Reasons for selection
She is a well-known dancer at home and abroad, and a powerful promoter of artistic public welfare. As a dancer, she has starred in all the Chinese and foreign reserved plays of the Central Ballet such as "Swan Lake", "Giselle", "Red Detachment of Women" and other Chinese and foreign reserved repertoire, bringing the audience extraordinary aesthetic experience with her superb artistic achievements; as a leading figure of Chinese ballet, she has long been committed to the popularization of youth aesthetic education and elegant art, promoting ballet into schools, communities and villages, bringing high-level artistic enlightenment.
Feng Ying is the president and artistic director of the National Ballet of China, and the vice chairman of the China Dancers Association. He was a member of the Ninth, Tenth and Eleventh National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and a deputy to the Twelfth National People's Congress.
Feng Ying has the temperament of a "senior girl".
The thick and straight braids, the long figure, the wide robe and the large sleeves set off the dancer's fairy wind Dao bone... She has long been refined in the years, but she has maintained the enthusiasm and frankness of the artist.
"Eat less, sleep less, play less" is what she calls the ballet dancer's three precepts. From stepping on the train to Beijing at the age of ten to more than ten years of career as the head of the National Ballet of China, she has passed half a lifetime.
The white colt crossed the gap, and suddenly it was over. She did not feel bitter, but enjoyed it. Whether on stage or off stage, in front of and behind the scenes, there is only one goal in this life, "everything is for the moment when the curtain opens."
Masters, miscellaneous servants
Shanghai Oriental Art Center, January 12, basic training session and rehearsal session before the performance. The youthful atmosphere of the stage, even if they are dressed in casual clothes, the actors' hands and feet are breathtakingly beautiful.
Feng Ying, dressed in black, shuttled through it, and the "beating girl" outfit of breeches and riding boots made the Zhongba family look like a head coach. She patiently helped the actors cut the details, and sometimes had to demonstrate it herself, and there were bursts of laughter and applause from the stage.
It was an ordinary afternoon and an unseen "foreplay" in more than two hundred performances a year by the National Ballet of China. At least one and a half hours of basic skills training every day and the continuous rehearsal of the repertoire of the night's performances are as natural for the actors as clocking in to work.
As the head of the group and the artistic director, as long as there is no major official business, Feng Ying will personally attend the scene to guide, commonly known as "entering the classroom". This is Feng Ying's daily life, her purest time.
Feng Ying's story also began in a classroom.
Feng Ying was born in 1963 to a working-class family in Harbin. The parents were inspectors of the arsenal, and they treated their four children as strictly as an assembly line. Like her older siblings, Feng Ying was sent to her grandmother's house in Jilin at the age of two and a half — an experience she later used to experience the psychology of the characters in the ballet Lin Daiyu.
But Feng Ying's childhood is joyful, perhaps influenced by the aunt who can sing and dance, she has loved to sing and dance since she was a child, and as soon as she heard the singing section of "Red Lantern" and "Red Girl Scout Army", she sang and danced in front of the mirror, and thus became a little red person on the street. Because she sold well, she even enrolled in school two years earlier than other children.
Less than two months after returning to harbin parents at the age of ten, Feng Ying's fate trajectory changed again.
The teacher of the Beijing Dance Academy Affiliated High School went to the Red Street Primary School where she studied to select ballet dancers, and feng Ying, who sat in the back row, was selected. Because she was not around her parents since childhood, coupled with her inexplicable love for music and dance, Feng Ying was full of enthusiasm for going to Beijing to study dance school. Her mother didn't want her to go, but Feng Ying was resolute. The moment the train started, her tears also fell with her friends.
"When I was a kid, I had a bit of square shoulders, chubby, round, and it was ballet that chose me. But after six years of ballet training, I was recast. Feng Ying recalled.
At the Beijing Dance Academy, she received formal dance training, and in addition to her ballet major, she also studied folk dance and classical dance. Ballet training is quite boring, sometimes doing only one movement every day, and even people who love dance so much can't stand it.
Despite this, Feng Ying still puts in more effort than others, and her training volume is always doubled in classes, and sometimes she has to give herself extra lessons during Sunday breaks.
Feng Ying stage art photos. Photo/Courtesy of respondents
Entering the National Ballet of China in 1980, Feng Ying danced on stage for 17 years, playing the heroine of all the repertoire of China Ballet. She has played the two roles of White Swan Ojeta and Black Swan Audrey in "Swan Lake", and has also played the heroine Kitli and the selling girl in "Don Quixote", and played the heroine Giselle and the Ghost Queen in "Giselle"; she is the heroic Qionghua in "The Red Detachment of Women", and also the lin daiyu who is subtle and kind, soft and rigid in "Lin Daiyu"... As a representative of the third generation of "Qionghua", she is known as the most well-rounded dancer in ballet.
