Reporter | Chen Jiajing Lin Ziren Edit | Lin Zi people
Performances: December 3rd, 5th, 8th-9th
Venue: Shanghai International Dance Center
Zhao Liang is the first Chinese dancer to win the Italian International Dance Competition, an invited guest of the Edinburgh Arts Festival in the United Kingdom, and has been praised by foreign media as "the soul dancer with the most oriental mysterious temperament". The Art Review commented that "his works have always been known with a strong oriental atmosphere, and have increasingly become his exclusive symbols and aesthetic pursuits." ”
This year marks the 10th anniversary of Zhao Liang Studio. In December, Zhao Liang Dance Theater will perform at the Shanghai International Dance Center in the performance season of "Oriental Spiritual Desire Trilogy", "Police Illusion", "Magic Tea Mystery Sutra" and "Double Down the Mountain". The trilogy is divided into upper, middle and lower ques, and the themes include "Dream of the Red Chamber" ("Police Illusion"), Zen Tea Culture ("Magic Tea Mystery Sutra") and Kunqu Opera ("Double Descent"). It is worth mentioning that the character "Tea Illusion" in "The Tea Mystery Sutra" is played by male dancers, and the nun "Sekong" in "Double Descent" is also played by Mei Pai Nandan. Zhao Liang tries to find the homogeneous and homogeneous nature of human nature that everyone has through the way of gender reversal.
Performance period: December 10 - December 19
Venue: Shanghai Grand Theatre
"Human Disqualification" is a masterpiece of the late stage of Japanese writer Osamu Dazai's creative career, and it is also his most famous novel. In it, Osamu Dazai creates the character of Ōto-yōyō in the form of a confession of shinza: he is sensitive and fragile, out of place with the outside world but good at disguising himself, making women fascinated but unable to cope with intimate relationships, and falling into the vortex of life in constant self-doubt and escape. In the musical "Human Disqualification", Dazaiji and Ye Zang appear on the same stage, and the two lead actors, Bai Jugang and Liu Lingfei, alternately play each other's roles, in order to show the similar and complementary relationship between Dazaiji and Ye Zang.
The play was composed by Frank Wildhorn, affectionately known as "Wild Horn" by Chinese musical theater fans. As an international A-list composer who has won many Tony Awards and Grammy Awards, he has created the number one single "Where Do Broken Hearts Go" for Whitney Houston, and has also created many super popular musicals, such as the Broadway classic "Becoming a Strange Doctor" that swept the Chinese and Korean markets, "Dracula", which has been translated into multiple languages and staged around the world, and "Smiley Man", which brings together Korean popular stars EXO member Kim Joon-min and Super Junior member Gyu Hyun. According to Wildhorn, the music for "Human Disqualification" will be postmodern, with both cinematic and dramatic, as well as rock elements. As the story progresses, the musical style changes as the characters grow, "Osamu Dazai was a very powerful character when he first appeared, and he was like the god of Yezo. But then he began to hesitate, and we could gradually see the other side of him, and he became darker and more vulnerable. At first, Yezo resembled Osamu Dazai's marionette, but he began to fight for independence and become more powerful. Hopefully, my music will interpret these characters. ”
Performance period: December 22nd to December 26th
Venue: Shanghai Grand Theatre, Little Theatre
If each person can only speak 140 words per day, how do we communicate and how do we love each other? "Lemon Lemon Lemon Lemon" sets the scene: Oliver and Bernadette meet at the funeral of a cat, and after the two fall in love, Bernadette discovers that Oliver has a close relationship with his ex-girlfriend, and the freelance musician Oliver is also obsessed with Bernadette's lawyer profession. The new bill "only 140 words per person per day" is about to be introduced, and communication will become more and more complicated... When language becomes precious and expression must be restrained, how can the couple resolve their conflicts? Where will this relationship go?
Lemon Lemon Lemon Lemon is the first screenplay published by screenwriter Sam Steiner while studying at the National Film and Television School (NFTS), a witty and in-depth discussion of how discourse affects intimacy. Because of its short and concise, the original English version has won the favor of many theater festivals since its debut in 2015, and has also quickly won the love of a large number of theater people at home and abroad. The Chinese version of Lemon Lemon Lemon lemon was performed in February and August 2018, respectively. In the third edition of this stage, the creative team retranslated the script and selected four actors to interpret the two characters in the script, and the actors' limbs and voices will be integrated into the arrangement as a whole unit.
Performance period: December 25 - December 26
Venue: SAIC Shanghai Culture Square
"There will be a thousand kinds of Hamlets in the eyes of a thousand people", this sentence also applies to one of the four famous books "Dream of the Red Chamber". Screenwriter Yu Rongjun admitted that adapting "Dream of the Red Chamber" is a huge challenge, for this reason, one of his attempts is to forget Cao Xueqin and the various studies and interpretations around "Dream of the Red Chamber", take "Dream of the Red Chamber" as material, and make an article on the basis of the original material. The drama "Dream of the Red Chamber" is performed for 6 hours, consisting of the upper part "Spring and Summer, Wind and Moon Prosperity" and the lower part "Autumn and Winter, Eating All the Birds", presenting the entanglement of Bao, Dai and Chao in "Dream of the Red Chamber" and the fate of all sentient beings from a contemporary perspective.
