Home » The Forbidden City’s first children’s musical “Luduan” is not only a fairy tale, but also restores the real history_Xue Senyu_Dance Beauty_Culture

The Forbidden City’s first children’s musical “Luduan” is not only a fairy tale, but also restores the real history_Xue Senyu_Dance Beauty_Culture

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The Forbidden City’s first children’s musical “Luduan” is not only a fairy tale, but also restores the real history_Xue Senyu_Dance Beauty_Culture

Original title: The Forbidden City’s first children’s musical “Luduan” is not just a fairy tale, but also restores real history

From September 2 to 3, the Forbidden City’s first children’s musical “Luduan” officially opened to the audience. Based on the auspicious animal “Lu (lù) Duan” in the Forbidden City, the play tells a series of interesting and touching stories between the protagonist Xiao Luduan and members of his cultural relic family.

On the evening of September 2, the Central Opera House and the Forbidden City’s first children’s musical “Luduan” premiered.Photo by Beijing News reporter Pu Feng

The play selects from the collection of more than 1.86 million pieces (sets) in the Forbidden City, Ming Wanli cloisonné enamel Luduan aromatherapy, Jin Dynasty writer and calligrapher Lu Jicao Li calligraphy works Pingfu post, Southern Song Dynasty Shen Zifan’s Kesi plum and magpie map, Qing Qianlong Jin Mou Several precious cultural relics such as the Yonggu Cup are used as character prototypes.

The highlights of the play are frequent. The newly created nursery rhyme “The Ballad of the Forbidden City” has a melodious melody throughout the play. The costumes of the characters are full of creativity on the basis of traditional aesthetics. The story of science and technology and cultural heritage, such as 3D naked-eye technology and multimedia technology on the stage, make the Forbidden City glow with a sense of technology. Completed with rigorous standards, restoring the true history is the greatest responsibility to the next generation of children.”

During the performance, the dancing fairy-like butterfly who was born ten days ago said “year, age, what does it mean”, intending to trigger the audience’s short-lived thinking. Lao Gao, who is about to retire, the guardian of the Forbidden City, has not only adherence to his profession, but also a deep affection for his work, cultural relics and the Forbidden City, which also arouses some thoughts and enlightenments on the state of the transition period of retirement and life after retirement. .

It is reported that the children’s drama “Luduan” will launch a national tour in the future. Yan Hongbin, the chief planner of Luduan, said that he hoped that this family-friendly children’s play, which integrates taste, education, communication and cultural inheritance, can inspire children to learn more about cultural relics and take the initiative to understand the excellent traditional Chinese culture behind them. , and then fully absorb the valuable nutrients of this cultural treasure, integrate it, keep upright and innovate, and pass it on better, which is also in line with the beautiful theme “for children and grandchildren Yongbao” conveyed in the play.

Dialogue chief director Xue Senyu:

Unexpected box office, both shows sold out

Beijing News:How did the first performance end feel, and was it within expectations?

XueWoodsgiveWe learned that the two commercial performances on the afternoon and evening of September 3 have all been sold out. We are very surprised. It can be said that this kind of situation has hardly occurred in the Chinese children’s drama market in the past 20 years. Because the ticketing time for this performance is only one week, the launch time is also after the students start school, and several popular plays are also being performed during the same period, so there is not much expectation for the box office.

Beijing News: As a children’s drama, how to combine the elements of the Forbidden City with children’s preferences in the creation and arrangement of the show? What considerations were made in the construction of the story?

XueWoodsgiveIn the early stage of creation, the main creative team members and I hope to re-deconstruct the concept of children’s dramas. I think that a children’s drama only reflects children and is offensive to children. Today’s children live in an age of enormous information, their horizons are wider than when we were young, and their world is more open. Therefore, in the play, we should not just depict a world of colors, fairy tales and cuteness, but tell real stories, show real history, and reflect real changes.

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The world in this show is technological and modern, and at the same time it is ever-changing and full of openness. What we hope to give to the children through the repertoire should reflect the changes in the world in our aesthetics, and hope to retain the cultural spirit that has been passed down. Including the philosophical issues that are usually rarely discussed in children’s dramas in the script, and the discussion of time, life, and attitude towards life is deliberately included.

The actors come off the stage and interact with the audience.Photo by Beijing News reporter Pu Feng

One horizontal and one vertical construction of the ten thousand halls of the Forbidden City

The Beijing News: The stage beauty of the show is very distinctive, simple and atmospheric. A few beams and columns create the appearance of the Palace of the Forbidden City. How did you plan to consider this?

XueWoodsgiveThe choreography is very tormenting for us. What we got was a semi-proposition composition – the Forbidden City. What would you use to describe the Forbidden City on the stage? With screen and video? That can only be used as a supplement; to restore the complete pavilion palace of the Forbidden City? Don’t have that much budget. During the process, at least 20 or 30 creative drafts and line drafts were overturned, and we started talking about creativity from scratch. The last time the stage art design took out three drafts at the same time, I saw the draft of Zhu and Liang at a glance, and felt the direction of the stage art.

