Always based on the fertile soil of China's excellent traditional culture (adhere to the "two innovations" to write epics)

Source: People's Daily

The picture shows the stills of the new type of concert Guo Chao Ya reading "Le Jie". Photo courtesy of Jing Xiaoyong

Core reading

The birth process of these works is also the process of China Oriental Performing Arts Group's continuous promotion of artistic innovation

In terms of creative techniques, "Only This Green" traces the roots of Classical Chinese literature creation, and through the balance of poetic expression and stage presentation, it triggers today's creators to think about the ontology of drama. In terms of choreography, the works use "granular" movements to connect into dance sentences, forming a distinctive texture, style, rhyme and dance vocabulary

China's excellent traditional culture, which has lasted for thousands of years, is the "root" and "soul" of the Chinese nation, and is also the rich nourishment for China's development today. Realizing creative transformation and innovative development is the overall requirement for inheriting and carrying forward excellent traditional culture, and it is also the mission of literary and art workers. State-owned literary and art academies and troupes are the "vanguard" for enhancing cultural consciousness and strengthening cultural self-confidence, and have the responsibility and obligation to take traditional culture as the root vein and carry forward the cultural spirit that transcends time and space, transcends the country, is full of eternal charm, and has contemporary value, so that the excellent traditional culture will glow with new vitality.

Implemented into specific work, we need to follow the concept of artistic innovation in creation, pursue a conscious mission and deep people's feelings, and strengthen the capacity building of the dissemination of artistic works.

China Oriental Performing Arts Group was born at the beginning of the founding of New China, rooted in the soil of excellent traditional culture and accumulated rich artistic resources. The artistic origin of China Oriental Performing Arts Group can be traced from the Oriental Song and Dance Troupe established in 1962 and the Central Song and Dance Troupe established in 1952, all the way back to the Lu Xun Art Institute in Yan'an. From "White Haired Girl" to "Lotus Dance" and "Peacock Dance", China Oriental Performing Arts Group has shown the world the unique charm and style of Chinese culture. For more than half a century, China Oriental Performing Arts Group has always based itself on the fertile soil of China's excellent traditional culture and has continued to launch a large number of outstanding literary and artistic works with profound roots and educating people's hearts.

The dance poem "National Color" captures the essence of Chinese culture, selects the most representative blue and white porcelain, tea ceremony bamboo rhyme, riverbank oil paper umbrella, qipao, calligraphy and painting, traditional Chinese medicine, Kunqu opera and other classic elements, so that the audience can linger in the long river of Chinese culture for more than 5,000 years. The dance music "Chinese Story: Zodiac" uses percussion performance and dance as the main forms of expression to deeply interpret the Chinese zodiac culture. From the prologue "Ugly Cow Herding Wild" to the epilogue "Chenlong Guiyuan", it shows the magnificent historical process and the inheritance of China's thousand-year cultural context in the change of seasons. The new type of concert Guochao Ya reading "Music and Boundary" takes modern music as the language and "Ten Elegant Things" as the theme, interprets traditional culture from a fashionable perspective and modern creative means, and shows the broad mind of "music without borders, the world knows the sound". It can be said that these works are all stage art practices that deeply excavate the traditional aesthetic advantages of the Chinese nation, enhance cultural self-confidence, nourish the people and nourish the world.

The birth process of these works is also the process of China Oriental Performing Arts Group's continuous promotion of artistic innovation.

Take the recently closely watched dance poetry drama "Only This Green" as an example. "Only This Green" takes the famous Song Dynasty painting "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains" as the background, follows the perspective of a modern Forbidden City researcher, enters the inner world of the young painter Wang Ximeng a thousand years ago, takes the main color of the painting "green" as the visual clue, and deeply explores the production of seals, silk, pigments, pens, inks and other crafts formed in the paintings, and the craftsman spirit of the past and the present reflects the Classical Aesthetics of the Chinese style, conveying the high respect for China's excellent traditional culture and its creators and inheritors. The works are ingenious in the choice of themes, starting from the molding process of the paintings and interpreting them into a humanistic picture of the craftsmen of the country. The main body depicted in the play is the image of the diligent craftsmen of the Chinese nation throughout the ages, and the splendid and excellent history and culture are created by these ordinary laborers. Dance dramas paint portraits of them, use their stories to awaken sleeping cultural relics, evoke the most precious cultural memory and persistent belief of the Chinese nation, combine stage art with intangible cultural heritage, and give richer and deeper connotations to the integration of culture and tourism in the context of the times.

