Geography mountains and rivers hidden in ink Danqing,
Magnificent long scrolls smudge here verdant green,
Through the crevices of a thousand years of time,
It's The World of Simon at the age of 18,
It is the poetry that Leah pursues.
Dance from Emei
At the Spring Festival Gala of the Year of the Tiger, the dance poetry drama "Only This Green" was popular all over the country.
On the stage, 17 actors wore long green dresses, their hair was high, and they danced, bringing the classical romance of the famous painting "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" to the Spring Festival Gala stage through the millennium.
Zhou Liya at work
Under the stage, Zhou Liya, a national first-class choreographer of China Oriental Performing Arts Group, as one of the chief choreographers and directors of the play, finally had time to go home after dedicating a "model of oriental aesthetics" to the audience.
"The first thing to do is to eat cold pot skewers, and then eat tofu brain and barbecue. Every time I come home, I have to eat the best food in my hometown. As an authentic Emei girl, Zhou Liya has not been at home for the New Year for two years because of her busy work, and she is full of nostalgia for the small city where she grew up.
"The popularity of "Only This Green" still has a certain impact on me, as a behind-the-scenes worker, although I have directed many works, my relatives at home have no feelings, and this time everyone said that they would pull me to take pictures and send them to the circle of friends." Zhou Liya laughed about "going out of the circle", frankly said that the pressure is quite large, and hopes to come up with better works in the future to live up to the expectations of the public.
In 1981, Zhou Liya was born in an ordinary workers' home in Gaoqiao Town, Emeishan City, and was the only "art and sports student" in the family. "My parents and relatives are all science and engineering majors, only I like to dance since I was a child, and I began to learn dance systematically under the guidance of teacher Liu Ying of Emeishan Youth Palace around the age of 10." Zhou Liya told reporters with a smile that although she was older among her classmates who studied dance at that time, her love for dance gave her the courage to challenge herself.
In 1994, at the age of 13, Zhou Liya was admitted to the Neijiang Branch of sichuan provincial art school for a three-year dance study. As one of the first students of the school, the younger Zhou Liya was assigned to a small class. "Half of the class is boys and half girls, there are differences in physical fitness between boys and girls, teaching standards are set higher, and girls need to work harder to meet the standards." Xiang Zongxu, a school teacher at that time, recalled that although Zhou Liya was small, her physical fitness was very good, and she was very serious about dance.
"The school enrolls about 50 students every year, and every day when the students are still asleep, Zhou Liya has already arrived at the rehearsal room, and sometimes continues to practice after the evening self-study." Zhang Yun, deputy director of the Neijiang City Cultural Center, was Zhou Liya's language teacher at that time, and she was very impressed with this little girl.
After 3 years of study, Zhou Liya stood at the crossroads of her first life choice after graduation. "My father wanted me to study architecture and engineering." But Chuan Meizi's fiery momentum made Zhou Liya follow her heart and choose another path - to join a professional dance troupe in Zhuhai City, Guangdong Province.
Dance to the heart
During the 5 years of working in an art troupe in Zhuhai, Zhou Liya gradually grew up and became a hot dance star, "Standing on the stage I liked, the income was quite stable, and all my relatives and friends felt that I had made the right decision." ”
"Is that all?" Countless nights from the end of the stage, Zhou Liya asked her heart.
After repeated choices, Zhou Liya decided to return to school and was successfully admitted to the Beijing Dance Academy to study choreography. "At that time, there were entanglements in my heart, on the one hand, the worries of my parents and relatives, on the other hand, I wanted to give up my more mature career, but I hoped that my dance life could be longer." Zhou Liya said that in her schoolwork, she experienced the joy and "pain" of choreography.
