▲ Douyin opera anchor Chen Yu is broadcasting live. Image/screenshot of the live broadcast
Opera, a combination of literature, music, dance and performing arts, has a glorious history in China and is a splendid flower in traditional Chinese culture. In the past hundred years, the stage of opera has continued to evolve, from "opera on stage" and "opera on records" to "opera on TV", and now it has evolved into "opera in short videos" and "opera in live broadcast rooms", and opera culture has returned to daily life in exchanges with the public.
According to the "2021 Douyin Data Report", in 2021, the revenue of traditional culture anchors increased by 101% year-on-year, of which quyi anchors started broadcasting an average of 3719 times a day, and each one received 116 netizen tips and encouragement, and the revenue increased by 232% year-on-year. Live broadcast rewards have brought considerable benefits to opera performers and strengthened their confidence in promoting traditional culture.
Flipping through the classics and looking back at the thousand-year history, opera can be said to be full of the spiritual life of Chinese. In some areas with strong traces of traditional culture, almost every village has a traditional era stage. Xiqu is an important part of traditional Chinese culture, a refined traditional aesthetic, and to some extent a way of life Chinese.
But as time goes by, everything is changing. The beautiful things that were once popular, with the increase of people's cultural and entertainment content, have gradually been snubbed and become old antiques of the past era. As a commercial product, opera itself has shrunk into a small circle of a small number of fans because of the lack of audience.
This embarrassing situation is not only the pain of traditional culture, but also makes the survival situation of opera actors more difficult – until the epidemic is encountered. The epidemic has made some opera actors who have lost their performance opportunities begin to "think of change when they are poor", seize the straw of short videos and live broadcasts, find new opportunities for survival, and also give new vitality to opera culture.
In April 2021, Chen Yu,a Yue opera actor who was forced by the epidemic to be "cornered", plucked up the courage to buy a sound card and microphone and opened his first short video live broadcast. Although she only received a few dozen yuan in tips for this live broadcast, after a month, the income from the live broadcast became considerable. Now, her Douyin fans have exceeded 200,000. The income brought by live broadcast tips has helped her relieve her livelihood worries.
The Henan folk theater troupe @ Maitian Xiangyin, composed of the family of Qi Xuewen in Qi Village, Ciba Town, Pingdingshan City, Henan Province, also relies on the income of the live broadcast room to feed the entire drama class. With the support of netizens, @MaitianXiangyin is changing from a "family workshop" to a opera troupe jointly performed by local folk artists.
▲ The "416 Women's Troupe of Shangju Opera", which is popular all over Douyin, introduces Peking Opera to more people. Photo/Actor stills group photo
The opera actors in these short videos and live broadcast rooms include the young post-95s new generation, as well as veteran artists who have been immersed in the opera garden for decades, covering various types of dramas such as Peking Opera, Yu Opera, Yue Opera, Huangmei Opera, Chao Opera, Yang Opera and so on. The live broadcast room is a new performance stage, and the live broadcast tip has become the "new drama ticket" in the Internet era, and the actors, audiences and opera culture have achieved a win-win situation in a new digital space.
In fact, this has opened up a broad imagination space for promoting opera culture: in addition to offline theater performances, there are new stages; in addition to performance income, there are other revenue-generating channels such as live broadcast rewards and online paid performances. A screen, a microphone, can build a stage for opera actors to use their talents, and may also get far more impressive benefits and opportunities for fame than ever before. This magic from short videos and live broadcasts bursts out of unimaginable energy.
From a more fundamental level, opera culture is both traditional and contemporary, the flow of water is not corrupt, the household hub is not beetle, only with the times down the river, opera culture can avoid "breaking the flow" and always maintain vitality. Mei Lanfang, the master of Peking Opera, realized in his time that the way Peking Opera was expressed should be innovated and carried out a series of bold reforms. His son Mei Baojiu also once said, "Peking Opera needs continuous innovation, and modern scientific and technological methods and means such as virtual images, stereo sound effects, and LED display can fully serve Peking Opera."
This refers to Peking Opera, but it also applies to other opera genres. Short videos and live broadcasts are texts of the new era, and they can give new era connotations and expression space to almost everything. Not only opera, in the field of traditional culture, archaeology, painting, music, calligraphy and other forms of artistic expression have also unlocked new ways of playing through short videos and live broadcasts, and many "anchors" have lived a more quality of life through this form of media.
In line with the new opportunities brought by the new media to opera culture and opera actors, Douyin Live launched the Xiqu Assistance Program a few days ago, opening up cooperation with professional opera practitioners and opera troupes across the country, and helping at least 10 theater groups and 1,000 professional opera actors to build a second theater in the coming year, so as to enhance young people's understanding of traditional opera and enhance the influence of opera culture.
"Technology creates the times, and the times also create technology." A small live broadcast can carry the dreams and life expectations of one opera actor after another, which is the magic given to every opera dreamer in the era of short video and live broadcasting. Let traditional culture be passed on, let opera talents live and die, and short videos and live broadcasts will carry more expectations in the future.
Written by/Egret (Media Person)
Editor/Rui He
Proofreading/Wu Xingfa