The China Theater Performing Arts Summit Forum was hotly discussed| tradition in contemporary times, how to "live the law"?

On October 18th, the 17th China Drama Festival special invited play Wu opera "Lousheng Folding Zi Drama Special" lit up the theater, applause and applause did not stop, after the play, the audience refused to leave, cheers and refused to disperse. The audience said that they had never watched a play so enjoyably; theater workers and researchers also said that they had not seen such a lively performance for a long time.

At the Shouzheng Innovation - The 17th China Drama Festival and China Theater Performing Arts Summit Forum held on October 19, performing artists and theater researchers were still full of praise for "Lousheng Folding Zi Opera Special". In May this year, Lou Sheng, an actor from the Zhejiang Wuqu Art Research Institute, won the top spot in the opera category of the 30th China Drama Plum Blossom Awards, and he said in an interview with this newspaper: "Actors are 'alive', and the characters on the stage are alive." "It seems to be a traditional play, for me, it is not a copy, I have my own understanding, I am acting, it is innovation." 」 At the summit forum, "How to 'live' tradition in contemporary times" became the central topic of discussion among the participants.

When tradition lives, drama lives

Wang Kui, director of the Xiqu Research Institute of the China Academy of Arts, said that artists have activated the art of the previous generations on themselves, integrated themselves into the art system inherited from generation to generation, and become a solid foundation for the continued inheritance of the later generations. The increase in the technical difficulty of actor Lou Sheng's performance is an orderly expansion of the rules and norms of wuqu opera tradition; director Zhang Manjun presents it in the form of a modern song and dance drama in the Gannan tea picking drama "One Man's Long March", but uses the dwarf steps of the ugly behavior of Gannan tea picking drama, which runs through the overall expression and completes the reproduction of the drama system. Wang Kui proposed with the example of "revitalization" success: oral, technical, and creative as the basic characteristics of orderly inheritance, if stuck in oral, it is possible to make the tradition pass on less and less; the emphasis on technology may make the tradition more and more rigid, and the art will be solidified; excessive re-creation will lose its effective connection with the inherent system and form a rupture. Whether or not the relationship between these three is properly grasped determines how the tradition "lives" in contemporary times.

Speaking of the traditional "living method", Mao Weitao, vice chairman of the Chinese Drama Association and a Yue opera performance artist, thought of the Yue opera "Oedipus King" that she and director Li Liuyi co-created for the "Year of Chinese Greek Culture and Tourism". When King Oedipus knew that all his sins were due to him, one of the lines was "I should die", and Mao Weitao blurted out when creating, using a famous tone in Yin Pai, issuing a sad, sonorous cry. "This has never been done before in Yue opera, and the starting line is usually 'niangzi' and 'maiden', and when I use it to make this shout, my musical image is found." In the confession, there is a passage in which King Oedipus says, "I wish we never met, I wish that the well-meaning person never rescued me..." And so on, Mao Weitao said: "At that time, I didn't know how to interpret it, the director asked me to communicate with the band, and in the exchange, I picked up the drum stick of the drum and remembered "Drumming and Scolding Cao"..."

Xie Tao, vice chairman of the China Drama Association and a performing artist of Jin opera, talked about her experience in performing the Jin opera "Fu Shan Entering Beijing". "Fu Shan is a 'cultural Kunlun', such an image has never appeared in Jin opera, the director told me, figuratively speaking, it is the Ma Pai and Qi Pai in Peking Opera that are mixed together, performing the tension and explosive power of the Qi Pai, the elegance and elegance of the Ma Pai, the elegance and elegance of the Ma Pai, these words are easy to say, but I have to shape him into a plump person bit by bit." Xie Tao realized that Fu Shan was not only a thinker, a writer, a calligrapher, a medical scientist, but also a grounded old man, "he can drink cauldron porridge with his good brother, and he can play with his little grandson, and he is very stubborn." How does a stubborn old man play? Xie Tao said: "We have been going to the countryside to perform for many years, and I will carefully observe the old masters who watch the drama, the stubborn old man and the docile old man, and the speech and demeanor, dress and dress are different. Generally the old man will wear a coat when he is cold, the stubborn old man will put it on his body, walk up, and his hands are swinging backwards, I figured out this action and used it three times in the play. When the little grandson chased after him, his hand swung gently behind his back; when he decided to enter Beijing, in order to show his firmness, his hand swung three times behind his back; when he was alone in the temple, contemplating and watching the snow, in order to show his cultural persistence, he let him wear a Taoist robe, and the water sleeves fluttered behind him. Xie Tao said that such small actions make the characters plump up from the inside to the outside, forming an image that can enter the audience's heart from the stage.

Life force is everywhere

"The performance characters run fast, there is no traditional opera thinking, the actor can only run back and forth on the stage, with the opera thinking, you can use the percussion in the opera, with the sound of gongs and drums, the actor runs to the stage, which is a rapid run." Zhou Long, a professor at the China Academy of Performing Arts, said. "In the Gaojia drama "Fan Jin Zhongju" staged during the drama festival, the protagonist is poor, his family is hungry, and he is so poor that he wants to sell the last chicken, but his music is very cheerful, which stems from the traditional Chinese aesthetic orientation of 'mourning but not hurting' and 'complaining but not anger', which is where the drama needs to excavate the excellent traditional cultural resources of the Chinese nation." Song Baozhen, director of the Drama Research Institute of the China Academy of Arts, said.

Performers of opera, drama and other theatrical genres also experience the ubiquitous vitality of tradition on the contemporary stage. Opera singer Chen Xiaoduo dug out his own "black history" in front of his peers: "The first play I played was Wang Xiaoying's "Mulan", in which I played the Xiongnu princess, when I came out like a rabbit, the next plate was obviously unstable, director Wang Xiaoying said that I was 'walking on the stage with cat steps'. I went to a Peking Opera teacher, went to the stage after a class or two, and my peers immediately felt it, and they said to me, 'It's so different.'" When I later re-enacted "Du ShiNiang", I had a little sense of character, and the charm of traditional art penetrated from the outside to the inside. ”

Hou Yansong, an actor at the National Drama Theatre of China, told that in the drama "Fusheng" starring him, Qin Shi Huang ordered the burning of books to pit Confucianism, and Li Si took people to Fusheng's home to search and behead Fusheng's son. Screaming in the sky, beating his chest, and even fainting, it seems to be right, but it is not accurate, because Fusheng is a doctor of Confucianism, he carries the secret of preserving the "Book of Shang" in his heart, his relatives died tragically in front of him, and he cannot die, he wants to keep the secretary in his heart, pass it on, what kind of action is more in line with the reaction of the character at that time? Hou Yansong thought of the throwing of hair and the oolong strand in the opera, "The flinging of hair can show the sadness and indignation of the characters to the extreme; the oolong strand is originally an action in the martial arts, and can also be used to exaggerate the inability to control itself." So I stood up and fell on the stage, stood up again, fell down again, made a flicking motion, followed by a 360-degree oolong strand, and finally crawled to the ground, frozen on the stage. "Only this, it is not enough to make the characters, drama, and traditions "live together", Hou Yansong said, I do not want to play Fusheng into an opera character, but from the creation method of psychological realism, stylized performance based on experience, the character experienced, naturally produced the need for psychological externalization, such a series of complete actions, in order to express the complexity of the heart, a father's inner extreme pain can not be his own emotions, in order to evoke the emotional resonance of the audience. ”

Author: China Art Daily reporter Yi