Stills from the musical Bird Paradise. Photo by Zhang Yiwei
With the strength of overseas Chinese to tell the Chinese story well, Jiangmen has new actions. From April 8th to April 10th, the musical "Little Bird Paradise", jointly created by the Publicity Department of jiangmen Municipal Party Committee and the national music and musical theater creation team of Peking University, was performed in Beijing, triggering a warm response. On April 9, the musical "Little Bird Paradise" appeared on CCTV's Chaowen Tianxia and news broadcast columns, receiving widespread attention.
Jiangmen Bird Paradise National Wetland Park is famous for the famous writer Ba Jin's prose "Bird's Paradise", which is an important achievement of Jiangmen's practice of the concept of "green water and green mountains are golden mountains and silver mountains", and is a beautiful ecological business card and cultural tourism business card of Jiangmen, the capital of Overseas Chinese, from which you can glimpse the ecological beauty of China. The creation of the musical "Little Bird Paradise" aims to publicize the achievements of the construction of ecological civilization in the mainland with the ecological protection of bird paradise as a case, disseminate the Chinese wisdom and Chinese practice of harmonious development of man and nature, and tell the Chinese story to the outside world and show the beauty of China's ecology.
This cooperation with a well-known domestic team to create the musical "Little Bird Paradise" is a specific action for Jiangmen to make full use of the business card of cultural tourism, carry out theme publicity, tell Chinese stories well and show China's image to the outside world. After the first round of performances of the play, it is planned to land in Jiangmen, while telling the story of Jiangmen Qiao Du, it will also coordinate and promote the common development of cultural undertakings and cultural industries, and further promote the brand of Jiangmen Qiao Du City.
New render
Show the construction of beautiful Jiangmen,
The practice of creating an ecological bay area
From the past to the present, the people of Jiangmen Qiao Du love the bird paradise, and the story of protecting the ecological environment has never stopped. It is precisely because Jiangmen people "protect the ecological environment like protecting the eyes, and treat the ecological environment like life" that the "tree of life" of the bird paradise has been achieved.
For hundreds of years, generations of Tianma villagers have adhered to the township rules and regulations, formed a folk bird protection team, and guarded the paradise of birds. A series of protections have never stopped: building Gejiao Island and planting hundreds of seedlings; building Bamboo Island as a "delivery house" for herons to nest and hatch; in recent years, the local government has invested more than 50 million yuan to upgrade the bird paradise twice; in 2011, in order to reduce the interference with the bird paradise, the local implementation of the overall relocation of Tianma Middle School.
In 2017, the Jiangzhan Railway Project increased its investment by 180 million yuan to build the world's first high-speed railway arched fully enclosed sound barrier. The Greater Bay Area on the track meets the beauty of Mr. Barkin's bird paradise. In 2021, Bird Paradise ushered in the final year of creating a national wetland park. After 5 years of construction and optimization, tourists obviously feel that the species of animals and plants and communities are more abundant. Guarding the living environment on which birds live for generations is a vivid practice of building a beautiful Jiangmen and creating an ecological bay area.
Under this background, the musical "Little Bird Paradise" takes the story of the people of Jiangmen QiaoDu loving and protecting the bird paradise as the prototype, with the 15-year-old "Qing'er Girl" as the protagonist, telling the story of the people near the bird paradise who have been dependent on nature for generations and protect each other. The play takes the bird in the banyan tree as the first perspective, and creates a grand, joyful and warm atmosphere of the bird paradise for the audience on the stage in a musical and dramatic way.
Zhou Yingchen, screenwriter and director of "Bird Paradise" and director of the National Music and Musical Theater Research Center of Peking University, introduced that although the play takes advocating the harmonious development of man and nature as the theme of the work, it is not limited to depicting the "bird's paradise" in a thin way, but places it in the context of the process of social development, and observes the history and humanities, the spiritual growth, and the major topic of love and responsibility in the form of musical drama and educational expression. The works have both the beauty and brightness of fairy tales, but also the profound philosophy and charm.
New expressions
Exploring human nature on top of ecology,
Existence, beauty and life
The successful performance of "Bird Paradise" in Beijing triggered a warm response. Experts from the literary and art circles and audience representatives who watched the musical on the spot believed that the art of "Little Bird Paradise" presented the specific actions and achievements of the construction of ecological civilization in Bird Paradise, and disseminated the Chinese wisdom and Chinese practice of the harmonious development of man and nature, which is of profound significance.
Cao Wenxuan, a famous children's literature writer, believes that "Bird Paradise" explores human nature, existence, beauty and life on top of ecology. On a deeper spiritual level, Cao Wenxuan believes that the theme of musical theater is not limited to ecological protection, it is also a work about human nature, existence, beauty and life. On the one hand, the people who protect the banyan tree eventually become blue birds, and the two generations of blue birds jointly guard the beautiful homeland, which is a very clever and beautiful story. On the other hand, musicals awaken people's awareness of living in harmony with nature, and at the same time advocate people to suppress evil and worship good. The musical also expresses another core, that is, goodness is the most important character of people.
"Bird Paradise" not only gives people visual enjoyment with exquisite music, excellent singing and dancing of the actors, innovative stage effects and colorful costumes and props, but also has profound practical and historical significance. Wang Daocheng, an expert in the evaluation of the Art Fund of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, former vice president and secretary general of the China Musical Theatre Association, said that "Little Bird Paradise" expounds a truth, that is, people can definitely live in harmony with nature, and people's homes will also be able to get healthy and green development. "It's actually about fighting for the green of our lives as well. This beautiful pursuit told by this musical is also the pursuit of all mankind. Wang Daocheng said.
