From February 2nd to 3rd, as the closing station of the Lunar New Year to give back to his hometown, the large-scale original dance drama "Xi Shi" was staged at the Xishi Grand Theater in Zhuji. From the premiere in Hangzhou to the national tour, "Xi Shi", which "a song of raccoon yarn finally parted, and the broken cable went to the family and country", finally returned to his hometown.
In June 2023, the dance drama "Xi Shi" won 96 in its premiere in Hangzhou41% attendance. After repeated polishing and rehearsals, the national tour will be launched in January 2024, and so far, it has successfully toured to 5 places including Anhui, Jinhua, Hubei, and Yangzhou, with a total of 10 performances. At present, the play ranks No. in the comprehensive hot list of Maoyan performance list2。
Before the premiere in Hangzhou, the dance drama "Xi Shi" held a press conference, and Hangzhou ** made a relevant report with the title of "The original dance drama Xi Shi is about to premiere in Hangzhou, and the heroine danced in the G20 Hangzhou Summit theatrical performance"; Qianjiang Evening News interprets the ...... with the title of "Yang Liping stands on the platform, watching the dance drama Xi Shi and how to represent a city".
A drama endorses a city, what are the highlights of the dance drama "Xi Shi"?
Aspect 1:starred in Shih TzuYesXu Mengdi
Do you still remember the "Lotus Gui Girl" at the closing ceremony of the 19th Hangzhou Asian Games in 2023? "Lotus Gui Girl" uses a typical "Jiangnan" image, dancing lightly and leaping over the audience. It grabbed the attention of the audience and received bursts of applause and cheers. She is Xu Mengdi, the chief actor and deputy head of the Hangzhou Opera and Dance Theater, and the starring role of "Xi Shi" at Zhuji Station.
Performed in the dance drama "Xi Shi".This is not the first time Xu Mengdi has played the role of "Xi Shi", as early as 2020, in the 12th Chinese Dance "Lotus Award" Classical Dance Awards, Xu Mengdi performed "Xi Shi Biyue" and won the "Lotus Award".
And the lotus and the Shih Tzu have the same concept.
Li Bai has a poem "Yong Lai Luo Mountain", "Xi Shi Yue Xi girl, from Lai Luo Mountain. The beautiful color covers the present and the ancient, and the lotus flower is shy and jade. Huansha makes the blue water, and it is idle ...... with the clear wavesXi Shi, whose real name is Shi Yiguang, was born in Zhuji Ramie Village on the twenty-fourth day of the sixth month of the lunar calendar, and has been with his mother Huansha Riverside since childhood, so he is also known as "Huansha Girl". Legend has it that more than 2,000 years ago, on the day Xi Shi Yuan married Wu Guo, the villagers lit countless lotus lanterns on both sides of the Huansha River to pray for Xi Shi Niangniang. Later, in order to praise the beauty of Xi Shi and the quality of "unstained out of the mud", the people worshiped her as the "lotus goddess". To this day, the people of Zhuji still follow this tradition and commemorate the birth of Xi Shi in their own way.
These days, the classic dance segment of "Xi Shi" performed by Xu Mengdi has also frequently appeared in the circle on major social platforms, gaining more than 100,000 "Xi Shi" fans.
Aspect 2:Art directionYesYang Liping
At the press conference on May 21, 2023, the famous dancer Yang Liping was hired as a cultural and artistic consultant of Zhuji City. "If you've seen my dance drama and come back to see it, it's going to be a completely different experience. Yang Liping said that the biggest surprise that "Xi Shi" gave her was a kind of "break", "From the perspective of young people, a new interpretation of classic IP has been completed, allowing us to see the power of modern women in Xi Shi, a traditional character." ”
There is ** to use "virtual and real interaction, double-line narrative is a major feature of the play" to express the perception of the premiere.
