"Only This Green" presents the graceful artistic conception of "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" in elegant tones. (Cultural Programmes Section, LCSD)
Created by China Oriental Performing Arts Group, the dance poetry drama "Only This Green" has been well-received since its premiere and has toured more than 400 performances. This weekend, the much-discussed "green waist" was finally presented on the Hong Kong stage. The dance is choreographed by Han Zhen and Zhou Liya, the "twin stars of the dance world", and is inspired by the famous Song Dynasty painting "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", presenting the elegant charm of the Song Dynasty through dance.
Now in the Palace Museum in Beijing, "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" is the only work of the Northern Song Dynasty painter Wang Ximeng. Wang Ximeng made this picture when he was 18 years old, the whole picture is about 12 meters long and about 5 meters high, and in the stunning size, the mountains are undulating, the rivers are vast, and the houses are dotted in between. The painting inherits the traditional "green method" in color and brushwork, and uses minerals such as stone blue and stone green as the main pigments, and is considered to be a masterpiece in the green landscape painting of the Northern Song Dynasty.
"Beautiful, shocking!" Han Zhen described how he felt when he saw the paintings, "Although we are not art majors, we really feel countless poems pouring in front of us when we enjoy them." The layers of mountains are stacked, the sense of hierarchy is so clear, and the colors are very elegant, and it is hard to forget the shock of that moment. And Wang Ximeng completed this masterpiece at the age of 18, and the story behind it also made the two main creators curious. "How did an 18-year-old boy get to this point? He must have given everything he had to this painting. Han Zhen said.
The dance drama shows the artistic conception of Chinese aesthetics. (Cultural Programmes Section, LCSD)
Write a poem in the hearts of the audience
Therefore, when the two set out to choreograph the dance work "Only This Green" from "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", they constructed a narrative structure of time and space for the work. From the perspective of the curator, that is, a contemporary museum worker, the audience opens the scroll and enters the heart of the painter Ximeng, accompanying him through the precious time of painting "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains". Through the triple perspectives of the three characters of the curator, Xi Meng, and the "green" who exist like a painting spirit, we not only appreciate the thousands of miles of rivers and mountains in the painting, but also encounter the people and things that have been passed down in the painting for more than 900 years. "It's a journey of looking back at the history of heritage from a contemporary perspective. Zhou Liya said.
Han Zhen recalls that when he was creating, he was also worried about whether the artistic presentation and narrative structure of the dance works would be acceptable to the audience. "We are confident but apprehensive," she said, "because from the beginning of our creation, we have used what we feel is very artistic, and we have not catered to it, but we hope to transcend the inertia of the audience's previous appreciation, and hope that the work will give aesthetic enjoyment and guidance rather than following." The apprehension is because we take a less conventional approach to storytelling. In her opinion, "Only This Green" focuses more on the creation and display of imagery than on specific narratives, and the dance works express the "blank space" in Chinese painting in all aspects. "The enjoyment created is to write a poem in the minds of the audience, not an argumentative essay or a novel. But in this way, its danger is also generated, and at this time, it is actually the audience that gives us confidence. As long as you express the level of art very sincerely, the audience can feel the sincerity of the dialogue. ”
"Only This Green" adopts a narrative structure of time and space interlacing. (Cultural Programmes Section, LCSD)
The "green waist" is actually a "dangerous peak"
The choreography of "Only This Green" is based on classical dance, which combines elements of modern dance and contemporary dance, which is unforgettable at first sight. Han Zhen introduced that the three main characters in the play have different characteristics in dance design. "Zhang Han, who plays Ximeng, not only learns Xi classical dance, but also learns a lot Xi of folk dance, and uses many ways to find rhythm. His movements have both modern vocabulary and traditional classical dance style. For example, body rhyme, wanting left first right, many of them have a way of dots, lines, and surfaces in the breath. ”
As for the "green" played by the female dancer, it is reinvented in classical imagery. "Teacher Feng Shuangbai's evaluation of us is that in the past, the image of classical dance was mostly a positive posture, and the role of 'green' is the first time to use a side classical dance posture. From the side, the tail of the bun, the body and the clothes form a very Song Dynasty aesthetic characteristic, with a slight chest hanging. We take the meaning of green and the shape of the mountain stone, so the movement method also draws on the movement mode of modern dance to better express the edges and corners of the mountain stone and the feeling of blocking, presenting the beauty of staggered. Including the very thin Song Dynasty posture of the girls, combined with the sonorous and powerful modern dance, it will produce a very wonderful sense of hedging, which is also the more interesting part of the "green" dance. ”
"Only This Green" shows the beauty of Song Feng Yayun. (Cultural Programmes Section, LCSD)
Many of the movements of the female dancer are integrated into the image and artistic conception of the mountain stone, such as the hands clasped in front of the chest, and the gathered sleeves form the shape of a hill;
Zhou Liya introduced that when she studied Xi at the Beijing Dance Academy, she would find that the dance sections of the Song Dynasty were rare, and in this creation, in order to find the rhythm of the Song Dynasty and the temperament and posture of the people at that time, they found many ancient paintings and ancient sculptures for reference. "'Green' also borrows from some of the statues in the Jin Ancestral Hall, such as a state of holding hands and feet slightly open. Han Zhen added.
The whole dance is full of the cultural charm of the Song Dynasty, with a simple stage and elegant colors, and has been warmly loved by the audience since the performance. For the main creator, being able to show the meaning of cultural relics in front of the audience in a new way is like becoming the collector of "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", and constantly passing on the majesty and depth of traditional culture.
The different levels of "green" have become one of the symbols of dance drama. (Cultural Programmes Section, LCSD)
"Only This Green"
Date: January 6 & 7 2:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m
Venue: Grand Theatre, Hong Kong Cultural Centre
Han Zhen (left) and Zhou Liya. (Photo by Hong Kong Wen Wei Po reporter Wei Wei)
(Source: Hong Kong Wen Wei Po)