2024 beijing cultural forum | beijing's theatre stage is full of vitality through integration and collision
2024-09-20
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in 2023, theaters across the country will be fully reopened. theatrical performances by mainstream national theater groups will lead to the recovery of the domestic theater market in beijing first, and international theater people will once again turn their attention to china and beijing. in 2024, the bright light on the stage of beijing will shine again.
the vitality of a city is inseparable from its cultural charm, and the flourishing of drama makes a city's cultural business card more eye-catching. as the capital, beijing has the best drama creation and drama talents in the country, as well as the highest quality drama audience. this has jointly created the prosperity of the beijing stage - it is not only an important benchmark for the development level of drama in the country, but also an important venue for the exchange of world drama frontiers. there are not only local chinese operas and folk art, but also various local operas, musicals that are popular all over the world, and dramas with different styles from mainstream and cutting-edge directors in the world. the long-standing openness and diversity have made beijing's drama stage never belong to beijing alone. it is also a window to chinese and even world drama.
in august 2024, the beijing international performing arts expo was held. performing arts industry practitioners from 9 countries, 27 performing arts groups across the country, and 84 chinese and foreign performing arts institutions gathered in beijing to discuss "bringing in and going out", bringing more diverse perspectives and opportunities for world drama to enter china and for chinese drama to be disseminated abroad.
bring it in
when musicals exude the connotation of traditional chinese culture
"bringing in" is the only way for drama exchanges and mutual learning, and continuous innovation, and it is also the key to giving new life to ancient traditions. there is no doubt that beijing is a city with a rich historical heritage. in 2024, the beijing central axis was successfully listed as a world heritage site, making this 7.8-kilometer-long city axis located in the center of beijing's old city and with the style of an imperial city shine in the world. while we marvel at the breadth and depth of ancient civilization, allowing modern people to obtain artistic nourishment from the collision of tradition and modernity is also the key to giving this ancient central axis greater vitality.
in this time-traveling architectural complex, there are many performance spaces of various shapes and gradually formed patterns. among these spaces, the beijing tianqiao art center, as a pioneer in "bringing in", must be mentioned first. since its opening in 2015, it has been based on an international perspective and committed to improving the aesthetic taste of the beijing public, which makes it an important performing arts space active on the south central axis. in the process of cultivating and developing the musical market, it has an inestimable benchmark significance.
in 2024, the "tianqiao international musical show" at beijing tianqiao art center kicked off. with the successive appearance of 9 foreign musicals and 7 chinese musicals, the east and the west borrow from each other, and tradition and modernity penetrate each other. in addition to popular foreign musicals such as "the phantom of the opera", "school of rock", "rock mozart", "notre dame de paris", and "mamma mia!", which have already captured chinese audiences and are being introduced again, there are also german musicals such as "elizabeth" and "rebecca" that landed for the first time. what is even more gratifying is that chinese musicals that have been popular in recent years, such as "the orphan of zhao", "song of the wine", "no longer human", and "the south wall project", have also bloomed on this stage.
as an art form that integrates pop music, song and dance, and drama, musicals emerged and matured in europe and the united states in the last century, and have always occupied an important position on the world's commercial drama stage. this means that the introduction of western musicals is of great significance to the development of chinese musicals, both in terms of art and commercial operations.
in recent years, chinese musicals have developed rapidly. when fascinating drama stories are incorporated into the popular music model with a strong sense of fashion and modernity, more and more young audiences are entering the theater. in this "tianqiao international musical show", the musical "song of wine" about the tang dynasty poet li bai and the musical "the orphan of zhao" adapted from ji junxiang's yuan zaju are both dark horses of chinese original musicals in recent years. both have grasped the creative point of innovative transformation of chinese traditional culture. the former takes the growth process of young li bai as the starting point, replacing the distant poet li bai with a dream-chasing teenager who is in tune with today's young people; the latter uses the soul torture of the murdered son of cheng ying to enter the souls of cheng ying, tu'an jia, the orphan, gongsun chujiu, etc., which are bitten by contradictions, and sublimates an ancient story into a great tragedy about justice and kindness, and about choice. the two musicals, coincidentally, touch the aesthetics of young people in the spiritual expression of the story connotation, the musical melody and the stage performance methods, and stimulate their interest in chinese culture.
the author believes that, judging from the current development trend of original chinese musicals, using a model that conforms to the laws of musical creation to explore the people and events in traditional chinese history with modern and youthful concepts, combining them with fresh artistic forms of expression, and creating works with their own cultural connotations to show the world is the best path for the development and growth of original chinese musicals, and is also an important breakthrough point for it to face the world.