Since 1997, Feng Ying has participated in teaching, rehearsal, and choreography, in her words, "teaching while jumping and leading". In 2000, she began teaching ballet master classes. After becoming the head of the group in 2009, she still tried to find time to give lessons to everyone.
"The memory of body language, the uneven proportion of breathing, these have to be practiced every day, and it is very necessary to practice repeatedly." In Feng Ying's eyes, performance is the most important work of China Baba, and improving the quality of works is the last word. No matter on any stage in China or in the world, the moment the curtain opens, the most beautiful artistic expression must be dedicated to the audience.
Since it has been decided that "the drama is bigger than the sky", all the work has also been carried out around this center. She calls the identity of the head of the group as a "miscellaneous servant" who serves everyone, and the artistic presentation and daily management are shoulder to shoulder, in the final analysis, it is still to make the team healthy and benign operation, and come up with good works.
In March 2019, the National Ballet of China performed the classical ballet "Swan Lake" at the Centennial Lecture Hall of Peking University. Photo/Visual China
Under the impetus of Feng Ying's three-legged artistic creation characteristics of "inheriting the classical, innovating the nation, and opening up the modern and contemporary", in recent years, the Central Ballet of China has successively launched a number of excellent original plays such as "New Year", "Crane Soul", "Dunhuang", "Nine Colored Deer", "Flower Open", "Yimeng" and "Century" on the basis of the original retained repertoire.
In order to improve the treatment of personnel, improve the working environment, and retain talents as much as possible, Feng Ying still has a lot of "miscellaneous labor" to do. She should find the right time and occasion to talk, seek greater policy support from the government departments, and find ways to win more commercial sponsorship.
No. 3 Taiping Street, Xicheng District, Beijing, the five-story red building is the office space of the Central Ballet for many years, elegant and simple, just like the Chinese Barba people's "less talk, more do, down-to-earth" style of doing things. However, the problem of insufficient business space has also been plaguing Feng Ying, who has fought for nearly a decade and finally made a breakthrough, but when she can cash in she is still waiting.
Public welfare, love
Feng Ying said that she was lucky and happy: lucky to be selected by ballet and happily engaged in a job that she loved all her life. Because of this "luck", she feels that she has an obligation to share the beauty of dance and the beauty of life with more people.
She has a strong humanistic complex, believing that people are pursuing beauty by nature, and humbly claims that her job is to make some efforts to improve the public's artistic aesthetics. She feels that public art and public welfare are the same thing, for the perfection of people, but also in the promotion of art, participation in public affairs.
In January 2018, Feng Ying participated in public welfare activities at Luanping Hope Primary School in Hebei Province.
The seeds of goodness seemed to be innate to Feng Ying. As early as the 1980s, as a young actress, she took the lead in initiating donations to the difficult workers in the troupe. At that time, an old employee of China Ballet could not afford the huge expenses of her daughter's heart surgery, and Feng Ying offered to donate her performance remuneration for this colleague, which also received a response from colleagues in the whole troupe.
This is the starting point of her public welfare road, the concept of "everyone for me, I for everyone" may be related to the education she received from childhood, and her own understanding is that everyone in society is inseparable from getting along with others, sharing or sharing joys and sorrows, and it is naturally a happy thing to be able to help others.
When her daughter was one or two years old, Feng Ying took the initiative to guide her to help street beggars or needy groups from other places who came to Beijing. After the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, her daughter, who was in high school at the time, took the initiative to volunteer in the disaster area for a month. In the disaster area, tired and rainy, the daughter had a high fever lying on a makeshift bed made of door panels. Feng Ying was anxious but unable to go, but she was also deeply pleased with her daughter's bravery and eagerness.
The "Angel of Love" in Shuangjing, Chaoyang District, Beijing, is also a public welfare organization that Feng Ying once took the initiative to volunteer. Some abandoned sick children are adopted here, and As a mother, Feng Ying often takes time to visit her daughter on Saturdays, sometimes even helping staff to see the children so that they can take a breather and rest. She also took the young actors in the troupe who had just walked out of school to visit and cultivate their awareness of caring for and serving the society from an early age.
After serving as the head of the group, Feng Ying became more and more busy, and it was difficult to take a fixed time to participate in public welfare projects, but with the continuous improvement of popularity and influence, she also contributed energy to public welfare undertakings on a larger platform.