In the view of choreographer Zhao Yaling, "Bird Paradise" has three characteristics. First, the stage design skillfully uses the turntable, the actors can better interpret the role on the turntable, which can make the audience have an immersive feeling; the second is to use the narrative method of combining virtual and real to skillfully express the elements of the fairy tale world and show the beauty of nature; the third is that the musical drama expresses the theme of harmonious coexistence between man and nature, which is of profound significance. People, like the birds in the play, grow up in the home of nature, and they should jointly maintain this home.
"The musical made me feel more deeply that people must live in harmony with nature in order to maintain a common beautiful home." Hong Yan, an audience member, said that the musical has rich picture arrangements and the creative techniques used are novel. Focusing on the theme of harmonious coexistence between man and nature, the story also shows contradictions and conflicts when unfolding the narrative, so the theme chosen in the work is particularly meaningful.
New developments
Continuously improve the overseas Chinese capital of China
International communication capacity
In order to save the ecological homeland, the egret, the gray heron and the little sparrow embark on a journey to find love, courage and justice, and defeat the evil golden eagle and protect the bird paradise... In January this year, Jiangmen created a fairy tale drama "Little Bird Paradise" successfully premiered, which was disseminated to the outside world through online video.
Represented by the business card of polishing the bird paradise, in recent years, the Propaganda Department of the Jiangmen Municipal Party Committee has fully excavated the rich humanistic resources of Jiangmen, and used artistic methods and trendy packaging to transform these humanistic resources into more attractive, infectious, disseminating and influential external publicity and broadcast products, and comprehensively enhance the popularity and reputation of Jiangmen Qiaodu through innovative publicity through all media and omni-channel.
Last year, the Propaganda Department of the Jiangmen Municipal Party Committee took the theme of bird paradise and planned to carry out the series of activities of "The First Bird Paradise Bird Watching Ecological Festival of Overseas Chinese (Jiangmen) in China", and through a series of activities such as "Slow Live Broadcast of Bird Paradise Ecological Display", theme essays, recitation sharing meetings, photo contests, and the creation and performance of the fairy tale drama "Little Bird Paradise", it received the attention of nearly 7 million netizens at home and abroad, and the publicity results were recognized, telling the Chinese story to the world and showing the beauty of China's ecology with the strength of Jiangmen overseas Chinese.
A relevant responsible person of the Propaganda Department of the Jiangmen Municipal CPC Committee said that Jiangmen has always adhered to the national position, brought into play the advantages of overseas Chinese, done a good job in international dissemination, and let the world see China, understand China, and read China from the story of Jiangmen and the voice of Jiangmen. Next, we will continue to promote the coordinated development of international communication and literary and artistic creation and cultural undertakings, uphold the concept of "not rejecting the flow of the public, only for the vicissitudes", and further create literary and artistic masterpieces and foreign propaganda masterpieces through the way of introduction and going out. At the same time, we will continue to make efforts to develop the literary and artistic undertakings of overseas Chinese, give full play to the guiding role of "external forces", focus on telling the story of Jiangmen with local forces, use local teams to shape the Jiangmen brand, and create more literary and artistic works with historical background and characteristics of the times, so that they can become an important carrier for the dissemination of Chinese culture and Chinese ideas.
While sparing no effort to disseminate the concept of green development, Jiangmen has taken practical actions in all aspects of the economy and society, which has effectively promoted the two-way transformation of "green water and green mountains" and "golden mountains and silver mountains".
Relying on the ecological resources of urban landscapes, Jiangmen vigorously promotes the improvement of urban quality. Taking water management as an example, Jiangmen actively promotes the river and lake chief system "famous", "real", "capable" and "effective", successfully obtained the Supervision and Incentive of the State Council, Heshan City successfully selected the Ministry of Water Resources and the Ministry of Finance in 2021 as the pilot county of water system connection and water beauty rural construction, and the construction of Bidao in Pengjiang District and Jianghai District each received a one-time provincial reward of 10 million yuan.
Focusing on the green economy, Jiangmen actively promotes the development of "double carbon" technology and industry. The "Double Carbon" Laboratory, jointly established with the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, will carry out cutting-edge and key technology research in key areas such as energy structure upgrading and carbon "negative emission" technology. In order to transform the technological achievements, Jiangmen will also build two "double carbon" industrial parks.
In many rural areas, due to the development idea of combining ecological protection, rural revitalization and global tourism, villagers have already eaten "ecological rice" at the "doorstep".
Back upstream along the Tan River in the south of the bird paradise, you can come to the national "green water and green mountains are golden mountains and silver mountains" practice innovation base - Jiangmen Kaiping City. Da Tangmian Village in Dasha Town, which is under its jurisdiction, was originally a remote and backward reservoir migrant village, but due to the full use of ecological resource advantages, it has become a well-known "net red" village, and the collective income of the village has doubled. In Enping City, the birthplace of the Tanjiang River, the villagers' landscapes and forest fields can also be traded in "supermarkets" like commodities. In January this year, the Enping Ecological Products Trading Center was inaugurated, and as long as the fragmented ecological resources are "deposited" into the ecological product trading center, they may be converted into priceable, tradable and financingable ecological products, handed over to the market for development and operation, and finally realize ecological realization.
With the comprehensive advancement of green transformation, a more low-carbon ecological Jiangmen is coming to the world.
Author: Dai Huitian