In September 2023, Bai Yongcheng, a national first-class actor and famous director, will work at Shenzhen University as the main teacher of the 2020 Performance Class 2. After coming into contact with more than 20 students in the class, he boldly created a new stage play for the students with cross-border, innovative, original and breakthrough ideas. In this context, the graduation drama of Class 2 of the 2020 Performance Department jointly created and rehearsed by the School of Drama, Film and Television of the Faculty of Arts of Shenzhen University and the ** Dance School - the large-scale song and dance drama "Flower Tears" was launched in full swing. It is reported that the play will be staged from December 16th to 21st in the black box theater on the first floor of Huide Building (formerly Block B of Teachers College) on the Guangdong Campus of Shenzhen University.
National first-class actor and famous director Bai Yongcheng (middle).
In order to carefully prepare for the play, director Bai Yongcheng urgently organized the poetry editor of Shanghai Literature Magazine and the famous screenwriter Liu Yuan, who has many film and television drama works, to write the music, the famous composer, member of the Sound Working Committee of the China Film Association, and the doctoral director of Shanghai ** College, Chen Ming, the vice chairman of the Shenzhen Dancers Association, and Duncan, a member of the China ** Drama Association, to guide the choreography, Zhang Chunli, an associate professor of Shenzhen University, to serve as language instructors, and Zhang Yang and Yang Yang, teachers of Shenzhen University, served as stage and vocal instructors respectively. With such a strong creative team, Bai Yongcheng personally served as the director, leading all the students of Class 2 of the 2020 Performance Department of the School of Drama, Film and Television of the Faculty of Arts of Shenzhen University to star, and some students of the 2022 Class of Dance Choreography Department of the ** School of Dance were the main dancers. The performance scene of the play is grand, the narrative structure is novel, and the cross-border integration of dance, drama, film and television reassembles the "modern" fragments of Shanghai in the last century, and the "city that never sleeps" is presented again. In a trance, the clothes and shadows are fragrant, and it seems that the years have gone backwards. What's more worth mentioning is that the LED design makes the stage beautiful, and several original songs composed by Bai Yongcheng and composed by Chen Ming and Liu Yang are presented for the first time, allowing the audience to be completely immersed in the artistic feast of hearing, vision and feeling.
The play shows the ill-fated story of Zhou Xuan, the "queen" of both the early Chinese film and music circles, and tells the story of a ** woman's experience from the age of love to the withering of flowers. From growth, fame to the family, friendship, love and human relations behind success, the play presents not only beauty, but also the joy of success and the tearing of emotional changes. The protagonist is a generation of actresses, a representative of early Chinese films, and a godmother of Chinese pop, she sang "Song of the Four Seasons" and "Tianya Singer" and other movie episodes have been loved and sung to this day, and many popular songs such as "He Rijun Comes Again" sung by international Chinese song star Teresa Teng and others are from her original song.
The large-scale song and dance drama "Flower Tears" embodies the development of a generation of actresses from the age of 16 to 28, and they have nothing to do with the ups and downs of their subsequent lives. In the play, a nostalgic way is reproduced, with a variety of new stage elements such as drama, song and dance, and many **, a large number of wonderful songs and dances and movie clips are displayed, showing the life of the actress and the image of the stage screen, and interpreting the two emotional entanglements between the actress and her first husband and his adoptive father's son.
As a graduation work rehearsed for the students of the acting department of Shenzhen University, to be honest, this play is too difficult, because it is not only a drama, but also professional singers and dancers. As a director, in fact, as long as I sincerely express my thoughts and judgments, and add a little hope, it should be fine. Through this play, I realized what Golotovsky said: 'Without enough experience and love for art, the art of the whole world cannot be art.' Only a work of art that is presented with a soul can be called a work, and it must resonate with the audience. Bai Yongcheng said.
The rehearsal and creation of the whole play follows the aesthetic principle of "simplicity and extreme blending", and makes full use of the "presumptional" principle of the stage whether it is the stage presentation or the performance of the actors. "The performances of the actors' lines and singing parts pursue life-like but not film and television drama-style 'realistic' performances, and I want the audience to see 'concise, restrained, and simple' performances. "Flower Tears" is a story that once went through the sea. Bai Yongcheng said.
Bai Yongcheng, a national first-class actor and famous director.
*Courtesy of Shenzhen University).
Editor: Wen Jing, review: Wu Jianlin, second trial, Gui Tong, third trial, Gan Lin.
Author: Jiao Ziyu, chief reporter of Shenzhen Special Zone Daily).