The dance drama "Xi Shi" uses traditional stories as the background to explore the modern significance of Xi Shi, a classical character. In the first half hour, some viewers may not understand it very well, but at a certain point they will gradually "have an epiphany", it turns out that "Xi Shi" has created two layers of illusion for the audience, one is Xi Shi's fantasy of love, and the other is the illusion of drunken gold fans created by Gou Jian for the great cause of recovering the country.
These two layers of illusion are presented through an inverted stage set, whether it is pavilions, mountains and ships, they are all hung upside down in the air, presenting a group of mirrors, flowers and moons, which not only makes the audience feel an ethereal feeling that there is no water here than there is water, but also a kind of resonance of ideals shining into reality. Xu Dingwei, the stage designer of the play, said that the interaction between virtual and real and the double-line narrative are the "ingenuity" of the play in the stage presentation.
* It also uses "Compared with traditional dance dramas, "Xi Shi" pays special attention to the expression of oriental minimalist aesthetics, and tries its best to combine oriental elegance with modern minimalism in both dance sections and stage design" to express the perception. Wang Taorui, the chief choreographer of the play, said that "Xi Shi" is a dance drama that attaches great importance to the expression of oriental minimalist aesthetics, whether it is in the design of dance sections or stage art, it will abandon the traditional and stereotyped form of "beauty", combine oriental elegance with modern minimalism, and leave enough space for the audience to recreate and imagine the characters.
Dance is an art form of the Chinese nation, respect for the local culture, with the body language of dance to express a side of the water and soil, this is the spirit I want to convey to the younger generation, this is a kind of enlightenment, local culture and dance art should be symbiotic creation, endless. Yang Liping said.
Aspect 3: YesDistinctive, storytellingCity IP
In fact, before the touring version of the dance drama "Xi Shi", from October 2022, the resident performance show "Dream of Xi Shi" staged in Xi Shi's hometown scenic spot has been performed more than 200 times until June 2023.
We have been exploring the mode of residency + tour, and we also hope that in this way, people who walk into the city can intuitively experience the local culture through a drama, and at the same time, in the way of going out with a drama, so that every city outside can deeply feel the culture of the city we promote. Xie Qiong, executive director of Hangzhou Hongyi Image Cultural Tourism Development, chief planner and chief producer of the dance drama "Xi Shi", said.
The dance drama "Xi Shi" is jointly produced by Zhuji Cultural Tourism Group and Hangzhou Hongyi Imaging Cultural Tourism Development, which is a new work created by a national team with the background of ancient Yue culture and Xi Shi culture after the large-scale original immersive stage play "Dream of Xi Shi".
In terms of dance design, the audience can not only see the "Bang Bang Dance", which has been lost for more than 2,000 years and was pioneered by Xi Shi and the earliest tap dance in China, but also can enjoy the "boat fist" elements in Wu Yue culture.
In addition, Yang Donglin and Jia Lei, the costume designers of the play, said that the costumes in the play are selected from the traditional Chinese colors of the costumes, the strong rouge and vermilion in the clog dance, the stone blue on Zheng Dan's body, and the nude and green colors on the lantern dancers.
Xi Shi is presented in the form of a dance drama, which may also be a "first experience" for hometown audiences. "Is the dance drama "Xi Shi" also a classic 'broken cable' story? "How will the momentum of "Three Thousand Yuejia Swallow Wu" be interpreted? "What are the highlights of the sisterhood between Xi Shi and his best friend Zheng Dan? "A series of questions have filled the expectations of the audience in Zhuji.
We hope that every hometown audience will have the opportunity to enter the theater to watch the dance drama "Xi Shi", feel the female power of Xi Shi in the world, and make the feelings of family and country that always keep the original intention become a kind of resonance. Xie Qiong said that just like the dance drama "Xi Shi" wants to convey: from Zhuji culture, let the spirit of Xi Shi come to life. (Zhu Xia, Fu Yanbin, Xu Chenchen, Zhou Qihan).
Editor: Zhu Xia.