reinterpretation
world masterpieces from a chinese perspective
located in the middle of the central axis, the national grand theater has been playing an important leading role in beijing's drama since its opening in 2007. the national grand theater not only introduces various international stage works, but also is committed to spreading traditional chinese opera, creating original repertoires, and promoting the development of stage art and performance markets in beijing and even china with more diverse art forms. the "international theater season" held by the national grand theater for ten years is a rich and diverse theater platform for exchange and mutual learning.
the 2024 ncpa international theatre season is divided into four major sections: "see the world in beijing", "mime festival: wonderful", "musical: opening new voices", and "chinese theatre: chinese feelings". the power of chinese local artists occupies half of this "international theatre season". the opening dramas are hamlet (directed by chen xinyi) and a midsummer night's dream (directed by guan bo), which are produced by the ncpa and adapted from shakespeare's classic plays. they can be seen as chinese artists' re-expression and re-interpretation of world classics. the former enters hamlet's soul from the perspective of mr. zhu shenghao, the translator of the complete works of shakespeare's plays, who was in the war. the main structure of the drama is formed by the contrast of the two souls, which becomes a unique entry point for the adaptation of hamlet. the latter is a new attempt at performance space, which places the performance space in the outdoor forest, restores the forest scene of a midsummer night's dream in shakespeare's original work, dissolves the boundary between the audience and the actors, and gives the audience a different feeling.
in this drama season, in addition to the interpretation of western classics by chinese creators, there are also reproductions of western contemporary masterpieces. the play "father" (written by florian zeller and directed by jiang weiguo), produced by shanghai drama art center and adapted from the best script of the french molière drama award in 2014, is such a work. the play tells the daily life of a father with alzheimer's disease and his daughter and the people around him. the father is "trapped" by time, which is reflected in his loss of control of memory and confusion about time. the disease makes him fall into a huge sense of loneliness, confusion and powerlessness. with the subtle changes that occur on the stage, the life of an old man withers step by step under the passage of time, which is performed in a suffocating way.
the ncpa international drama season has also made some contributions to enhancing the artistic energy of chinese local drama. in this drama season, whether it is the all-male "camel xiangzi" directed by fang xu, which is dedicated to the dramatization of lao she's novel, or the performance of traditional old dramas such as "da · tan · er", "picking the pulley" and "fenhe bay", they all tell the world that the absorption of the essence of the national culture and the creation of modernization are the key to the future growth of chinese drama art.
go global
let eastern wisdom illuminate the west
in the 2024 national grand theater international theater season, the youth version of the peony pavilion will be staged again 20 years after its premiere. the play was fully promoted by mr. pai xianyong and became a phenomenal work that triggered the revival of kunqu opera in the 21st century. today, the inspiration that the youth version of the peony pavilion gave to opera artists in the operation positioning and promotion of kunqu opera is still worth thinking about. the charm of chinese opera is beyond doubt, but it still requires opera artists to work hard and "take the initiative."
since the 6th "theatre olympics" was held in beijing in 2014, more foreign dramas have entered china in the past ten years, causing a huge cultural "shock wave" inside and outside the theater circle. in comparison, the influence of chinese drama "going out" seems limited. on the one hand, this is related to the lack of familiarity with chinese drama culture overseas, and on the other hand, it is also related to the way chinese art troupes "go out" to spread and promote. activities that focus on simply displaying chinese culture are often difficult to penetrate into the local area and take into account the market. the author believes that the underlying logic for chinese drama to achieve a truly effective "going out" is to use artistic creation rooted in the national soil to arouse the resonance of others and to activate the excitement of aesthetics through the collision of eastern and western cultures.
in recent years, chinese dramatists have a deeper understanding of western drama festivals and are more and more consciously participating in them. chinese dramatists have begun to appear at world drama festivals such as the avignon festival and the edinburgh festival. at this year's 77th edinburgh fringe festival, the northern kunqu opera theater presented three "chinese stories" of different styles, "the legend of the white snake: broken bridge", "the story of the precious sword: night escape", and "the peony pavilion: garden tour". this approach has gotten rid of the old thinking of opera output for some time, and replaced it with the essence of the most chinese spiritual temperament and the essence of opera performance - the twists and turns of the human-fairy love in "the legend of the white snake", lin chong's generosity and sadness in "the story of the precious sword", and the love between du liniang and liu mengmei who came back to life in "the peony pavilion". the delicate singing, reciting, acting, and unique singing and dancing of kunqu opera make the emotions of the characters in the play more tearful. in addition to performances, the northern kun opera people also started to preach to the world with the theme of "let the world rediscover kunqu opera", so that the connotation of chinese kunqu opera can truly enter people's hearts.
what kind of motivation should kunqu opera have for "going global" today? this is something we need to think about. i think that a one-way display is by no means the only purpose, but to let the world feel the most profound spiritual connotation of chinese kunqu opera, which includes both the common emotions that transcend time and space and belong to all mankind, and the hypothetical expressions that can trigger imagination in the stage space. in other words, the ultimate goal is to let eastern wisdom illuminate the west and make opera a place where drama people around the world can realize spiritual carnival together.
