Author: Zhao Juan
The Opera Study and Performance Program of China Central Radio and Television Corporation, "Good At Play", premiered on August 27, with a novel form and unique content, which attracted the attention of the audience. The artists imitated Mei Lanfang's opera gestures, which became a highlight of the show. Among the "hand-eye-body footwork" of the four skills and five methods of opera performance, the "hand" method is the first.
Mei Lanfang is a master of opera performance art and a pioneer of the spread of opera to overseas, he once selected the "gestures" of opera performances to shoot 53, Qi Rushan named the 53 gestures separately, and spread the beauty of opera performance in the form of pictures. In 1935, Mei Lanfang visited the Soviet Union to perform, and his gesture caused a shock in the art world, and the dramatists Stanislavsky and Meyerhold praised Mei Lanfang's performance after watching her performance.
The beauty of the opera gesture represents the beauty of the "shape" and "god" of the outside and the inside of the opera performance. The relationship between "form" and "god" is an important category in traditional Chinese aesthetic discourse. The discussion of the relationship between "form" and "god" in ancient China began with the views of the Hundred Sons of the Pre-Qin Dynasty, Laozi, Guanzi, Xunzi, Zhuangzi, etc. who repeatedly discussed "form" and "god"; After the Wei and Jin dynasties, "shape gods" became the creative and aesthetic characteristics of painting, and penetrated into all aspects of traditional Chinese art, such as music, calligraphy, literature, dance, martial arts, opera, etc.
Ancient Chinese dramatists paid great attention to the creation of opera "shape" and "god", and traditional opera performances used song and dance to shape roles and convey the beauty of "shape" and "god".
"Shape" beauty: how to express the moon with gestures
Gestures are an important way for opera performances to shape characters, and raising your hands and throwing a smile are inseparable from the performance of gestures. The gesture of danjiao resembles an orchid and is called "orchid finger". Mei Lanfang's gestures are named such as: Han Bud (Holding Letter), Chu Lun (Holding Needle and Thread Style), Wind Shelter (Second to None), Han Xiang (Second to None), Holding Ti (Holding Chao Zhu, Buddha Head Style), Meteor Frost (Holding Fan Style), Ying Ri (Far Finger Style), Protective Rui (Outer Finger Style), Tu Rui (Holding Thin Object Style), Stretch Calyx (Holding Horse Whip Style), Windward (Virtual Finger Style), etc., describing the beauty of the shape of the orchid finger.
Of course, the opera Danjiao gestures are rich and diverse, not only limited to the 53 styles filmed by Mei Lanfang, the gestures of the various professions of ShengDanjing are different, kaleidoscopic, both able to form and express meaning: some express external actions, such as full sleeves, holding fans, tray types, etc.; Some express the emotions of the characters, such as the panic style, the fear style, and the concession style; Some indicate referential or pointing, such as self-referential, downward-fingering, virtual fingering, etc.
These gestures express specific meanings in specific contexts in the repertoire. For example, in "Noble Concubine Drunk" and "Overlord Farewell", there are gestures to refer to the moon, highlighting the blending of scenes. The Peking Opera chant mentions that the moon should be used in the "moon" style gesture, that is, the thumbs and index fingers of the two hands are opened and formed into two semicircles, which means "moon". There are also fixed usages such as praise, shyness, anger, etc., which are all the formal beauty of the opera performance program.
"Shen" rhyme: how to convey Yu Ji's sorrow
Chinese opera performance pays attention to both form and god, which means that the shape of art must convey the god of the characters. The "shape" of opera performance is to highlight the "god", through the transformation of the like to achieve the god-like, not to seek the similarity of the shape, but to seek the meaning of "god-like".
Mei Lanfang draws inspiration from various artistic works, such as gestures in sculptures and paintings, and modal gestures in natural life, etc., to create innovations, enrich the performance gestures of Danjiao, and make the character images more vivid and accurate. For example, the costume drama "Tiannu Scattered Flowers" is based on the image of the Heavenly Daughter in the painting "Scattered Flowers". The story of "Heavenly Girl Scattered Flowers" is taken from the Buddhist theme, and the gestures and figures also borrow the shape of many Buddha statues, highlighting the image charm of Buddhism.
For example, in "Farewell to the Overlord", Yu Ji sang the three words of "I am out of the tent here and scattered my sorrows", grabbed the cloak and raised her legs, indicating "out of the tent door"; When singing the word "and" of "and scatter sorrow", the right hand grabs the cloak, walks to the left and turns around in the small circle, the words "scatter" and "worry" are basically completed on the back, turn around and grab the cloak with both hands and crouch slightly, gesture to the air, at the same time sing the word "love", look up into the air, infinite sorrow. The gestures and the melody of the singing voice are perfectly matched, and the artistic conception of "melancholy" conveys "God" through the "shape" of the gesture.
"Moving the whole body"
Opera gestures are in the service of shaping characters, as a stage art, gestures can not be performed in isolation, but should be designed with the body. Gestures are to externalize the mood and sorrow in the character's heart, so it is necessary to perform synchronously with eyes, props, water sleeves, footsteps, etc.
Many opera gestures are prop-ups, such as Mei Lanfang's 53 style has the gesture of holding a fan. In the Kunqu opera "Dream of Visiting the Garden", when Du Liniang held a golden fan to tour the garden, she used a lot of gesture skills: holding the fan, opening the fan, swinging the fan, holding the fan, lifting the fan, flat fan remote finger, etc., through gesture skills to cooperate with the use of singing voice, body, water sleeve, to create a freehand space on the stage.
In "Noble Concubine Drunk", Yang Yuhuan is drunk and out of shape and sniffs the flowers: slowly crouching down, turning his left hand back to make the appearance of smelling flowers, and then opening the flower branches back and slowly getting up; The second figure moves the hands and feet in the same position as the previous one, in the opposite direction; The third lying fish is in the middle of the stage, the body is the same as the first, but the right hand of the water sleeve is turned inward, the left hand is turned outward, and the crouching body is twisted while making a lying fish, and the complicated body has completed the foreignization of Yang Guifei's drunken heart.
In "Cosmic Front", Zhao Yanrong helplessly pretended to be crazy, said to his father, "Daddy - you are my son", gently twisted his hands and threw it down, supported Zhao Gao's hair, pinched one and pulled it out, and gently pulled it off to show "madness"; There are also gestures of shame because they have teased Daddy. In these performances, Zhao Yanrong's inner state is very complicated: First, her father dedicated herself to Qin II, she was very painful, but unyielding; Second, in order to resist Zhao Gao's persecution, he had to "pretend to be crazy", fighting wits and courage, but he was ashamed and embarrassed. Therefore, when dealing with gesture skills, it is not only necessary to show the accuracy of the external form, but also to complete the portrayal of the character's heart with the expression of the body.
The beauty of the "shape" and "god" of the opera gesture is rich and vivid, which is in line with the traditional Chinese art of simplifying the complex and creating the method of one to ten, which is the wisdom and wealth created by the opera performance artists, and highlights the characteristics of the virtual freehand of the opera art.
Inheriting the roots and soul, what never fades is the spirit of the spirit, "Good At Play" combines the performance of opera with modern communication, showing the colorful beauty of opera, not only learning the beauty of the "shape god" of opera, but also inheriting the inner spirit of opera through immersive study. Nowadays, the performing arts of opera are more and more used by modern film and television, dance, painting and other arts to learn from, and with the help of media platforms, they have received more attention from a new generation of art workers, deepening the combination of tradition and modernity, so that art can be upright and innovative in creation, and continue to develop.
(The author is a professor at communication university of China)
Source: China Youth Daily