the mountain, it is said to be high and far-reaching." Gao Yuan is the most appropriate way to depict lofty mountains, and its visual horizon is often at the lower end of the picture, and the visual effect highlights the tall and majestic and majestic. Therefore, the movement of this dance section also strengthens the rhythm and intensity, which contrasts with the previous emptiness and clouds and flowing water, highlighting the green and cold color of the steep peaks and high cliffs.
In literati landscape paintings, "far-reaching" is the most difficult to express, and the old saying has clouds: "From the front of the mountain to the back of the mountain, it is said to be far-reaching." However, in "Only This Green", the choreographer completed the "far-reaching" visual composition with the stage scheduling of covering his face with a single sleeve and walking backwards and mopping the floor, the focus of the "green waist" in the visual center, the rapid dispersion after the "mountains" gathered, and the repetition of the action of the "female doppelganger" behind the stage formed the visual effect of the "reflection" of the green in front of the mountain and the back of the mountain, and also achieved the "mental isomorphism" of the inner illusion of the "green" that the choreographer wanted to express, and fully realized the artistic expression of empathy.
Dance "breaking the boundary" and "out of the circle" is the innovation of science and technology to promote the multimedia performance space
When the Henan Satellite TV series "Wonderful Night" dance program "out of the circle", as well as the cultural drama dance program "Dance Millennium" on the frequency of hot search, led the creation mode of the evening dance video. The narrative of dance images is completely different from the narrative of traditional dance, and the dance images allow the audience to watch the dance through the lens and experience the subtle interaction of "swimming in the middle of the dance, the heart in the mirror". The 2022 CCTV Spring Festival Gala also draws on the integration of dance images and technology, using high-tech such as naked-eye 3D and holograms in the creative dance "Golden Face", specially invited the famous dancer Yang Liping to create a double dance that spans ancient and modern times, a contemporary girl touches history in the museum, through the bronze human face unearthed by Sanxingdui, the cultural relics are "resurrected", crossing back to the ancient Shu civilization of a thousand years ago, the love that spans the millennium is witnessed by the sacred tree, under the seal of the mysterious golden face, a dance for a thousand years, a dream for a thousand years. Dancers half-squatting, hands three bends of the action model, unique southwest national dance characteristics, dance does not blindly pursue the Western ballet double dance lifting skills, but highlight the Unity of Chinese dance, simple and romantic aesthetic taste, but also can see the choreographer Yang Liping's artistic style and ingenuity, "learning the ancient is not muddy, breaking the law is not contradictory", showing the theme of eternal love.
The creative music and dance poetry painting "Remembering Jiangnan" used XR (virtual environment technology for human-computer interaction), CG (computer animation) and other cutting-edge stunts to shoot in the studio for a week, and then edited for 20 days, and finally presented a three-dimensional dynamic "Fuchun Mountain Residence Map", the work is a number of Jiangnan women holding oil-paper umbrellas dancing to dance "into the painting", through the perspective of Jiangnan women in the slowly unfolding Jiangnan smoke and rain landscape, gradually meet the different characters of "Fishing Tree Cultivation Reading", showing the profound traditional Chinese culture in poetry and dance , showing the poetic jiangnan picture of "people dancing in the painting, painting with the scene".
The traditional dance viewing space is the stage and the theater, while the dance video viewing space has been expanded from the television media to the integration of stage theater and television media and other multimedia. Dance video not only has the collision of dance and television art in the lens language, but also the integration of dance and information technology in digital dance video, and now dance video has gradually surpassed from the technical means of the stage to an independent work. The innovation of the performance space enables the audience to break the boundaries of history, connect reality with historical tradition through dance art, see people through things, feel the humanistic spirit contained in it through cultural relics, so at the moment when the viewing space is constantly innovating, the connection between dance and cultural relics goes with the trend, bringing an extraordinary viewing experience.
Behind the "national tide style" and "poetry fever" is the enhancement of national strength and cultural self-confidence
With the continuous improvement of China's comprehensive national strength, from "poetry fever", "Hanfu fever", "Wenbo fever" to "national tide style" and "classical xing", all of which are a manifestation of "traditional culture fever". In today's mobile Internet connection to the world, in the face of unprecedented changes in a hundred years, "Chinese culture has always advocated 'collecting the que literature of a hundred generations and collecting the legacy of a thousand years'", and China's traditional culture is the easiest to conform to the aesthetic habits of Chinese people.
The reason for the "traditional culture fever" is ultimately the manifestation of the self-confidence of the Chinese national culture. Only by integrating artistic creativity and Chinese cultural values, and combining the Chinese aesthetic spirit with contemporary aesthetic pursuits, can we activate the vitality of Chinese culture. The "Wenbo fever", from "Jian Bao", "I Repair Cultural Relics in the Forbidden City", "National Treasures", to "Museum Wonderful Night", "If National Treasures Can Talk", etc., through the joint efforts of multiple programs, the continuous innovation of TV programs, a change in the serious and quiet image of museum cultural relics in the past, the introduction of many vivid variety shows, successfully aroused the attention of contemporary audiences, especially Generation Z audiences to the traditional culture extended out of museums and cultural relics. The "traditional culture fever" reflects the Chinese nation's firm cultural self-confidence and strong national identity. Culture is the soul of a country and a nation, and it is also an important source of vitality, creativity and cohesion of a country.
From the "Tang Palace Night Banquet" of Henan Satellite TV "out of the circle" in 2021 to the dance of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala in 2022, such as "Only This Green" and other marvel screens, the current Chinese dance creation does not lack the theme of traditional culture and the audience who love traditional culture and appreciate traditional art, so it is more necessary for creators to have unique ingenuity and immerse themselves in the traditional cultural treasure house, combined with scientific and technological innovation methods, to enhance the aesthetic level of contemporary audiences. The "traditional culture fever" highlights the cultural self-confidence of the Chinese nation, and the Chinese civilization adheres to the cultural tradition of absorbing the strengths of all and being eclectic, and at present, through creative transformation and innovative development, it constantly displays "Chinese style" and "Chinese style", making Chinese traditional culture full of vigor.
Author: Tang Baijing (Associate Researcher, Yunnan Academy of Ethnic Arts)
Planner: Wang Xueying
Editor: Zhou Minxian
Editor-in-Charge: Fan Xin
*Wenhui exclusive manuscript, please indicate the source when reprinting.