Dressed in brocade clothes and Hanfu, through the millennium of prosperity, the ancient buildings talk and laugh, reluctant to part, and dance......
When the twilight is on and the lights are on, the immersive drama "Huizhou Mansion is Happy" is staged in the ancient city of Huizhou.
As a national historical and cultural city, She County, Huangshan City, Anhui Province has rich historical and cultural heritage and unique regional cultural characteristics, and is an important birthplace of Hui culture. In the meantime, the most famous is the ancient city of Huizhou, which is known as the most well-preserved "four ancient cities" in mainland China along with Pingyao in Shanxi, Lijiang in Yunnan and Langzhong in Sichuan.
Taking advantage of the immersive performance, "Huizhou Mansion Happiness" takes the ancient city of Huizhou as the performance scene, takes the history and folk tales of Huizhou as the background, and skillfully integrates Huizhou elements, leading the renewal and upgrading of the ancient city scenic spots, while also making a successful practice of cultural and tourism integration for the upgrading of the ancient city's sightseeing tour to interactive tourism, attracting many young tourists to come to check in.
Take the ancient city as a space, immerse yourself in the performance, and rejuvenate the business format
Founded in the Qin Dynasty, the ancient city of Huizhou has been the seat of Hui County, Prefecture and Prefecture since the Tang Dynasty, and is famous for its unique Hui architectural style and profound cultural heritage.
In the ancient city, many well-preserved white walls and black tiles, horse-head walls and exquisite wood carved window grilles reflect the prosperity and glory of the ancient Hui merchants, like a magnificent historical museum.
"Huizhou Mansion is Happy" is based on the internal space of the ancient city of Huizhou Mansion as the stage, moving to the scene, the antique physical buildings and immersive performances allow the audience to integrate into the story, perceive the plot change, and at the same time, you can also deeply experience the breadth and profundity of Huizhou culture.
"It's amazing how immersive you feel." Liu Sucheng, a tourist from Hangzhou, Zhejiang, said that as a marching immersive performance, they are almost "zero distance" from the actors, and many tourists who wear Hanfu and walk into the palace to watch the drama sometimes feel that they are spectators, and sometimes they become actors.
In 2009, the Huizhou Mansion was restored on the original site in accordance with the building regulations of the Ming Hongzhi period (1488-1505). At that time, the restored Huizhou Mansion became a representative and shocking ancient building complex in the mainland, and was known as the "Huizhou Forbidden City".
Complementing the original architecture is the indispensable cultural implantation in the Hui architecture. There are nearly 20 pairs of couplets and plaques in the east building, the south building, the Yimen, the main hall, the second hall, the prefect's house, the county garden, etc., which demonstrate the simple feelings of the ancient sages in enforcing the law fairly, being virtuous and benevolent.
It can be said that the ancient city of Huizhou, together with the government office, not only witnessed the historical changes of Huizhou, but also used externalized architectural forms to express Huizhou culture concretely. Since its reconstruction, the ancient city has attracted a large number of Chinese and foreign tourists, and with the immersive performance of "Huizhou Mansion Happiness" and the Hanfu experience, the tourist group of the ancient city of Huizhou has become younger.
From the perspective of the effect of the current performance to empower cultural tourism, "Huizhou Mansion Youxi" on the one hand inherits, promotes and innovates the excellent traditional Chinese culture represented by Huizhou culture, creates a new cultural tourism IP, and on the other hand, it also forms a realistic footnote for She County to scientifically protect the architecture of the ancient city of Huizhou and empower the cultural tourism industry.
Huizhou Ancient City Mansion. Photo courtesy of the Propaganda Department of Shexian County Party Committee
Aerial photography of the ancient city of Huizhou in She County. Source: Anhui Cultural Tourism (Source: Photographer Wang Limei)
With the pursuit of novelty, diversified integration adds to the fun of sightseeing
Some tourists said that the play "Huizhou Mansion is Happy", while telling the story of Huizhou, provides tourists with a diversified cultural and tourism experience, and cultivates a new growth point in the ancient city tourism market.
In the view of Chen Lei, the director of "Huizhou Mansion Youxi", this is the charm effect of Huizhou culture and local stories themselves. "Relying on the performance, we have also created an immersive night tour of Huizhou Mansion, which is committed to allowing tourists to integrate and experience the ancient city, architecture and culture themselves, so that tourists can see and swim in new ideas."
"Huizhou Mansion is Happy". Photo courtesy of the Propaganda Department of Shexian County Party Committee
Interestingly, before watching the drama "Huizhou Mansion Youxi", tourists need to change into costumes and walk into the story in person.
According to Chen Lei, when watching the performance, the identity of the tourists is not only the audience, but also a member of a family group who plays a certain protagonist, and the protagonist often interacts with the audience at zero distance, adding to the fun of watching tourists and having a sense of experience.
In order to better display Huizhou culture, the main creator of the drama also processed and created a series of Huizhou elements such as Huizhou wine brewing and Huizhou opera, and skillfully integrated them into the whole performance, making the audience refreshed. "We have integrated Hui Opera into this work, and created a new piece of Hui Opera, and the whole work has a new interpretation." Meng Cheng, the chief planner of the performance of "Huizhou Mansion is Happy", said.
