How to let tourists and passers-by at home and abroad be "planted" by Shanghai's performances? As a result of Shanghai's creation of high-quality resident performances, a new round of resident performances of the dance drama "Eternal Waves" was officially launched last night, and the newly unveiled "Elegance and Elegance" four groups of newcomers will perform nearly 150 times in two lines. A few days ago, in the second terminal of Hongqiao Airport, shanghai's "gateway", a huge poster of Shanghai's original and resident performances, such as the dance drama "The Eternal Electric Wave" and the musical "The Pretender", was posted to "show" Shanghai's cultural soft power for the first time through the city's public cultural window.
The breakthrough of performing arts in space, the "breaking of the circle" of culture, commerce and tourism, are constantly shaping new formats, bringing new consumption, and establishing a new image of the city. Coincidentally, in the Hengfu Style District of Shanghai's "Internet Celebrity Punch Card", the immersive drama "No. 19 Wukang Road" produced by the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center is about to start. It is highly engaged in immersive drama, connecting "readable buildings" such as the Wukang Building, the Memorial Hall of the Former Residence of Song Qingling, and the Former Residence of Ba Jin, and then discovering the wind and current footprints that float behind history, vividly telling the story of Shanghai.
In the view of Bao Yaming, researcher of the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences and executive director of the Urban Cultural Innovation Research Institute, behind the birth of these new products and new styles of cultural tourism integration, there is the performance of "urban space rediscovery, urban tradition reconnection, and urban elements recombination", which represents the rebalancing of the economic and cultural supply measurement market in the context of urban renewal, which effectively drives the innovation and upgrading of consumption.
Create a more memorable experience than "taking a photo with Wukang Building", performing performances, and adding value to the consumption of urban cultural tourism
Every day, after squeezing through the surging street shooting army and walking into the theater office, Zhang Huiqing, general manager of Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center, always breathed a long sigh of relief, "There are too many people taking pictures!" This internet red road known as the "center of the universe", Anfu Road, is less than a kilometer long, but it is densely lined with a number of high-value tide brands, internet red coffee shops, restaurants and consumer goods stores. Wukang Road, which is connected to Anfu Road, and because of the excellent photography point of "Wukang Building", it brings a flood of tourists from all over the world and fashion bloggers flocking to it.
Of course, in addition to attracting young hipsters' coffee culture and brand culture, Anfu Road also has a sparkling theater culture, and one of Shanghai's most well-known cultural landmarks, the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center, is located here. Through the transparent floor-to-ceiling windows, looking at the endless stream of young people downstairs, Zhang Huiqing always kept thinking, "If the beauty of the Hengfu landscape area is only the background board in the camera, it is a pity!" "In order to make people leave an impression, in addition to taking photos with the Wukang Building, can we give full play to the power of drama and give more connotation to the city's cultural and tourism experience?" Thus, the immersive drama "No. 19 Wukang Road" with the city as the stage was born.
During the performance, the audience will wear headphones and be guided by panoramic stereo technology, starting from the former residence of Song Qingling, walking to the Shanghai Dramatic Arts Center, passing important historical venues and buildings on Wukang Road, and turning over the major events in China from 1931 to 1949. Relive the psychic history of an ordinary person during the war with live-action performances and interactive experiences, and explore the cultural landscape attached to the wukang building, the Shangying Actor Troupe, Zhou Xuan's former residence, the Delinaqi residence, the world primary school, the Cape Town apartment, the Hunan villa, the former residence of Ba Jin, the former residence of Yan Yutang and other geographical landscapes. Some viewers will also wear cheongsam, student clothes, and vests, "cross" to become the popular characters of old Shanghai, interpret the plot under the guidance of the actors, and complete the secret task of hiding mysteries.
The ability to open the value-added of the "drama +" industry is becoming the consensus of the whole industry. Through a "show" to drive the surrounding dining and accommodation, Anfu Road, centered on theatrical culture, has done it, and the immersive drama "Sleepless Nights" has also done Chinese version. Located on Jiangning Road, the hotels and restaurants next to the "Sleepless Nights" theater are still fully booked even in the traditional tourist off-season. "Doing resident performances is not only a business of the cultural industry, but also a process of accelerating industrial integration, and an important and non-negligible lever for Shanghai to enhance the soft power of the entire city." Ma Chencheng said.
While injecting new momentum into the cultural industry, high-quality resident performing arts are also the "spokesperson" of the city's strength and image, "Performing arts is the window, is the image of the city," said Ma Chencheng, president of Shanghai Wenguang Performing Arts Group. Two weeks later, the other half of the passage of Hongqiao Airport will also be displayed in the same way, and will be rolled out in various public spaces such as subways, buses, shopping malls and so on in the future.
Acting, not always high-class and scarce, it is close to city life
"22:30" – This is the time when most malls close, and the bustling crowd of customers disperses, leaving a few passage lights to accompany the silence of the night. But in the city market on the first floor of Raffles City on the North Bund, the "night gods" are gathering. The happy twist late-night immersive sleepwalking theater "Lane 1992" opened on time, providing customers with tables and chairs for invigorating dining during the day, and the highly restored environment of Lane, which suddenly transformed into a natural theater and stage scenery, extending the time of consumers staying in the mall for another two hours.
Recently, immersive experiences have advanced into Shanghai's major business districts and net red roads, hanging a new whirlwind of consumption. "The product idea of New Space Performing Arts is to break the concept of theater, shape the concept of space, and make a strong brand tone," Wang Haigang, co-president of Happy Twist, CEO of Shanghai Happy Twist, and chief producer of "Crazy Barber Shop", believes that traditional theater has entered the stock market, and "New Space Performing Arts" is entering the incremental market, which means that the traditional performance industry has ushered in a new track. It is reported that another immersive comedy of Happy Twist, "Crazy Barbershop", has also successfully advanced into the commercial complex at the same time, and plans to reside in Ruihong Tiandi Moon Bay for three years. There is also a new project with the old bungalow on North Shaanxi Road as the performance venue is being incubated...
In the performance of "Crazy Barbershop", each audience member is given the identity of "witness", the "detective" will ask the audience for clues one by one, and the audience can also directly question the actors to jointly promote the development of the plot, just like a 200-person memory and intelligence test. If you don't want to talk, you can watch, "social fear" does not have to be afraid, and for "drama essence", it is a "paradise" for performance. This undoubtedly satisfies the "Z-era" youth's strong pursuit of a sense of play, interaction and participation, as well as a sense of ultimate experience.
"In the context of oversupply of consumption space, in order to avoid idleness, commercial complexes must seek transformation," Bao Yaming said, which gives the cultural industry more opportunities for innovative development, but correspondingly, higher market requirements are also put forward for both venue suppliers and content suppliers. ”
"If professional theater has cultivated a group of loyal and professional theater audiences in the past decade, then in recent years, the birth of a series of new cultural tourism formats has made the audience realize that performing arts is not only a ritual that happens by chance in life, an advanced but scarce experience, but it should be an ordinary and normalized entertainment life experience." Liu Hankun, the producer of the immersive musical "Apollonia" and "Santa Lucia", who successfully created the Asia Mansion, said.
Stills are provided by the producer
Author: Tong Weijing
Editor: Wang Licheng