Since 2016, Feng Ying has served as a director of the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation for three consecutive years. She was deeply touched by the work of the Soong Foundation in the development of children and young people, which is also an area that she is more than willing to contribute to. As long as the time does not conflict, she will actively participate in the activities organized by the Song Foundation.
In March 2019, Feng Ying walked into the Future Theater of China Soong Ching Ling Youth Science and Technology Culture Exchange Center, with the theme of "Entering the Ballet and Tasting the Artistic Conception", and opened the door of the ballet hall for parents and children through lectures and performances.
In March 2019, Feng Ying (first from left) popularized the art of ballet at the "Famous Teachers Public Lecture Hall" of the China Soong Ching Ling Foundation.
As an iconic figure of Chinese ballet, Feng Ying often holds various forms of public welfare performances and lectures, and leads Chinese ballet performers into universities, schools and communities to popularize elegant art. Although she has to start from the ABC of ballet every time, talk about the "three long and one small" of selecting ballet dancers, and tell the "opening straight and steady and light" in ballet appreciation, she still enjoys it.
"Every time I see the children's eyes full of longing and cherished, I am very touched, and I feel that I still do too little, and I should do more and more to bring artistic enlightenment to their lives." Feng Ying never regards these public welfare activities as a task or a service to the other party, she feels that the eye contact and sincere interaction between people will bring real emotional resonance.
"Dedication to the heart, dedication to righteousness" is her public welfare creed, but also a natural extension of the artistic pursuit and personality charm of a hall-level dancer.
Beauty, life
"The world is our stage. Where we are, Chinese ballet is there! This is a very eye-catching sentence on the official website of the National Ballet of China, and it is also their motto of self-motivation.
Founded in 1959, the Chinese Ballet has drawn on the strengths of all on the basis of the Russian School, introduced and rehearsed world classics such as "Swan Lake", "Giselle", "Don Quixote", "The Little Mermaid", and created its own national masterpieces such as "Red Detachment of Women", "Blessing", "Yellow River", "Big Red Lantern Hanging High" and so on. As a national academy, China-Brazil carries the dual mission of serving the public and foreign exchanges.
In order to let the audience get closer to the ballet and eliminate the public's "high cold" impression of ballet, Feng Ying and their team tried everything. Their performances are not always in the theater, sometimes in order to narrow the distance with the audience, some Huimin performances will be set up on the spot according to local conditions, such as parks, open air open spaces, when performing "Red Women's Army" in Hainan, they simply built the stage on the Wanquan River.
"In the final analysis, culture and art are about helping everyone cultivate their sentiments. Improve people's quality of life by enjoying the aesthetic performance of dance. Feng Ying said. Where the performance goes, they will also go everywhere to "punch in", so that the beautiful posture of the ballet dancers and the city landmarks are integrated, so that the public feels that there is ballet and art everywhere.
In May 2015, Feng Ying (first from right) was awarded the Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et des Arts et des Arts.
In order to let foreign audiences better understand China, in addition to doing a good job in each performance abroad, they will also use various opportunities and ways to communicate with local people.
For example, through the Chinese flavor of "New Year" and a variety of carefully prepared props to tell the Chinese life customs. On the streets of Manhattan 42 or Paris in New York, young ballet dancers will also show the spirit of Chinese in a "flash mob" way, and the vibrant oriental faces will always attract onlookers and admiration, bringing unexpected communication effects.
"No matter where people are, people's pursuit of beauty is the same. As long as you have the pursuit of beauty, ballet can actually open up more imagination space, and we can also spread the seeds of beauty to more places. Feng Ying said.
"Educating people with beauty" is the greatest value of ballet as a public art, and rural aesthetic education is also one of the key tasks of the Central Ballet for many years.
Luanping in Hebei, Linxia in Gansu, Fugong in Yunnan, Kashgar in Xinjiang... There are public welfare footprints of Chinese barba people everywhere, and the more rare the ballet performances, the more they have to do some pioneering work. In a public welfare performance in Tibet, because the altitude sickness was too strong, some actors were even sent to the hospital as soon as they stepped on the stage.
In January 2018, the Central Ballet and the Youcheng Entrepreneur Poverty Alleviation Foundation "Yi Classroom" walked into the countryside of Luanping County, Hebei Province, visited 12 primary and secondary schools within three days, and sent ballets "by the classroom" to local teachers and students.
Subsequently, after more than a year of experiencing life, ChinaBaBa Choreographer Li Yang, lead actor Wang Qimin and others joined hands to create the micro-film "Playground", based on the art teacher who adheres to Luanping, telling the moving story of a rural dance teacher and a little girl who looks forward to dancing, calling on the whole society to give greater attention and support to rural aesthetic education.
The shooting scene of the micro-film "Playground" created by the National Ballet of China.
