【Striving for a new journey, building a new era of meritorious service, great change】
Guangming Daily reporter Han Yeting
"Do you have a ticket?"
"I really don't, I can't buy it myself."
From March 23rd to 25th, the dance poetry drama "Only This Green" was performed three times in a row at the Huangmei Opera Grand Theater in Huanggang, Hubei Province. Before the performance, the phones of Zhou Liya and Han Zhen, directors of "Only This Green", rang non-stop - friends wanted to find them to "go through the back door" because they could not buy tickets. But the performance is too hot, every time the ticket is issued is a second, even as a director, it is difficult for them to buy tickets if they want to enter the theater.
Since its premiere last August, the scene has been staged repeatedly. In the past, many stage art performances were given away for free; now, good works like "Only This Green" are hard to find. This change reflects the continuous deepening reform of state-owned literary and art academies and troupes, which is rejuvenating stage art.
Since the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core has launched a series of reform measures such as the "Implementation Opinions on Deepening the Reform of State-Owned Literary and Art Academies and Troupes", continuously promoting the reform of state-owned literary and art academies and troupes, and the endogenous motivation of the academies and troupes has been stimulated, forming a good development situation of many performances, market activities, repertoire fire, and excellent talents.
The dance poem "Only This Green" was staged at the Suzhou Bay Grand Theatre. Photo by Zhang Feng/Guangming Image
On January 9, 2020, at the Lincoln Theater in New York, USA, the actors of the Lanzhou Song and Dance Theater performed a clip of "Big Dream Dunhuang" at a media preview. Xinhua News Agency
1. There are more performances
Night falls, and the lights come on. People flocked from all sides of the city to No. 115 Jiefang Road, Jinan City, Shandong Provincial Drama Theatre, checking tickets, entering, watching plays, and finally not forgetting to take a selfie and send a circle of friends.
In recent years, Shandong Provincial Drama Theatre has become a new local Internet celebrity punch card. To become an influencer, it takes popularity, and the gathering of popularity comes from the rich performance activities of the theater. "We have performances here almost every day, drama, opera, children's drama, and so on. Despite the impact of the epidemic, we performed more than 260 performances in 2021. Dong Xuan, president of the Shandong Provincial Drama Theatre, said.
Hu Heping, secretary of the party group and minister of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, pointed out that performance is the core link of stage art and a key indicator to test the effectiveness of the reform of state-owned literary and art academies.
Since the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, state-owned literary and art academies and troupes have gradually established and improved the incentive mechanism for encouraging more performances by performers in accordance with the principle of "more performances and more remuneration", and at the same time accelerated in-depth cooperation with theaters.
There are more performances and closer to the audience. In recent years, state-owned literary and art academies at all levels have gone into villages, factories and mines, schools, communities, and military camps to extensively carry out performances to benefit the people. For example, Henan, Shandong, Shaanxi and other places every year the government to buy more than 10,000 performances to benefit the people, Anhui and other places to achieve full coverage of the province's administrative villages to benefit the people, Beijing invested more than 20 million yuan per year, the implementation of low-cost performance subsidies for more than 30 theaters, the annual beneficiaries of more than 200,000 people.
The way the performance is also changing. In the past, the cast and crew of the literary and art troupe were particularly concerned about the sense of ceremony of the performance - always felt that only when the audience entered the theater, the performance could be "seen". The sudden outbreak of new crown pneumonia has forced state-owned literary and art academies and troupes to innovate their performance methods and promote the construction of a performance mechanism that integrates offline and online, and performs and broadcasts at the same time. The National Drama Theatre has built the first 5G smart theater in China; the National Peking Theatre has launched a New Year performance season that combines offline and online for two consecutive years; the China Opera and Dance Theater has adopted VR technology to launch online customized programs, which have been placed online for a long time. Nowadays, with the application of technologies such as "4K+5G", the "cloud performances" of state-owned literary and art academies have become the norm, and audiences can enjoy stage art works such as operas, dramas, dances, and symphonies online anytime and anywhere.
2. The market is alive
Signed a contract with The Construction Bank, signed a contract with the North Yan Company, signed a contract with Luzhou Laojiao, signed a contract with the Cultural Department of the Tibet Autonomous Region, signed a contract with the Xiangcheng District of Suzhou City... Looking at the timeline of the development of China Opera and Dance Theater in recent years, you will find that "signing" is always a key word. Behind the cooperation agreements is the efforts of state-owned literary and art academies to enhance market competitiveness and actively innovate market operation concepts.
