Recently, 31 children, accompanied by their parents, walked into the theater of the Shanghai Oriental Art Center to watch the ** drama "Growl Wolf Howl", and applauded the wonderful performance of the young actors on stage. It turned out that these young audiences were all organized by the Shanghai Sunflower Community Children's Service Center, and they were all children who came to Shanghai with their parents who came to Shanghai to work.
With the successful conclusion of the ** drama "Wolf Howl", the 4 sets and 6 performances of the autumn and winter performance season of the Dongyi Children's Art Troupe have all ended, and 350 members of the troupe have competed in the four types of stage arts such as chorus, ballet, street dance, and ** drama, forming an artistic kaleidoscope, attracting nearly 3,000 audiences to watch. Dongyi continues to transform first-line performing arts resources into aesthetic education resources, and develops experience scenarios and practical classrooms for the "combination of culture and education" and "social aesthetic education".
According to the 2023 Shanghai Cultural and Educational Integration Project "Cultural and Art Venues 'Double Hundred' Construction Plan", the Oriental Art Center has become the on-site teaching practice base for cultural and art venues in 2023. In the autumn and winter rehearsals of the Children's Choir under the Dongyi Children's Art Troupe, conductor Deng Shuyang's "Multi-part Sight-Singing Training in Choral Rehearsals" was selected as the featured course of the online teaching practice base. Through innovative teaching methods, the course helps choir members to conduct multi-part sight-singing training in rehearsals, and improves their literacy and performance skills. Conductor Shen Jiali joined the autumn and winter rehearsals, which also injected new vitality into the choir. In addition, the choir members also had many encounters with famous artists in the East Arts: once again with the Vienna Boys' Choir, and face-to-face exchanges with the directors of the Tchaikovsky Academy, Alexander Sokolov, Marimba, and percussionist Qiao Feng.
During the autumn rehearsals, Dongyi Children's Ballet was taught by the Eifman Ballet in St. Petersburg, Russia, and had the opportunity to perform with Eifman Ballet's Anna Karenina and Ballet's Swan Lake. The members of the Dongyi Youth ** Troupe won the gold medal in the children's group B of the vocal group of the 2nd Paris ** Competition in France in 2024, and the gold medal in the children's group C of the 2nd Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Youth ** Week Vocal Competition.
The combination of culture and education is not only the improvement of skills, but also allows children to gain deep friendship in the time they spend together, and burst out the spark of artistic creation with their friends. In addition to the surprise links such as the self-recommendation program on stage and the return of the old members, at the performance site of "Coming to the Distance - Dongyi Children's Choir New Year's Meeting", the five choirs under the art troupe were on the same stage for the first time, and nearly 200 members sang "Fireworks in the City" together.
According to the relevant person in charge of Dongyi, Dongyi is committed to touching and infiltrating with beauty in the cultivation system of art education, and awakening the perception and pursuit of beauty with the immersive emotions of art present. In the next step, Dongyi Art Education will continue to expand the boundaries of stage and aesthetic education, connect society, families, and schools, and let art blossom in the hearts of more people.
Text: Cao Zhiguang.
Photo courtesy of Shanghai Oriental Art Center.
Editor: Zhu Shaoyu.
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