On November 13th, the young theater season of "Theater Everywhere, Art for Everyone" will kick off in Yangpu Binjiang, which means that after more than three years of preparation and renovation and expansion projects, Yangpu Grand Theater will return with a new look. The new theater will be completed at the end of this year and will be operated and managed by the Shanghai Grand Theatre, one of the core theaters of the Great World of Performing Arts, and is scheduled to officially open in the spring of 2022, which also means that the Great World of Performing Arts will be further expanded and the good plays will be sent to Yangpu District, where college students and white-collar workers gather.
Located at No. 1155, Kongjiang Road, Yangpu District, young Theater, formerly known as Yangpu Grand Theater, is an important project to build a major functional cultural facility layout in the "13th Five-Year Plan" of Yangpu District. "Young Theater", pronounced "Yang", takes the English meaning of "young". The reconstructed theater includes 1020 main theaters and 168 small theaters, with drama as the core, integrating stage performances, original incubation, exhibition screening, public welfare education, and community empowerment, building a gravitational field and experimental field for new young artists, and creating a theater without boundaries.
In February 2018, the Yangpu District Culture and Tourism Bureau signed a strategic cooperation framework agreement with the Shanghai Grand Theatre to operate and manage the newly renovated theater. The young theater preparatory operation team began to plan to launch a series of warm-up activities before the completion of the theater, integrating the four major sections of the future theater "contemporary", "cross-border", "technology" and "local" as clues into the November series of activities.
As the first round of warm-up activities before the opening of the theater next spring, the young theater play season will be launched from November 13 to 27 at cultural landmarks in Yangpu area, successively launching activities such as "Riverside Drama Walking Theater: On the Shore", "New Circus & Installation Theater: Imaginary Wave", "One Person, One Story Theater: Meet", "Vr Image Theater: Eye Sockets" and other activities to create an open stage for people to immerse themselves in. In addition to the play season, the pre-opening warm-up activities also include the "Small Stage, Big World" children's painting collection and exhibition plan and the "One Person, One Place, One Thing" Yangpu Story Collection Plan.
"Binjiang Drama Walking Theater: On the Shore" integrates theater walking, improvisational music, and urban story sharing, with the Yangpu Riverside Show Belt as the physical space for performance, passing through the former site of Huangpu Wharf, Maoma Warehouse, Welding Plaza, Yangshupu Water Plant and other century-old industrial sites. Artists and scholars from the Dalu Theatre Company, the Otoko Orchestra, and the Simplicity Heart City will take the audience to travel freely through reality and history, read the city architecture, and feel the urban fabric.
"New Circus & Installation Theatre: The Wave of Imagination" invites young artists Lu Ge and Wang Yan to choreograph and perform, inspired by "Water", and the dancers on the balance board invite the audience to become the instant creators of stage texts in the natural environment of the Shanghai International Fashion Center.
"One Person, One Story Theater: Encounter" invited the Dalu Theater Troupe and the Yijia Orchestra to bring performances that combined improvisational drama and improvisational music, and the science and technology innovation workers of Changyang Chuanggu and Interconnected Treasure Land became the protagonists of the story.
Directed by Feilttime Artistic Director and Young Director Zhang Daming, "VR Image Theater: Orbit" transforms theatrical approach into VR content creation. The audience needs to be proactive in finding dancers, and this process seems to be "dancing" with the dancers in the video.
The series of activities of the play season also produced and launched a creative peripheral - young theater limited edition stage commemorative card, inspired by the traditional mirror frame stage, to convey to the audience the beautiful meaning of "everywhere there is drama, you are the director of life".
The relevant person in charge of the Shanghai Grand Theatre said that when positioning the Young Theater, it is not satisfied with being a chain store and replica of the Grand Theatre, but hopes that the theater can be fully integrated with the characteristics of the local area. Therefore, through planning warm-up activities, the team went deep into the parks, campuses, communities and business circles of Yangpu District, further excavated the historical and humanistic values of the region, and used the scientific and technological innovation, design and educational resources in the region to form a synergy to prepare for the future professional operation and long-term planning of the theater.
Column Editor-in-Chief: Shi Chenlu Text Editor: Shi Chenlu
Source: Author: Zhuge Yi