"The north wind blows, the snowflakes drift..." The familiar tune reverberated again, leading the audience to look back at the past. Last night and this evening, the Shanghai Ballet's "heirloom" ballet "White Haired Girl" was performed twice in a row at the Shanghai International Dance Center and Coliseum. During the National Day period, there were many dramas. It is reported that from October 5 to 6, Shanghai Ballet's large-scale ballet "Shining Red Star" will also be performed at the Shanghai Grand Theatre.
The epoch-making works of "from scratch" carry the collective memories of generations of Chinese
The ballet "The White-Haired Girl" has been passed down for more than half a century, and classic dance sections such as "North Wind Blowing" and "Red Head Rope" carry the collective memories of generations of Chinese.
This classic work realizes the epoch-making process of Chinese ballet "from scratch". It not only uses the vocabulary of Western ballet, but also absorbs a large number of ethnic folk dances, traditional operas and martial arts. The music adopts the form of combining orchestral music and ethnic instrumental music, absorbing a large number of folk songs from North China as materials, full of distinct national style and strong sense of life.
This "heirloom" like a work, for the people of Shangba, is the original heart, blood, and feelings. Every generation of "platform pillars" of the Shanghai Ballet must go through the test of "The White Haired Girl".
Continuing the red feelings, we continue to explore the new expression and presentation of the Chinese aesthetics of ballet
The ballet "Shining Red Star" is a continuation of the red feelings of Shangba. In the play, Pan Dongzi, a young boy with a tiger's head and a sharp brain, has grown into a red army soldier, accompanied by the exciting melody of "Red Star Song", and embarked on a new revolutionary journey.
"Ballet has its own unique form of expression, how to tell the Chinese story well with ballet aesthetics, how to transmit the values of Chinese to the world through ballet art, 'Shining Red Star' is exploring a new path." Zhao Ming, a famous choreographer, told reporters that the dance drama strives to achieve the fit of the image of Chinese soldiers and the classic ballet skirt with romantic creative means.
The main creative team continues to explore the new expression and presentation of the Chinese aesthetic of ballet. "This ballet is not only my exploration, but also carries the heavy proposition of Chinese ballet innovation, how ballet art can be inherited and developed on the basis of 'The White-Haired Girl', these thoughts drive me to move forward and challenge myself." Zhao Ming said. In the outline of the creation of the ballet "Shining Red Star", important artistic topics such as the embodiment of revolution, the globalization of Chinese stories, the fashion of national elements, the modernization of classical techniques, and the romanticization of natural materials are listed.
The play was first performed at the Shanghai International Arts Festival in China in October 2018 and has been staged nearly 100 times. In the past three years, "Red Star" has traveled all over Beijing, Nanchang, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, Jinan, Xi'an and other cities, and has received countless praises. With the support of the National Arts Fund, the Shanghai Cultural Development Fund, and the Shanghai International Dance Center Development Foundation, Shanghai Ballet and its main creative team have always been unremitting in revising and polishing their works.
Choreographer Zhao Ming and the main creative team have crafted the works with ingenuity, from plot, dance section, music to stage beauty, overturning and reorganizing time and again, seizing the inspiration that bursts out, and refining the stage presentation. The Shangba actors went all out to rehearse for the revision of the dance. Wu Husheng, principal dancer of Shanghai Ballet, is one of the top young artists of Chinese ballet today. In order to create the image of Pan Dongzi's Red Army soldier on the stage, he crawled, squatted and fell to the ground like a real soldier.
"This is a role that is both classic and subverts the classic," Wu Husheng said, "because of his sad childhood experience, he is determined to throw his head and blood for the beautiful future of the nation." Standing on the stage, carrying a gun, the blood of a Chinese boils up, and the excitement and dedication, the transmission of the emotions of the characters, will naturally flow. ”
After careful polishing and modification, can "Red Star" capture the hearts of the audience? We'll see.
Author: Xuanjing
Editor: Wang Licheng