Dare to try, dare to innovate, the market will have a return. In the reform of state-owned literary and art academies, the China Opera and Dance Theater has given full play to the role of social forces and market mechanisms, which has not only enhanced its own development vitality, but also obtained market returns. For example, the dance drama "Confucius" created by the academy has been performed more than 300 times at home and abroad, with an audience of 500,000 people and a total box office of more than 100 million yuan; the sitcom "Love rhymes in four seasons" has been performed more than 700 times around the world, with a total income of nearly 200 million yuan.
In March 2018, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism was established, and the integration of culture and tourism entered the fast lane. Taking this as an opportunity, the state-owned literary and art academies and troupes have further enhanced their market awareness and ability, and continuously expanded the space of the performing arts market.
Founded in 1951, Chongqing Acrobatic Art Troupe has been often invited to perform commercially abroad for decades, creating multiple highlight moments of acrobatic art. However, with the increasing saturation of foreign markets, how to find more "stations" has become a real problem facing the regiment.
"We decided to take the integration of culture and tourism as the starting point to dig deep into the potential of the domestic acrobatic market." Chen Tao, general manager of Chongqing Acrobatic Art Troupe, introduced that in order to attract tourists, they began to perform in chongqing international circus city from 2019, implementing the operation mode of group occasion one, and also created the first cultural tourism resident performance in the main urban area of Chongqing, "Magic City , Extreme Happiness". Despite the impact of the epidemic, this acrobatic show, which has the characteristics of Chongqing Mountain City, has performed more than 600 times in two years, with an audience of more than 350,000 people, and it is often difficult to find a ticket.
The experience of the China Opera and Dance Theater and the Chongqing Acrobatic Art Troupe is just a microcosm of the reform of more than 2,100 state-owned literary and art academies and troupes to expand the market space. With the continuous deepening of reform, more and more state-owned literary and art academies and troupes have developed and grown in the fight against the market storms and waves, and have become a strong force in the cultural market.
The data is the most convincing: in 2021, 18 municipal state-owned literary and art academies in Shanghai overcame the impact of the epidemic and completed 6,865 performances, an increase of 81.4%; performance revenue was 328 million yuan, an increase of 75.4% year-on-year, an increase of 8.25% over 2019 before the epidemic; Beijing launched a total of 2,415 performances, held 20,597 commercial performances, with an audience of 5.135 million people and a box office revenue of about 783 million yuan.
3. The repertoire is on fire
Art speaks by works. Good works are the foundation for writers and artists to settle down and establish their lives, and they are also the basis for literary and art academies to base themselves on their careers. The success or failure of the reform of state-owned literary and art academies and troupes depends on whether they can create excellent works of stage art with profound thinking, exquisite art, and excellent production.
The opera "Ma Xiangyang Goes to the Countryside", the dance drama "The Eternal Electric Wave", the drama "Xiangshan Night", the Yu opera "Jiao Yulu", the Qin opera "Wang Gui and Li Xiangxiang", the Qian opera "Bao Bao", the Dian opera "Water Mangcao", the commentary drama "Mother", the Hebei Zizi "Li Baoguo"... From "works" to "fine works" and from "plateaus" to "peaks," over the past ten years, state-owned literary and art academies have taken advantage of the momentum, marched on songs, and handed over a qualified reform answer sheet with one well-known and superior work after another.
It is gratifying that stage art works have won applause in this field, but breaking out of the wall and attracting audiences, especially young audiences, in a wider range.
In 2021, the dance "Tang Palace Night Banquet" created by Zhengzhou Song and Dance Theater vividly demonstrated the prosperous culture of the Tang Dynasty with graceful dance postures. After the program debuted on Henan Satellite TV's Spring Festival Gala in the Year of the Ox, it quickly exploded out of the circle. Subsequently, in Henan Satellite TV's "China Festival Series" and cultural drama dance program "Dance Millennium", the dance programs performed by many state-owned literary and art academies such as the China Opera and Dance Theater and the Central Ballet broke the traditional stage presentation form and continued to graft with film and television works, so that the traditional dance art successfully broke through the wall with the help of mass media and attracted a large number of young audiences.
