From July 19 to August 30 this year, the Guangdong Provincial Museum will resume opening on Friday night, extending its opening time to 20:30, and holding 7 museum night themed activities that bring together Chinese and foreign cultures.
At the same time, from July 23 to August 31, the opening hours of the Guangdong Provincial Museum will be adjusted to 9:00-18:00 (admission will stop at 17:00), and the opening hours will be extended to 20:30 (admission will stop at 19:30) on Friday.
This year's "Yuebo Night" theme planning revolves around "The Art of the Roman Empire - Exhibition of Cultural Relics from the Collection of the National Archaeological Museum of Naples", "Fingertips Lifelike - United Kingdom Arts and Crafts Movement under the Leadership of William · Morris", "The Sound of the Hollow Valley - Hua Zhe Painting Art Exhibition", "China in Shadow Puppetry" and permanent exhibitions, as well as representative cultural relics and traditional festivals in the museum's collection, through symphonies, musicals, dramas, operas, literati collections, immersive dramas, shadow puppet performances, folk music performances, national style concerts and other forms. A variety of new experiences for night visitors.
Introduction to the 2024 "Yuebo Night" event
1. Dialogue with Ancient Rome – An evening of Italy art
As the ancient Roman historian Tite Livy put it, "Friendship should be immortal." The performance is based on the popular exhibition "Art of the Roman Empire - Masterpieces from the Collection of the National Archaeological Museum of Naples", which is created and extended, allowing each unique artwork to reproduce the past glory of ancient Rome and record its brilliant glory. At the event, the audience can experience the historical heritage of ancient Rome and the colorful scenery of Italy through sand paintings, orchestral music and opera performances, appreciate the humanistic customs of Italy from the symphony, and experience the cooperation and integration of Chinese and Italian cultures from the arias of Puccini's opera "Turandot" "What a beautiful jasmine" and "No one sleeps tonight". Through this cultural and artistic collision, the friendship between China and Italy will continue to be revitalized!
2. A celebration of beauty – the night of the United Kingdom Arts and Crafts Movement
Supported by the Consulate-General of the United Kingdom in Guangzhou, the "Celebration of Beauty – United Kingdom Arts and Crafts Movement Time Night" event will present a musical from the United Kingdom - "The Lines of Music" (tentative title). Three artists, Pianist Danny, Author, Screenwriter and Director Adrian and Perenia from United Kingdom, will lead the audience to explore the construction of shapes, the design of patterns, the narration of stories and the perception of space in music, build a bridge of communication with William · Morris paintings with music, and immerse the audience in the charm of art through piano performance, musical imagination, interactive games, art sharing and other forms of performance and interaction. In addition, the United Kingdom "Peter Rabbit" puppet will also be invited to interact with the audience up close, and international school students will also bring wonderful programs such as Morris poetry bilingual recitation to the audience. "Yuebo Night" will use high-quality performances to let the audience understand United Kingdom art in a more three-dimensional way, and deeply feel the beauty of the exchange between Chinese and Western civilizations.
3. Red Cloud Collection
"Eat 300 lychees a day, and don't hesitate to be a Lingnan person." Whenever the cicadas chirp and the lychees are ripe, the lychees are like a red cloud, which is extremely spectacular, and the lychees are named "red clouds". People appreciate, paint, eat, or eat lychee, making lychee an important symbol of Lingnan. Relying on the "Hua Zhe Painting Art Exhibition", the "Red Cloud Collection" selects lychees as the theme, so that the art performance and the fine cultural relics are closely integrated. The event was based on a literati gathering in the Ma Brothers' Little Linglong Mountain Pavilion, and let the audience feel the gathering atmosphere of ancient literati through flower appreciation, tea drinking, painting inscriptions, and poetry singing. The banquet session started from the custom of eating good fruits in the Lingnan region, imitating the Southern Han Dynasty lord Liu Gang to design a "Red Cloud Banquet", through cross-time and space dialogue, it is planned to invite professional chefs to interpret how to extract elements from cultural relics to make delicacies. In addition, tea opera and music performances were interspersed during the banquet to showcase the charm of traditional Chinese arts. Through a series of creative plot interpretations, the audience will be led to travel through time and space, experience the elegance and charm of ancient literati collections, and feel the profound heritage of traditional Chinese culture.
4. "Book of Songs" national style concert
As the oldest collection of poetry in China, the Book of Songs contains a wealth of culture and emotion. On the eve of Qixi Festival (August 9), the "Yuebo Night" will take the love poems in the "Book of Songs" as the theme, combined with guqin, qin songs, chorus, dance and chanting and other diversified art forms, and launch the "Book of Songs" National Style Concert", showing the purity and beauty of ancient love, and also reflecting the museum's inheritance and promotion of traditional culture and festivals.
5. Export wallpapers that ride the wind and waves
The Guangdong Provincial Museum has a collection of a well-known and little-seen precious cultural relic - "Qing Qianlong Farming and Trade Map Export Wallpaper", which has participated in the second season of CCTV's "National Treasure" program on behalf of Yuebo. This export wallpaper is about 3 meters high, with a total of 12 pieces and a total area of about 40 square meters. It comes from the "chinoiserie" room in Harewood House, a Grade 1 listed building in Yorkshire, England, United Kingdom. The picture is coherent, finely drawn and colorful, vividly depicting 150 Cantonese peasants and urban handicraftsmen with different expressions, and the realistic picture shows more than 50 groups engaged in farming, silk, porcelain, tea and other production and life customs. "Qing Dynasty Qianlong Farming and Trade Map Export Wallpaper" is the largest and most complete set of Qing Dynasty export wallpapers collected by China's cultural and museum circles so far, which not only fills the gap in the domestic collection circle, but also provides a rare physical proof for the academic community to study the local craft history of Guangdong and the history of Qing Dynasty ports. More than 200 years ago, this export wallpaper and other exquisite export artworks "rode the wind and waves", bringing the Chinese style to the world. This time, the audience will see the past and present life of this "riding the wind and waves" export wallpaper on the stage, and witness the history and story of the Chinese wind blowing all over the world.
6. Tribute to tradition – Folk Art Night
The "Salute to Tradition - Folk Art Night" event will take the audience through time and space to relive the classics of the Chinese nation. With their skillful hands, shadow puppet artists vividly interpret the legends of the ages, and bring familiar classic clips such as "Chang'e to the Moon", "Journey to the West" and "Romance of the Three Kingdoms" on the stage. The interplay of light and shadow, accompanied by passionate Chinese folk music, immerses the audience in the world of folk art, which is both real and illusory. This is not only an ordinary performance, but also an ultimate feast for the eyes and ears, fully demonstrating the magnificence and diversity of traditional Chinese culture and art.
7. Lingnan Image
With the theme of "Lingnan Reflection", this "Yuebo Night" will show the story of Lu Maoguan, a merchant from 13 trades, who invited export painters to paint self-portraits in the courtyard through an immersive performance. Through a variety of arts rich in Lingnan cultural characteristics, such as Cantonese opera, dance, folk music, etc., the courtyard life of the wealthy merchant Lu Maoguan is reproduced, allowing the audience to experience the prosperity of the 13 Lines of Guangzhou in the Qing Dynasty and the charm of export artworks.
Written by: New Express reporter Huang Wenyu
Photo: New Express reporter Xia Shiyan