drama can connect people of different nationalities and languages, through the charm of comprehensive arts and the expressiveness of non-verbal body art. chinese director zhao miao has been very active in the off unit of the avignon theater festival in france. since the establishment of the santuoqi theater in 1996, he has been committed to the creation of physical drama, initially influenced by the french physical drama master jacques lecoq. however, with the practice of a series of works, zhao miao has become more and more aware that chinese opera is a huge treasure that can be learned from. the routine of opera, the spatial expressiveness of painting scenery with the body, the sculptural sense of the body, and the aesthetic spirit of the combination of virtual and real on the stage have all become the fulcrum for his further exploration of physical drama.
last year, zhao miao adapted brecht's 1939 play mother courage and her children, and performed it in the off section of the avignon theater festival in july this year. this work has become a true fusion of eastern and western cultures. brecht's narrative drama is well known to the world, and zhao miao uses the concept of physical drama to incorporate eastern drama vocabulary such as chinese opera, folk dance, and chinese nuo opera into it, making people think about the suffering brought by war.
new concept
from the surface of form to the essence of art
because of its status as the national cultural center and the integration of beijing, tianjin and hebei, beijing is now driving the theater ecology and cultural tourism formats of surrounding cities to change quietly. among them, langfang, hebei has become a new area of theater, culture and tourism that deserves attention. in march 2024, the "world theater day ceremony" will be held at langfang's new cultural landmark - dream langfang international theater park.
the immersive drama theme space "only dream of red mansions·drama fantasy city" located in the dream langfang international drama park has also become a symbolic work of "immersive drama". director wang chaoge built it into a drama community consisting of 4 large indoor theaters, 8 small indoor theaters, 12 situation corridors, and 108 situation spaces and outdoor theaters. when the audience enters this unique space, they will find that the classical garden "flies" into the sky, the red walls and gray tiles do not follow the usual architectural rules, the corridors may suddenly break, and the eaves and palaces may stand on cliffs where they should not appear. the unconventional space gives the "intruders" a magical feeling of entering a dream.
what is the concept of the great chinese classical novel "dream of red mansions" in modern people's minds? what might it be like? when different spatial forms meet the multi-dimensional interpretation of "dream of red mansions", its connection point with the public is generated. different spatial forms such as proscenium stage, water stage, bed theater, multi-space marching theater, etc. will produce different ways of viewing and performing, and the spatial form and content can also correspond: for example, in the drama theater "i don't like dream of red mansions", the stage can be viewed in 360 degrees, which corresponds to the positive and negative views of various people in the play on "dream of red mansions". the audience standing in the center of the field is also part of the discussion. the three-dimensional viewing method points to the openness of the drama, tearing apart the different levels of respect, recognition, and questioning of the contemporary audience for the classic "dream of red mansions", making us realize that in modern society, the way classics connect with everyone is no longer just one dimension.
the concept of "immersive drama" originated in the uk. it breaks the traditional way of watching dramas, where "actors are on stage and audiences are off stage". actors move in different performance spaces, and audiences can freely choose where they want to go and what characters they want to follow, or even participate in the drama, and experience different plots from different perspectives. in 2016, the world-famous immersive drama "sleepless night" was staged in shanghai, marking the beginning of chinese people's understanding of immersive drama.
in recent years, the rise of new performing arts spaces and the endless stream of works under the name of "immersive drama" have triggered a wave of popularity among creators and audiences. combining drama culture with tourism has activated the imagination of drama people and seems to have activated the cultural sentiments of people from all walks of life. however, if the understanding of "immersive drama" only stays on the surface of "space" and the passive viewing of the audience, and fails to create new possibilities and the pleasure of free choice for the audience through effective participation and interaction, such "immersive drama" may have nothing to do with immersion. the essence of immersive drama is to completely subvert the inherent viewing mode, let the audience deeply immersed in the drama situation, and the actors and the audience jointly create a work. the influx of dramas named "immersive" is undoubtedly a kind of ignorant and fearless blind obedience, and it is also a harm to the artistry of drama.
drama has no borders. its charm lies in the fact that all drama lovers can revel, empathize and appreciate each other in the same venue. drama beijing is also borderless. therefore, when the images of the world's outstanding drama works are projected in theaters and cinemas all over beijing, we are happy; when beijing people's art theater announced that the international drama invitational exhibition will be resumed and upgraded this year, we are happy; when the beijing international shadow puppet art week, which has been held for the seventh time, can finally allow the audience to watch shadow puppet plays from all over the world offline, we are happy; when the beijing international youth theater festival ushered in its 17th year and is still full of vitality, we are happy.