Nowadays, the IP effect of "Huizhou Mansion Youxi" continues to expand, and has become an important driving force for tourists to stay, stay and promote the development of the night economy of the ancient city.
While "Huizhou Mansion Youxi" attracted tourists, Chen Lei and his team also started a cultural and creative market, and started a fish fun hall and · old man coffee in Yanghe Gate City Tower.
Nowadays, the millennium city overlooks the scenery and flow of people in the ancient city, has a cup of old man coffee, and feels the passage of time has become a check-in place in the ancient city of Huizhou, which not only revitalizes the silent ancient buildings, but also allows people in a hurry to stop and quietly enjoy the cultural charm of the ancient city.
Every nightfall, a light and shadow show integrating three-dimensional, three-dimensional, sound and light makes the simple and quiet ancient city of Huizhou romantic and charming. Citizens and tourists walked into the Huizhou Mansion with the lights, and felt the bustle and prosperity of the ancient festival market in the "Flower Moon Banquet" market carefully set up by the theater.
Old man coffee. Photo by Zhang Yusheng
Immersive and interactive night tours. Photo courtesy of the Propaganda Department of Shexian County Party Committee
Ancient Huizhou night tour intangible cultural heritage bazaar. Photo courtesy of the Propaganda Department of Shexian County Party Committee
With culture as the background, the integration of culture and tourism tells the story of Huizhou
In recent years, major scenic spots have launched new immersive performance projects, which is a visible change in the tourism market, and "watching the scenery during the day and watching the drama at night" has gradually become the norm for tourists. And a high-quality immersive cultural tourism live drama can become a popular IP of the scenic spot and extend more value.
If you take advantage of the moonlight to walk through the old street full of historical traces in front of the palace, it is as if you have traveled through time and space and have a silent dialogue with the ancient city. The real-life NPCs dressed in ancient costumes add a sense of history and make the integration of culture and tourism more profound.
Crowds in the bazaar. Source: Douyin Awei
Dressed in gorgeous ladies and holding a light fan, the dancers danced and danced lightly, attracting many tourists to stop.
Outside the market, "Li Bai", dressed in white, stands under the antique lanterns, with fluttering sleeves and extraordinary atmosphere, and between the poetic dialogues, it seems that "the embroidery mouth is spitting, it is half of the Tang Dynasty" under the Huizhou cultural context and history surging.
Playing "Li Bai" is Wang Zijun, a resident actor in the performance team of "Huizhou Mansion", who has loved acting since he was a child, and when he grew up, he also studied acting in college for four years. After graduation, he and some like-minded friends such as Chen Lei and Jiang Guangyu formed this performance group.
Wang Zijun said that the reason why he chose to perform is to use what he has learned to show the profound local Hui culture and customs to more audiences.
During this year's Dragon Boat Festival, Chen Fei, a post-00 Chizhou tourist, and his friends conducted a complete immersive night tour of Huizhou Mansion in the ancient city of Huizhou. She said: "The presence of real NPCs everywhere makes the tour more lively and interesting, especially after the deep interaction, and the mental pleasure makes me feel especially valuable." ”
One day in May, Guillermo and Tania, a couple from Mexico, visited the ancient city of Huizhou at night and were attracted by the sitcom "Huizhou Mansion Youxi". "We like this ancient city of Huizhou very much, and the repertoire is also very vivid, and we are very happy to see the traditional Chinese regional culture." They said happily.
Mexico couple Guillermo and Tania pose for a photo with the actors. Photo by Zhang Yusheng
From fanning the domestic Generation Z to amazing foreign friends with the heritage of Huizhou culture, the actors of the "Huizhou Mansion Youxi" team spread Huizhou culture in a way that young people love, injecting new vitality into the inheritance, development and dissemination of Huizhou culture.
"We don't do Huizhou culture itself, Huizhou cultural heritage is deep and heavy, we don't have the ability and qualification to say clearly", Chen Lei said, the officials who come and go are also part of the story of Huizhou, we only do people who read Huizhou, I hope that the thousands of weather and subtle tenderness of Huizhou culture can be known through the story.
"Huizhou Mansion is Happy" cultural creativity. Photo by Zhang Yusheng
At present, the city's cultural tourism is unrestrained, and for famous historical and cultural cities, only by fully excavating and presenting the "cultural flavor" can it really go to people's hearts.
The organic renewal of the ancient city of Huizhou and the immersive performing arts practice that beats the heart of fashion are the most vivid footnotes to this sentence. Facing the blossoming tourism market, the performance of "Huizhou Mansion is Happy" has expanded the new scene of cultural tourism consumption, and provided a boost for the integration of culture and tourism for the ancient city of Huizhou to leap from sightseeing tours to interactive tours.
"Culture is the soul and blood of a city, and it is a far-reaching and enduring force in the process of prosperity and development." As the management team of "Huizhou Mansion is Happy" said, the thick history of Huizhou is awe-inspiring, the story of Huizhou has never ended, it has been continued, and "Huizhou Mansion is Happy" is still the part that continues to be written.
Starting from Huizhou culture and embracing the new form that is pleasing to the eye, the integration of She County culture and tourism will also be more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.
Source: China-Singapore Anhui Affairs