In the drama, Yu Rongjun gave more attention to the more negative characters in the original work. For example, in his view, Jia Zheng is "the representative of China's intellectuals for thousands of years", and he also presents the image of Aunt Zhao with compassion, which he believes is a complex role that cao Xueqin hates but deserves to be taken seriously by screenwriters. He discovers that fate and impermanence are things he pays special attention to in Dream of the Red Chamber. "On the stage, I emphasize the contrast between impermanence, fate and law, the mirror relationship, and the relationship between dream and reality," Yu Rongjun said, "from the prosperity of the [first half] to the decline of the second half of the many contrasts - there are many sad things in the prosperity, and there are some joys and joys in the decline." ”
Performance period: December 2nd to December 10th
Venue: Capitol Theatre
The classic Beijing Renyi play "Li Bai" ushered in the 30th anniversary of its premiere this year. The play premiered in 1991, when pu Cunxin, then 38, starred as Li Bai, interpreting the story of the great poet in his later years. In 1993, "Li Bai" won five awards at the 3rd Wenhua Awards: Screenplay Award, Director Award, Stage Design Award, Performance Award and Performance Award. Today, this drama has become a classic in the minds of audiences.
Compared with the poet Li Bai, who has always been well known, the Li Bai shown in the play is different. The playwright Guo Qihong gave up Li Baifei's unbridled side and chose the later stage of his life, telling his helplessness after serving the national situation but being deeply involved in power plots, as well as the dilemma between "birth" and "WTO accession.". The "Li Bai" that started this time is still starred by Pu Cunxin and Gong Lijun, two "elders", and after thirty years of partnering, their deeply rooted interpretation has also become the essence of this play, allowing the audience to experience the charm of a work polished by time.
Performance period: December 24 - December 26
Venue: Drum Tower West Theater
Created in 1884, Wild Duck is Ibsen's transformational work about the love-hate relationship between two generations of two families. Old Willie is about to remarry the young and beautiful Mrs. Soby, and his old friend, Jarma, the son of the old hunter, lives a slightly poor but happy life with his wife Kina and daughter Hagweg, and the seemingly peaceful life of the two families is undercurrent. The sudden return of Little Willy is keenly aware that Yama's family road is all due to old Willy, and even the fate of Kina and Hagwart is involved. While everyone is at ease with the "white" lies, Little Willie is eager to lift up the silt that sinks under the clear water, so that the "wild ducks" bound by water and grass can face the truth...
When the truth is revealed, will life get better? Ibsen did not give a definitive answer in The Wild Duck. As the play says, "Castles in the air are the safest shelter and easiest to build." "At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter whether people understand the truth of life, what matters is how we face it after we learn the harsh truth of life."
Performance period: December 10 - December 12
Venue: Tianqiao Art Center - Small Theater
It is an original English-language monologue about a boy and Shakespeare. At the age of six, Joseph enrolled in boarding school and met the talented but alcoholic Principal Revere, who gave freshmen a military-style Shakespeare education. Confused, ashamed and curious, Joseph gradually fell in love with Shakespeare and the passionate world and made it his lifelong career. His attitude towards the principal also changed from incomprehension and resentment to understanding and gratitude.
In the play, American theater director and Shakespearean theater expert Joseph Graves, who also directed, wrote and starred, propped up the stage for 80 minutes by playing multiple roles by one person. As artistic director of the Institute of Foreign Drama and Film at Peking University, Joseph is affectionately known as "Old Joe" by his students and fans, and since coming to China, he has produced or directed more than 80 plays, including a large number of Shakespeare and other Western classics, and he has also played classic roles such as Hamlet, Henry V, King Lear, Richard III, Tadouf and Vanya.
Venue: Middle Theater
Director Li Jianjun's "Between the World and the Sunset" is one of the plays participating in the 2021 Intermediate Theater Science and Technology Arts Festival, and it is also a special invited play of Wuzhen Theater this year. The play is based on the film of the same name by German director Fassbinder, which was inspired by Daniel Gallo's 1960s science fiction novel Simulacron-3. With the development of science and technology, the clouds of nuclear war brought about by nuclear weapons and various types of nuclear tests, as well as the environmental pollution brought about by the development of science and technology and industry, have gradually surfaced, and people's attitudes toward science and technology have oscillated back and forth between optimism and pessimism. Thirteen Layers of Space was born against the backdrop of this era, and it had a profound influence on the cyberpunk genre of science fiction and films such as The Matrix.
The thinking about science and technology in "Thirteen Layers of Space" still has enlightenment for today's information society, and Li Jianjun's "Between the World" continues the essence of this thinking to the present and interrogates the reality in which we live. "All science fiction is the prophetic discourse of humanity about its own destiny, and it contains the ambitions and fears of technological humanism for the future," he said. Science fiction reminds us not to be presumptuous and not to be self-righteous. ”