On the last day of May in the lunar calendar, the Chongqing Municipal Ballet came to Ya'an with the modern ballet "Backwater Breeze", which is another large-scale dance drama created and performed by local artists in Sichuan and Chongqing on the Ya'an Stage with the support of the National Arts Fund, following the dance drama "Home" created by the Sichuan Provincial Song and Dance Troupe.
In memory, this is probably the heavy bar on the banks of the Jialing River, the first time to the west corner of our river, Yazhou City on the bank of the Qingyi River, is still a masterpiece of art, modern dance, sound, light, color background rendering, really in the hearts of the audience full of people, set off layers of emotional waves, with the ups and downs of the plot, the fate of the characters, the scenes on the stage love and hate hate, the joy and emotion generated by the resonance of people and art, like a grain of stone thrown into a lake of spring water...
Outside the east gate of Chengdu, not far from my community, there is a small street called "Jieren Road" with a length of no more than 800-meters, and there is an old building named "Lingxiao", which is the former residence of Chengdu's local literary master Li Haoren. Although the former residence is still well preserved, this is very different from the fate of the former residence of Mr. Ba Jin on our site, which is really very different!
It was mentioned that modern Chinese literature only remembered Lu, Guo, Mao, Ba, Lao, and among the Sichuan writers, only Sha Ting, Ai Wu, and Ma Zhitu were familiar with it, and until he read Li Jieren's "Backwater Weilan", it was when he studied the history of modern literature in the early 1980s, and in the early 90s, an actor named Cheng Xi in the Battle Flag Literary and Labor Troupe participated in the film "Crazy" (adapted from "Backwater Weilan") directed by Ling Zifeng, and Cheng Xi, who debuted as a dancer, played an important role in the play: the prostitute Liu Sanjin. It is precisely because of the heavy role of the scene involving the wind and moon in the movie, and the main characters are mainly the so-called underworld robe brothers and the three religions and nine streams, so after the film was made, it was naturally imprisoned by the relevant departments for more than 10 years, until 2004, when it was released.
In fact, just as Mao Dun's "Midnight", Ba Jin's "Home", Lao She's "Tea House", are all small places, big eyes, focusing on the bottom of society, refracting the changes of the big times with the fate of small people, Li Jieren's "Backwater Breeze" is no different, Deng Shugu, Luo Paoge, Gu Tiancheng's emotional entanglement, all reflect all aspects of the social life of the Shuzhong Hui Party, foreign religious people and ordinary people before and after the Gengzi Incident, and there are other unique excellences in the portrayal of typical literary characters and the depiction of local life. No wonder some literary critics have exalted the novel "Death" and the author's status in the history of modern literature!
"Backwater Weilan" has not only been filmed, but also filmed TV series, and has been put on the drama stage (in the mid-1990s, I was hired to rehearse the drama "Backwater Weilan" by Chengdu Repertory Theatre to shoot stills, and later published in "Caiqiao" magazine), today, Chongqing Municipal Ballet has interpreted this masterpiece in the form of Western ballet, (many of which are viewed from the perspective of today's people, and injected modern dance elements and Sichuan opera characteristics,) and has been listed in the national stage art masterpiece, its boldness, its achievements, People have to applaud it!
Note: The soundtrack of this article, original for our comrade-in-arms Liang Zhongqi, is a pre-curtain song created and carefully produced by Teacher Liang for the large-scale dance drama "Home", because there is no original music and other suitable soundtracks for "Backwater Breeze", so it is borrowed for temporary use, purely "Zhang Guan Li Dai".
(June 1, 2019 at Ya'an)
About the Author: Full-time violin teacher; freelance photographer. Former violinist of the Chengdu Military Region Battle Flag Cultural and Labor Troupe, member of Sichuan Musicians Association, member of Sichuan Violin Education and Research Association, and examiner of Sichuan Provincial Social Art (Music) Examination. Engaged in photography for many years, he was a member of the Southwest Military Photography Society; a special reporter of the Legal Propaganda Center of the Sichuan Provincial Political and Legal Affairs Commission; and a special reporter of the Culture and News Department of West China Metropolis Daily. He is currently a member of The Sichuan Photographers Association, the Deputy Secretary-General of the Sichuan Entrepreneur Photography Association, an expert member of the Sichuan Ethnic Image Art Association, and a signed photographer of xinhua news agency photo library and Chengdu Classic Hui Culture Company.