At four o'clock in the afternoon, Wei Baohua, a first-class acrobat, walked out of the comprehensive rehearsal building, and he had just finished the day's training.
"One minute on stage, ten years offstage." With age, objectively speaking, the physical state is going downhill, so the older you get, the higher the requirements for acrobatics to maintain training. Wei Baohua, who came from sports crossover, had to maintain a certain amount of training every day, and he was convinced of "ten years of work under the stage".
Recently, Wei Baohua, who won the title of "Fifth National Young and Middle-Aged Virtue and Art Shuangxin Literary and Art Workers", was interviewed by Nandu, saying that Deyi Shuangxin "is not just a title" and that the pursuit of "Virtue and Art Shuangxin" should always be carried out.
In 1998, Wei Baohua and his partner Wu Zhengdan began to experiment with "ballet on the shoulder" and "ballet on the head". In some interviews, Wei Baohua has described this action that sounds super difficult. "The shoulder area is small and curved, the muscles are soft, the balance is difficult to control, and it is inverted at the first turn."
Super difficult "ballet on the shoulder".
However, such a difficult action was still won by Wei Baohua and his partner Wu Zhengdan, with "shoulder ballet", Wei Baohua not only created a new genre of acrobatic performance, but also occupied an important place in the history of the development of acrobatics in the world. The program "Oriental Swan - Ballet Rival Top" has successively won the "Golden Lion Award", the highest award in the country for acrobatics, and the "Golden Clown Award" for the highest international acrobatic award.
The "Oriental Swan - Ballet Rivals Top" program has won consecutive awards.
In addition to "ballet on the shoulders", Wei Baohua has also been exploring the vocabulary of acrobatic dramas, such as exploring the new language of acrobatic dramas with the acrobatic drama "Hua Butterfly". Wei Baohua, who is now the deputy dean of the Dance Academy of Xinghai Conservatory of Music, also tried to put forward more suggestions for the acrobatic performance industry from the perspective of educational development.
Wei Baohua is now the Vice Dean of the Dance Academy of Xinghai Conservatory of Music.
In 2022, Wei Baohua won the title of "The Fifth National Young and Middle-Aged Literary and Art Workers". In an interview with Nandu, he said that Deyi Shuangxin "is not just a title", and the pursuit of "Deyi Shuangxin" should always be carried out. In his opinion, age is never a limit. "Wu Zhengdan and I are still active on the stage, and we also hope to give a sample to young acrobats, for acrobats, age is not a restriction."
A hard work
Break through with faith and survive hardships
The "ballet on the shoulder" that holds up the oriental swan
Talking about coming to Guangzhou to develop and gradually practicing "ballet on the shoulder", Wei Baohua said that this is both an accident and an inevitable component. In 1996, Wei Baohua, who was still a skill athlete, came to Shenzhen to participate in the competition, and the former head of the soldier acrobatic troupe of the Political Department of the Guangzhou Military Region saw the competition between Wei Baohua and Wu Zhengdan at the scene, and felt that the two were "good seedlings" who practiced double acrobatics, so they invited the two to join the Soldier Acrobatic Troupe of the Political Department of the Guangzhou Military Region after retiring.
The two men practiced and danced every day in the soldier acrobatic troupe of the Political Department of the Guangzhou Military Region, and participated in many performances. During a foreign performance, the head of the Royal Danish Ballet, after watching the performances of Wei Baohua and Wu Zhengdan, exclaimed that "they are too much like ballet dancers", inspired by this, Wei Baohua and Wu Zhengdan further interpreted Oriental acrobatics and Western ballet on the stage.
Under the persistence and exploration of the two, the program "Ballet Opponent Top - Swan of the East" began to attract attention. Along with the "Oriental Swan", it is more well known as the "Ballet on the Shoulder" program type, which is an important action in the program "Ballet Opponent Top - The Swan of the East".
"Ballet on the shoulder" is to tiptoe on a person's shoulder. Lifting one foot to dance is very difficult. Talking about the difficulty of completing the "ballet on the shoulder" action, Wei Baohua said that the difficulty of exploring and breaking through the action is far greater than the challenge of the action to the limits of the human body. "Now, from the perspective of technical difficulty, the ballet on the shoulder has not yet reached its limit (difficulty), but it is an action that has never been completed before. So in the process of innovation, you actually go through a lot of this wrong trial, the trial and error process is a very difficult time for me, because you don't know what is right, you have to keep trying, is this okay? Is that okay? Finding the right direction is a very difficult process. ”
What supported Wei Baohua through the difficult period of trial and error was still willpower and faith. "The trial-and-error process is also a great test of the human will, because when you don't see the hope of this success. We need to use innovative breakthroughs, participate in national competitions to test, the time of the competition is set, you are getting closer and closer to the competition, but you can not feel the technological breakthrough, this pressure, this kind of confusion that can not see hope, I think it is particularly difficult, then it still needs a strong will to overcome all this, and to have a firm belief, is to firmly believe that you will be able to succeed. ”
Behind the contingency of success, it is often the inevitability of persistence, and success often favors those who are full of energy and overcome all difficulties. Wei Baohua supported the "ballet on the shoulder" with faith, blended western ballet into the traditional Chinese acrobatics, added a bit of elegance and romance to the acrobatics, and also made the ballet both thrilling and exciting, and later Wei Baohua and Wu Zhengdan won back the "Golden Clown" award, the highest award in the acrobatic industry, for China with "ballet on the shoulder".