"Art serves the masses, and everything is done for people." This is a sentence that Feng Ying often said. In her eyes, the National Ballet of China has a good public welfare heritage for many years. Although we diligently strive for artistic standards in daily life, everyone's vision is not limited to elegant art itself, but cares about society, observes reality, and takes the initiative to take responsibility in times of crisis.
At the beginning of the outbreak of the new crown epidemic in 2020, the Chinese Baba people scattered throughout the country during the Spring Festival holiday quickly mobilized and organized the purchase of protective materials to support the epidemic area in Hubei. On February 3, Feng Ying proposed that the delegation launch a donation initiative to fully support Hubei's fight against the epidemic. On February 13, the first batch of relief materials arrived in Xiaogan, Hubei Province. Ten days later, under the situation that the supply of goods at home and abroad was very tight, China Barba coordinated the procurement of 500 sets of medical protective clothing overseas and transported them to the Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University.
In addition, the troupe also set up an online mini-class on "China-Pakistan Anti-epidemic in Action", where dancers, stage designers and musicians of symphony orchestras sent intimate art anti-epidemic gifts to people at home.
On August 7, 2020, the National Centre for the Performing Arts Opera "restarted" performances after the epidemic, and the National Ballet of China brought a ballet boutique evening to medical staff from the state and the Beijing Aid-E'e medical team and journalists who rushed to the frontline to report. This is due to the 200-day re-appearance of the show after the pandemic has interrupted the show.
The finale program of the evening party and the newly created symphonic ballet work "Flying Against the Wind" made the audience feel embarrassed, and Qiao Jie, the leader of the leading group of the National Medical Team of Peking University to aid the fight against the epidemic in Hubei, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, and the president of the Third Hospital of Beijing Medical University, watched the whole work with tears throughout the process.
In order to create "Flying Against the Wind", Feng Ying led the main creative team to refer to a large number of materials, such as the doctor crouching in the corner of the wall to eat in the news report, and the newlyweds looking at each other through the window, which brought them moving and creative inspiration, and then interpreted through the delicate and perceptible dance language.
Compared with the classic repertoire, this new work that is closely linked to current events conveys the firm determination of ballet dancers to overcome the difficulties of the times, "the more difficult the period, the more spiritual strength and comfort are needed." Show our hearts in dance and pay homage to life. Feng Ying said.
The rehearsal scene of the symphonic ballet "Flying Against the Wind" created by the National Ballet of China to fight the new crown epidemic.
Original intention, new
Behind the ballet dancers' delivery of beauty to the world, there is also an unknown and difficult side, from individuals to professions.
At the age of 14, Feng Ying's waist was injured due to "improper training". "I was very tired when I jumped to the end of an action, and I had to stop and take a rest, and as a result, my waist was misaligned." Stubborn, she only rested for three days and played again.
To this day, lumbar spine syndrome haunts her, unable to stand or maintain the same position for long periods of time. Even if you wash your face and brush your teeth in the morning, you have to carefully find a suitable position to avoid the pain. She also had surgery on her feet, and similar situations are not uncommon in ballet circles. Beauty, applause and loneliness, illness together, with the industry.
"Practicing for the Revolution" is the education feng Ying received in the first lesson of entering the dance school, and from the moment she walked into the dance classroom, she knew that she would be accompanied by the handlebar for the rest of her life.
Times have passed, and now when she communicates with students and parents, she says more that she hopes that everyone will be a useful person and master a skill in the future to stand on the society. "It's a beautiful profession, but you have to pay more hardship than ordinary people, or constantly fight with yourself." 」 She hopes that everyone will really think clearly, and if they choose to take this road, they will definitely persist and stick to it.
Feng Ying feels that only the love from the heart can last, and only by identifying his own choice can he have no regrets. She is a person who loves talents and spares no effort in cultivating talents.
Feeling the lack of ballet choreographers at that time, Since 2010, Feng Ying has initiated the creation of an annual creative workshop to support young choreographers and establish an innovation platform. "The original intention is to comprehensively cultivate the talents needed for choreographers, actors, lighting design, stage design and other positions, and is committed to creating a team that perfectly integrates ideological culture and choreography practice." Feng Ying said.
The cast members who participated in the performance were paid zero, allowing more balleters to take to the stage to explore greater artistic possibilities. Even in 2020, when the epidemic was impacted, the workshops have persisted online.
In April 2021, the Ballet Creative Workshop, which is in its 11th year, has made "Initial Heart" and "New" the annual theme, which is both a gesture of retrospect and a determination to continue to move forward. Wang Sizheng, the general director of the workshop, said that at the beginning of the creation of the project, Feng Ying hoped that the actors could face the present, express their thoughts and feelings in time, and constantly introduce new people and new works. "This platform is very rare and invaluable for young choreographers." Wang Sizheng said.