Stills from "The Eternal Wave"
How to structure a show of tens or even hundreds of minutes? How do you get the actor to grasp the ingenuity in the choreography? Can you convey the emotion of the story in all directions? ...... Zhou Liya feels that every piece of pile has to be learned, "but when the actor expresses the choreographer's inner thoughts with body language, eye details, etc., and gets the emotional resonance of the audience, she will feel that all the 'torture' is worth it." ”
At the Beijing Dance Academy, Zhou Liya not only learned something, but also got a rare friendship. Classmate and roommate Han Zhen and her temperamental and personality attracted each other, becoming a stable career partner. "We are a Shandong Dani, a Sichuan hot girl, each with its own stubbornness, the cooperation process will inevitably have a collision of views, but in the bones are not pretentious people, only hope that the final work to maximize its beauty." 」
In 2014, Zhou Liya and Han Zhen jointly served as the chief choreographer for the first time, and the dance drama "Shawan Past" directed by zhou lily was included in the "15th Wenhua Award", in which fragments such as "Rain Hit Basho" and "Sai Long Wins the Gold" were recognized by the industry as excellent works, and it was also one of the best interpretations of "nationality" in literary and artistic works.
Subsequently, the two co-directed classic dance dramas such as "The Eternal Electric Wave" and "Mulan", and every time they performed, the venue was full and it was difficult to find a ticket. Long-term cooperation, the two tacit understanding to as long as a look, know each other's deep meaning, they are also more and more people called "the dance world of gemini".
Stills from Mulan
Dance out
In 2017, the Forbidden City exhibited "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", and Zhou Liya and Han Zhen looked at the picture scroll at close range. In the Spring Festival of 2020, China Oriental Performing Arts Group hoped that the two would create a dance drama in the direction of traditional culture, and after consulting with another screenwriter, Xu Junrui, they decided to use "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" as the starting point.
The sense of shock that has been brewing for many years has become fertile ground for creation, and paintings have become artistic flowers blooming on the stage.
"But it's also a 'difficult' creative experience in all directions." Zhou Liya said that in the one-year and eight-month conception, creation and rehearsal stage, they almost cut from the perspective of the subject matter, to every picture on the stage, from every subtle makeup and hair, to the actor's eyes and breathing are "cutting details".
In the early stage of the creation, the whole team continued to buy books to learn, collect documentaries and video materials, and constantly narrow the distance between them and "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains". "Later, the Forbidden City sent cultural experts to support our creation, and agreed that the crew was doing this very carefully. We also invited non-hereditary inheritors of Chinese painting paints, emblem ink, Xuan pens, shuanglin silk weaving and other production skills as consultants. Zhou Liya told reporters that the seal carvers, silk weavers, grinding stone people, pen makers, and ink makers that appear in the play are presented in different chapters such as "exhibition volumes, asking seals, singing silk, searching for stones, learning pens, quenching ink, and entering paintings", all of which are paid tribute to craftsmen and guardians who have silently dedicated themselves to the inheritance and development of traditional culture. ”
Stills from "Only This Green"
Because of this, "Only This Green" successfully "broke the circle" after its first 3 performances, and the first round of touring was less than halfway through the discussion. On December 31, 2021, the work appeared in the form of a dance segment at the Bilibili New Year's Eve Party, with a real-time online audience of 180 million; on the night Chinese New Year's Eve of January 31, 2022, the excerpt of "Only This Green" appeared on the stage of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, and once it was broadcast, it frequently appeared on the hot search, and the difficult "green waist" in the program also successfully went out of the circle, triggering a large number of imitations and challenges from professional dancers and enthusiasts...
"We are in an era of cultural self-confidence, a work created by me, and passed on by countless audiences who love it, in a sense, I have completed the work with the audience." Speaking of the future, Zhou Liya said that she will continue to move forward in the busy, "Of course, no matter how far away from my hometown, I always have an emotional pinning on my hometown, and I hope that I will have the opportunity to create for my hometown in the future." ”
Source: Leshan Daily Editor: Liu Qin
Proofreader: Lin Weijing Editor-in-charge: Zhao Yi Review: Wei Wei