“Yangjialing Spring” stills.
Photo courtesy of the National Center for the Performing Arts
The play uses dance vocabulary to present black and white prints, combines the tough and firm lines of the prints with the charm and style of folk dances, and makes the prints “flow” through dynamic dance postures, highlighting the feelings of revolutionary romanticism
As the opening performance of the first “Looking at Beijing” exhibition season, the original dance poetry drama “Spring in Yangjialing” was broadcast online recently.
The play uses the woodcut prints of Yan’an in northern Shaanxi as the narrative clue, looking back at the story of artists who went deep into the lives of the people and created art more than 80 years ago. “Spring in Yangjialing” unfolds from the three chapters of “Thick Soil”, “Dawn” and “Eternal Life” with romantic and poetic touches, and concisely and affectionately records a group of artists, musicians, writers, and dancers who arrived in Yan’an. The transformation of thought and emotion has completed the lyrical freehand brushwork of a period of revolutionary history.
Yan’an woodblock prints are treasures of Chinese art. The play uses dance vocabulary to present black and white prints such as “Here Comes the Eighth Route Army”, “When the Enemy Searches for the Mountain”, “Dou Xuan” and other black and white prints. “Flow” up. Many plots are derived from prints. For example, the group dance “Drought Resistance” in the first act is a moving reproduction of Gu Yuan’s print “Drought Resistance” created in 1943.
The stage is set up with a double space, combining close-up and long-range, individual and group portraits, vividly restoring the labor scenes of artists and common people carrying water and fighting drought together. In particular, the dance language of “Zhan” vividly portrays the typical labor scene of “carrying a pole”, and the cheerful and solid dance steps let the people’s life experience naturally reveal, which is impressive. In the simple and enthusiastic scenes of Yangko in northern Shaanxi, and in the lively and playful atmosphere of shadow puppetry, the literary and artistic thought of “going deep into life and rooting in the people” blossomed and borne fruit in Yan’an.
In a limited space, “The Spring of Yangjialing” integrates a series of important cultural symbols into it extremely succinctly. The natural spring and the spring of Yan’an literature and art intertexture, the rough and straightforward folk customs of northern Shaanxi and the pure and romantic revolutionary spirit are the same structure, engraving the red history of Yan’an in the 1940s. In the spring of nature full of vitality, under the guidance of the spirit of “Speech at the Yan’an Forum on Literature and Art”, the artists actively participated in the creation of literature and art. At the end, the emotion of the whole drama is sublimated to a climax. The people’s nature of literature and art is highlighted: it is the life of ordinary working people in Yan’an that nourishes the literature and art workers, and it is also the artists who serve the country with sincerity that bring the prosperity of literature and art to the Yan’an revolutionary base.
The cheerful and lively gongs and drums, the rough and bold Yangko in northern Shaanxi and the waist drum in Ansai set off the strong regional customs of northern Shaanxi. The play demonstrates the feelings of revolutionary romanticism. The audience saw that the artists in the play realized a huge change in their thinking in Yan’an, and with the belief of serving the people wholeheartedly, they consciously devoted themselves to fiery life and revolutionary practice with pens as guns. At the end, the Yangko dance steps are deliberately slowed down, so that the flying red silk flutters in the theater in slow motion. The red Yangko fans confirmed the true background of their life in Yan’an. The dancing Ansai waist drum symbolizes the revolutionary passion of the artists from the bottom of their hearts. In the spring of Yangjialing, the seeds of revolution took root, germinated, opened branches and leaves, and bloomed ideal flowers.
The play not only brings the audience to relive an unforgettable red memory, but also inspires contemporary literary and art workers, inspiring everyone to stick to literary ideals, inherit the Yan’an spirit, continue to dedicate more and better spiritual food to the people, and write the new era of literary and artistic history. spring. (Cui Yifei)
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责编：杨帆 ]