After winning the award, Wei Baohua continued to innovate. In 2004, Wei Baohua played the prince in the world's first acrobatic drama "Swan Lake". The play was rated as one of the "Top Ten Fine Plays" of the National Stage Art Fine Arts Project, won the "Five Ones Project" Excellent Drama Award, and the "Golden Award of The Repertoire" of the China Acrobatic Jinju Award.
B Innovation
Shake the empty bamboo to pass on the beam blessing,
Explore the new vocabulary of acrobatic drama with "Hua Butterfly"
The various art forms vary in the medium in which the plot is advanced. Drama promotes the plot through verbal narration, dance drama expresses emotions through body language, and how should the vocabulary of acrobatic drama express the meaning? In the recently launched acrobatic dance drama "Hua Butterfly", Wei Baohua and Wu Zhengdan jointly explored the vocabulary of acrobatic drama.
This is also another breakthrough and attempt by Wei Baohua and Wu Zhengdan since the performance of the world's first acrobatic drama "Swan Lake" and the first combination of acrobatics and drama. "Drama is directly represented by language and words, dance drama is represented by body language and dance vocabulary, and acrobatics have certain limitations in the narrative of the plot. This is also the reason why there were no acrobatic dramas in the past. However, the history of Chinese acrobatics for thousands of years is constantly innovating and breaking through, and "Hua Di" is also giving new connotations to the traditional acrobatic performance content. Wei Baohua said.
Wei Baohua used the traditional acrobatic technique of "Shaking Empty Bamboo" as an example of the exploration of the acrobatic vocabulary of "Hua Butterfly". "The empty bamboo has been given a new connotation by the director, the empty bamboo is viewed horizontally, it is two symmetrical semicircles, it is actually very similar to the two wings of a butterfly, so the use of empty bamboo in "Butterfly" is given the image of a butterfly. And when the actor shakes it up, it also flies up and down, around the actor, like a butterfly flying around, with such an external phenomenon, you can express the content related to butterflies in the plot. In addition, the empty bamboo is actually the clue and coherence of the entire repertoire, which appears at the beginning of the program and in the middle, and also appears in the scene where Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai read together in this academy. (In the play) there is a scene of four people performing empty bamboo, a long line means that the two people are 'a thousand miles of marriage and a line of pulling', and the empty bamboo is also constantly flying up and down and dancing on the long rope, both the meaning of the butterfly and the emotional exchange between the two people. ”
Screenwriter Yu Rongjun once said that "Hua Di" uses the traditional Chinese narrative method to trigger the audience's philosophical thinking in telling love stories. In fact, in the attempt and transformation of the new form of "Hua Butterfly", Wei Baohua is also constantly exploring and thinking about the vocabulary of acrobatic dramas. From acrobatic ballet to acrobatic dance drama, he constantly stepped out of his acting comfort zone.
C Pursuit
Keep practicing, keep thinking
"Virtue and art double Xin" is always on the road
Although he has been in the industry for many years, Wei Baohua said that before every time he appears on the stage, he will still be nervous in addition to excitement. This tension stems from both the certain dangers of acrobatics themselves and the "ten years offstage" attribute of acrobatics. In order to successfully complete each performance, Wei Baohua still had to maintain training every day. "One minute on stage, ten years offstage." With age, objectively speaking, the physical state is going downhill, so the older you get, the higher the requirements for acrobatics to maintain training. In addition, every performance requires 100% input from the actors, so before each performance, there is actually both excitement and tension. ”
Today, Wei Baohua, who is the deputy dean of the Dance Academy of Xinghai Conservatory of Music, not only devotes himself to performances, but also devotes his energy to thinking about acrobatic education. In his view, the long-term development of acrobatics needs the support of higher education. "For example, the education system and teaching methods of dance have changed greatly, and master's and doctoral degrees have been established, which provides a foundation for the development of dance, and can also continuously export talents in dance." However, the tradition of acrobatics for thousands of years has always been that of masters and apprentices, and it is still a middle authoritarian education system. If acrobatics want to develop in the long run, we must pay attention to education, especially higher education, and acrobatics also need to have excellent teachers and choreographers, so that there can be a virtuous circle. ”
In 2022, Wei Baohua won the title of "The Fifth National Young and Middle-Aged Moral and Artistic Shuangxin Literary and Art Workers". He believes that virtue and art shuangxin "is not just a title", but also a goal that he always needs to pursue. "I feel very honored to receive such a high honor, and at the same time I feel that I have not done enough in this regard, and I still have to continue to work hard, virtue and art are a goal, and we must continue to pursue it."
As a senior in the industry, he hopes that young acrobats will not only learn professional knowledge and professional skills, but also constantly enrich themselves and learn more cultural knowledge. "Wu Zhengdan and I are still active on the stage, and we also hope to be able to give a sample to young acrobats, for acrobats, age is not a restriction." The key factor that determines whether he can perform on stage is not age, but ability and professional level, artistic level. ”
Written by: Nandu reporter Lin Wenqi intern Chen Peihan