Feng Ying is directing students at the China Ballet School. Photo/Courtesy of respondents
Committed to the construction of the "Chinese Ballet School" is inseparable from the establishment of a complete system, which requires time to sharpen and talent support, and all links are indispensable. After years of efforts by Feng Ying, the National Ballet of China Dance School was established in 2015, and in 2018, the first original fairy tale ballet "Nine Colored Deer" was launched for the China Ballet School, and the form of "children performing for children" not only provided students with a stage to show themselves, but also reflected the advantages and characteristics of "unity of the regiment and school" and "leading the school with the troupe".
Feng Ying said that the matter of running a school has been brewing for a long time, but she has "pushed forward" in her appointment.
Her honesty and humility are in her bones, and she does professional things with a professional attitude, and she also infects the people around her with this spirit. Just like for this interview, she set aside enough time to fully cooperate with every link. Spring wind and rain, naturally.
"I've always felt that ballet is a wonderful profession for women, and it has shaped a completely different life for me." Art is like a person, nothing is like that.
Dialogue with Feng Ying: Art is the best key to enlightening the soul
Spring, summer, autumn and winter have four performance seasons a year, and at the end of the year, there are various public welfare and condolence performances, and Feng Ying often has the feeling of "too busy to come".
With nearly 50 years of friendship with ballet, Feng Ying has experienced the ups and downs of this elegant art. From dancers to managers, and even many other social positions, she always hopes to share the beauty of ballet with more people, and more people have become confidants and fans of ballet art.
"Chinese Philanthropist": After so many years of popularization and promotion of ballet, what do you think is the real difficulty?
Feng Ying: The real difficulty is before the audience comes in. Sometimes we do promotion and introduction, and there are always some people who think from the heart that you are too high and low, too elegant, we can't understand. In fact, when they really walk into the theater, they find that it is completely resonant.
Because ballet art is more intuitive in terms of formality, it is actually better expressed in body language, more visual than music, and it is easier to accept its joys and sorrows. Ballet art is extremely comprehensive, has a sense of picture, and has the foil of music, in fact, it will not be incomprehensible. So we tried everything we could to make it easier for the audience to go into the theater and try it.
Chinese Philanthropist: As a practitioner, how do you see ballet as hot and cold in China?
Feng Ying: It doesn't seem to be a particularly cold time for me, but it's more difficult. The most difficult thing should be the early stage of marketization, which means a bit of self-subsistence. Ballet is to be marketized, and what should we do when we compete with other art disciplines to open up the market and win the audience.
There is also the case of insufficient funds, as a difference appropriation unit, how to generate income for the insufficient part? This challenge has existed in all ages, and it is still the same today. In fact, art is inseparable from public welfare and needs a lot of funds to support.
China Philanthropist: What are some good ways for high art to attract corporate sponsorship?
Feng Ying: As a national academy and institution, we still have to attract corporate sponsorship within the scope of policy permits. But I also hope that the government can give more policy support to these enterprises that support public cultural undertakings, so that they can get reasonable returns and have a higher willingness to support us.
Chinese Philanthropist: As a representative of the two sessions, will your proposal be related to the popularization of ballet art?
Feng Ying: Simply promoting ballet art is still a bit narrow. Maybe it is also influenced by the Soong Ching Ling Foundation, I pay attention to the field of children from their beginnings, in addition, I also feel that to improve the quality of the people must start from the doll. So my first proposal was related to a campus power station, and I proposed to remove the power station from the school and keep the safety hazard away from the children. This is a very specific matter that I have mentioned as a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.
In the big picture, I have always suggested improving the educational environment for the children of migrant workers and building more schools in Beijing so that these children can receive an equal education. As far as the industry is concerned, I hope that the government will increase the allocation of funds to the cultural and artistic industry and increase financial support like for education. In recent years, the state has elevated culture to the height of a country's soul, and after repositioning, it has indeed increased its support.
"Chinese Philanthropists": Will the implementation of the "double reduction" policy in 2021 also bring about the prosperity of cultural and artistic education?
Feng Ying: Yes, not only dance, but also music, opera, painting, parents have different footholds, but it must be culture and art. If children can be educated by art earlier, then the opening of children's minds, sensory acumen, and the perspective of observing life are all different. Because art is the best key to enlightening the soul, the sooner the child is exposed to art, the more beneficial it is to shape his life.
Portrait photography: MORE x JOLI studio
Photo editor: Zhang Xu
Editor on duty: Qiu Yu