A single flower is not spring, a hundred flowers bloom in the spring and fill the garden. With the continuous advancement of reform, more and more state-owned literary and art academies and troupes have taken the initiative to strengthen the connection and integration of stage repertoire production and film and television drama production, actively explore cooperation with mass media, make full use of radio and television, online audio-visual, new media and other communication channels, and continuously enhance the dissemination and influence of stage repertoire.
Thinking innovation has opened up the "second pulse of Ren Dou" of creation, not only the national and provincial theaters and troupes have frequently produced excellent works, but even the grass-roots theater groups have also played well. For example, in recent years, the Sichuan Zigong Shichuan Opera Troupe has not only created and performed works such as "Yi Bold", "Bashan Xiucai", "Xizhao Qishan", "Liu Qingniang", "Kiss of Death", "Human Trace Autumn Frost" and other works, but also "moved" the stage to foreign countries, successively performing in the United States, Singapore, Thailand, South Korea and other places, so that China's stage art not only fire out of the "circle", but also out of the country.
4. Talent is available
"A good woman does not marry a singer and keeps an empty house all year round. Autumn wheat returned twice in the second season, and a pile of dirty clothes was brought back. Li Shujian, president of Henan Yu Theater, once described the survival dilemma of grass-roots literary and art academies. Due to hard work and low income, many grass-roots literary and art academies and troupes have lost a serious amount of talent for a period of time. For example, the Beijing Opera House has hundreds of actors, but not a single screenwriter.
To develop the literary and art academies, works are the key and talents are the core. If outstanding talents cannot be "risked" in large numbers, not only will the development of the academy and troupe be limited, but the artistic inheritance will also face the danger of generational disconnection.
In order to solve the "talent shortage", since the Eighteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the mainland has successively implemented the "Famous Opera -- Contemporary Opera Masters Receiving Apprentices and Passing on The Art Project", in which the old one represents the performing artists to teach the essence of performance to young actors; the "Thousand Talents Plan" for the cultivation of opera art talents was launched, and 1,000 professionals such as opera writers, directors, composers, and stage artists have been trained in five years. In addition, during the "13th Five-Year Plan" period alone, the National Arts Fund has trained nearly 18,000 artistic professionals of various types through the training of artistic talents and the young artistic creation talents project.
In addition to policy and financial support, the innovation of the mechanism has also activated the "source of living water" for talent training. For example, the Tianjin Commentary Baipai Theater Troupe, while learning from the old drama class to lead the apprenticeship, has linked up with the colleges and universities to run schools, combining drama with merit and drama, and students have practiced while learning, cultivating a new person who criticizes the drama; the China Acrobatic Troupe and the Beijing International Art School have implemented the "regiment-school integration", the former providing a practice platform for school students, the latter providing academic education, culture and professional training for the troupe actors, and the two sides share teaching and performance resources, which not only reduces the cost of educating people, but also improves the quality of talents.
With the advent of the digital era and the all-media era, the literary and art academies need more complex digital performing arts talents. Tian Qinxin, president of the National Drama Theatre, suggested that the state accelerate the cultivation of digital performing arts talents, such as opening experimental classes in art colleges that can be combined with Online performance on the Internet, and cultivating talents who understand not only movies, but also opera, and also understand Internet digital technology.
"There are more than 2,100 state-owned literary and art academies and troupes in the country, with more than 110,000 employees, and they are the main force in the prosperous development of socialist literature and art, especially stage art." Ming Wenjun, director of the Department of Arts of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, said that in the face of the "Fourteenth Five-Year Plan", the state-owned literary and art academies and troupes should strengthen the awareness of fine products and climb the "peak", bravely become the "vanguard" of reform and innovation, create and produce more ideological and artistic works that are unified, and tell stories to people's hearts.
From 2013 to 2018, the financial subsidy of state-owned literary and art academies and troupes across the country increased from 9.84 billion yuan to 13.83 billion yuan, an average annual increase of nearly 9%.
There are more than 2,100 state-owned literary and art academies and troupes in the country, with more than 110,000 employees.
In the annual performance season of the National Academy of Arts, low-cost tickets under 80 yuan account for 50% of the total ticket volume.
Guangming Daily ( 2022-03-24 05 edition)
Source: Guangming Network - Guangming Daily