In terms of creative techniques, "Only This Green" traces the roots of Classical Chinese literature creation, and through the balance of poetic expression and stage presentation, it triggers today's creators to think about the ontology of drama. The work breaks the conventional linear narrative technique on the stage, chooses to dilute the dramatic plot and conflict, emphasizes the inner emotions of the characters beyond ancient and modern times, and also highlights the poetic color of "dance poetry drama". In terms of choreography, the works use "granular" movements to connect into dance sentences, forming a distinctive texture, style, rhyme and dance vocabulary.

In terms of aesthetic style, the work conveys the aesthetic interest of the Song Dynasty's elegance expressed in "A Thousand Miles of Rivers and Mountains", and the costumes and props highlight the elegant and simple "rational beauty". Through the link between the "out of the painting into the painting" and the object and the subject's perception, the stage picture leads the audience to feel the beauty of traditional painting from different angles. This is not only the creative transformation and innovative development of traditional culture, but also gives full play to the characteristics and methods of "moisturizing and silent" of artistic works.

The aroma of wine is also afraid of the deep alley. Continuously strengthening the capacity building of communication is a necessary condition for promoting excellent traditional culture. "Only This Green" successfully "broke the circle" after its first 3 performances, and the first round of touring was not halfway through the heated discussion, and its success was not only due to innovative artistic expression, but also due to innovative means of communication. Both of these stem from the innovation of production concepts and models. "Only This Green" is jointly produced by the Palace Museum, China Oriental Performing Arts Group and People's Network, and has strong alliances and complementary advantages in academic, creative and promotional aspects. Before and after the premiere, the official Weibo of the Palace Museum released headline articles with more than 5 million readers, and the cumulative exposure of the content released by the people's network media matrix exceeded 247 million, of which many Weibo topics were expressed in young sentences, and the number of reads exceeded 10 million. On December 31, 2021, the work was unveiled at the Bilibili New Year's Eve Gala in the form of a dance segment, and during the broadcast time period, 180 million viewers watched online in real time. Seven days after its broadcast, the single video of the dance segment was viewed more than 3.2 million times, and the number of Weibo-related topics read exceeded 65 million. On the night of January 31, 2022, Chinese New Year's Eve night, the excerpt of "Only This Green" appeared on the stage of the CCTV Spring Festival Gala, and once the program was broadcast, related topics began to frequently appear on the hot search of Sina Weibo, Douyin and other platforms. The difficult "green waist" in the show also successfully went out of the circle, triggering a large number of professional dancers and enthusiasts to imitate and challenge.

In addition, "Only This Green" fully explores the use of online communication channels to go abroad. The diversified media publicity of the People's Network on overseas platforms has initially created the effect of "not seeing its people, first hearing their voices" in overseas markets. "China Daily" pushed relevant content through the integration of newspapers and networks, and gained more than 60 million views. During the tour, dozens of overseas reports were published in 9 foreign languages, triggering a wave of discussion on the charm of "China's excellent traditional culture".

China's splendid culture is like a rushing river, which needs to be continuously injected with living water to be able to flow endlessly. The spirit of the Chinese nation is like a vast historical scroll, which needs to be constantly depicted and written in order to be more colorful. "The country and the mountains have left a trace of victory, and my generation has come back." Literary and art workers should conform to the development direction of artistic creation and production in the Internet era, promote the transformation of resources and the improvement of efficiency, strive to create and promote excellent stage art works that reflect national standards and national characteristics and have international influence, and strive to achieve a double harvest of social and economic benefits.

(The author is Jing Xiaoyong, Secretary of the Party Committee and Chairman of China Oriental Performing Arts Group Co., Ltd.)

People's Daily (February 17, 2022, 20th Edition)