In 2023, the overall economic scale of the national performance market will reach 73.994 billion yuan, a record high, and as one of the country's important performing arts towns, the total box office of theater performances in the Yangtze River Delta last year increased by 10% compared with 2019 - Liu Kezhi, president of the China Performance Industry Association, shared such a set of data at the opening ceremony of the 3rd Yangtze River Delta City Theater Festival.
With the theme of "Run", this year's Drama Festival will be held from April to July this year, and will showcase the rich cultural resources and unique artistic charm of the Yangtze River Delta region through eight outstanding works from Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Anhui. In line with the high-quality development trend of Yangtze River Delta integration,
The first sub-venue was set up to strengthen the linkage between cities
"Run" implies the cultural symbiosis of the Yangtze River Delta region and moistens the water and soil. The Yangtze River Delta Theatre Festival strengthens cultural exchanges and cooperation between cities, aiming to make each city in the Yangtze River Delta become the "protagonist" of its distinctive personality. The 3rd Yangtze River Delta City Theatre Festival set up a Zhejiang branch venue for the first time this year to further deepen the dimension of cultural exchanges between cities and strengthen cultural interaction between regions. Zhejiang Performing Arts Group also launched a week-long "Zhejiang Performing Arts Group Performance Week" for Shanghai audiences, focusing on the drama "Sifan Lu Xiaoman", the acrobatic "Colorful Lotus Lantern", and the dance drama "The Wind Rises Da Chen".
"Meng Xiaodong's life is legendary, and he has close ties with Shanghai and China Grand Theater. Screenwriter Yu Rongjun told reporters. The drama "Meng Xiaodong" directed by Hu Zongqi, as the opening drama of this year's theater festival, premiered at the China Grand Theater on the evening of April 23. More than 70 years ago, Meng Xiaodong, a famous actor in Peking Opera, sang in the China Grand Theater with "Searching for Orphans and Saving Orphans" as the sealed swan song, attracting famous actors from the north and south to gather and watch, creating a grand occasion of thousands of empty alleys. The drama "Meng Xiaodong" is inspired by this past, narrating in real scenes, connecting drama and urban culture. During the festival, including the Yue opera "Chasing the Fish", the tin opera "Su Dongpo", the new version of the Lu opera "Liang Zhu", and the musical "One Day" will be unveiled one after another.
After the cultivation of the first two sessions, the theater festival has gained a lot and was selected as the "first batch of 100 typical cases of humanities economy in the Yangtze River Delta" of the 4th Yangtze River Delta International Cultural Industry Expo. The birth of a high-quality drama is inseparable from the theater workers in front of and behind the scenes. In order to focus on the co-construction of cultural and performing arts talents in the Yangtze River Delta, this year's Drama Festival specially set up the "First Advanced Seminar on Performing Arts Management in the World of Performing Arts", and Huangpu Cultural Tourism Group signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the Department of Drama, Film and Television Arts of Nanjing University, the Musical Theatre Center of Shanghai Theatre Academy, the Department of Arts Management of Shanghai Conservatory of Music, and the School of Pop Music and Dance of Shanghai Institute of Visual Arts to jointly cultivate outstanding art management talents.
Innovate the form of drama and pay attention to the new vitality of performing arts
The "main venue" of the Yangtze River Delta City Theatre Festival, China Grand Theatre, is one of the professional theaters in Shanghai's "Performing Arts World". Since its official name in 2018, "Performing Arts World" has become an iconic performing arts brand in Shanghai. It is worth noting that, relying on the performing arts brand, based on the location advantages, the performing arts format formed based on the deep integration of other formats and other forms of performing arts block came into being. The construction of the performing arts world is actually a performing arts block built on the basis of the performing arts brand.
At the "Summit Dialogue" on the opening day of the Drama Festival, practitioners in the performing arts industry across the country invariably paid attention to the new topic of innovation and vitality of performing arts. Sun Ruofeng, director of the National Tourism Standardization Technical Committee, observed that the "integration of culture and tourism" is occupying an increasingly important position in the theater industry. In his view, tourism and drama share the three elements of character, plot and environment, "The return of drama to life is precisely to return to its essence." He said, "By broadly integrating dramatic elements into the various scenes we face, the world of drama development will be broader." ”
Huang Changyong, president of the Shanghai Theatre Academy, took the resident performance as the starting point to talk about his imagination of the "performing arts world". Broadway in New York and the West End in London provide lessons for further exploration of residency in Shanghai. Musicals are the main category of performances performed overseas. Huang Changyong believes that Shanghai has a large foreign population, and behind it lies a market for the performance of various local operas. "Preserving the oldest forms or innovative forms of performance, there are two different options for opera residency. As a large wharf, Shanghai has the strength to invite more dramas to come here. ”