There will also be concerns in the design, whether a few simple beams and columns will not have enough fulcrums, giving the audience a feeling of space. But I think the first impression of the Forbidden City is that it is big. The theater is like a mirror frame. The stage is only so big, and there is enough space to show the characteristics of “big” to the greatest extent. At the same time, beams and columns are the crystallization of the wisdom of our ancestors. This simple horizontal and vertical structure can build ten thousand houses. The Forbidden City is too difficult to describe concretely. I think the most concise expression is the most figurative anatomy of the Forbidden City.

The Beijing News: In the middle one, the changes in the choreography combined with the music and lighting alone will bring great shock to the audience. How was this part conceived?

Xue Senyu:It was the first time for Gao Xiaoduan to enter the Forbidden City in the play. We started to make the pillars change in motion. That group of dynamics was the idea that came to my mind when I first saw the physical stage art in the theater. This is Gao Xiaoduan’s first glimpse into the Forbidden City, to show the majestic atmosphere of the Forbidden City. I chatted with the composition teacher for the first time, hoping to match a new piece of music under what kind of dynamic, and this piece of music is just one word “potential”, and the composition teacher was “crazy” because the time was tight at that time.

At first the column just translates, because the column has to be ground to have force. Later, I proposed that it could also move up and down, because high-rise buildings are called “flying pavilions” in ancient architecture, so the “flying” of columns is also in line with historical and cultural imagination. In particular, the vast Forbidden City complex is like “coming from the sky”. For the children standing in front of the Forbidden City, they are as tall as flying from the sky. I made up the dynamic of that scene for a day and a night, pulling all the people to rehearse. When the actors saw the final picture on TV in the rehearsal room, some people said they were shocked and shed tears.

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The high-end and small-end entering the palace route shown through imaging technology is also fully based. The front court of the Forbidden City is most imposing in the front court. The Science, Technology and Cultural Protection Department where Lao Gao is located is located in the northwest corner of the Forbidden City. Therefore, we need to go south along the Imperial Garden. All passed by. The red walls, eaves and other pictures that appear on the stage are also the scenes that you will see in sequence, and are by no means a simple stack of elements.

In the design of each step, we have made presets, hoping that when the audience actually goes to the Forbidden City, they will find that all the stage images are famous. This project started to warm up three years ago. I have been to the Forbidden City at least 50 or 60 times in between, including visiting the Forbidden City, expert seminars, and reporting progress.

Freehand presentation of the aesthetic core of the Forbidden City

Beijing News: What are some interesting dance performances in the discarded ideas?

Xue Senyu:Among the discarded ideas, for example, there is a draft of an enlarged door knocker, gilt bronze texture, which looks very majestic, and a complete roof of the temple, restored floor tiles of the Hall of Supreme Harmony Square, a red wall, etc.

Finally, we consider that beams and columns are a symbol of character, and they are also the backbone of the Forbidden City’s 600-year history. At the same time, the Chinese have an aesthetic concept called freehand brushwork, which cannot be played by others. Including you watch our operas, “one table and two chairs” can transform everything; a square inch of paper can hold a thousand miles of rivers and mountains; calligraphy, writing and strokes can show individual emotions, all of which are the aesthetic spiritual core left by our ancestors. A depiction of the real world, captured only by intuition and vision. When I presented these concepts to stage designers and expert leaders, they all agreed.

Beijing News: The music genre of the play is very rich, with catchy“The Ballad of the Forbidden City”there are other styles of music, how is the selection and polishing of music considered?

XueWoodsgiveIn fact, we do not specifically require a limited style of music. I am especially afraid that when people hear about the Forbidden City, they will think of court music, or especially classical music. Everyone’s musical aesthetics are changing, and we should provide a diverse musical experience. But once the style is too much, it will appear messy, so the whole play has a constant theme, which is the melody of “The Ballad of the Forbidden City”.

from1.86 million piecesselected from the collection4A cultural relic as the protagonist

Beijing News:There are 1.86 million pieces in the collection of the Forbidden City, how to determine the selection of Luduan, Pingfu Tie, Mei Que, Jin Mou Yonggu Cupas the main cultural relic role? How do you think about styling and character building?

XueWoodsgiveAt the time, we were also very worried and didn’t know where to start. Later, I discussed with the experts that, as the Royal Forbidden City, the selected items should have the closest connection with the emperor, and the selection criteria should be based on time sooner or later. At the beginning, 10 cultural relic characters were identified, but too many characters appeared messy on the stage, so they were deleted.

Luduan is a kind of mythical beast in Chinese myths and legends. It is often accompanied by the dragon chair. It can travel 10,000 miles a day and 8,000 miles at night. The “Golden Mau Yonggu Cup” is a rare drinking vessel for emperors in the Qing Dynasty, and it also contains the meaning of peace and eternal stability in the country. Pingfu posts and pictures of plum magpies were the emperor’s favorite to play with, but objects that the emperor loved, such as porcelain, clocks and clocks, were of a later age and would not be given priority.

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In terms of makeup design, the picture of Mei Que is the work of the Southern Song Dynasty, so the most popular women’s makeup in the Southern Song Dynasty is reproduced on the actor’s face: the flower tin between the eyebrows, the trend of the eyebrow bow and the line at the end of the eye, etc.; The colors and symbols on the face of the cup are the inscriptions and blue-green colors on the original treasure; Pingfu posts are works of the Jin Dynasty. Actors should show the style of scholars, with a little red makeup between the eyebrows and a knife fan in their hands, which were often used by scholars and scholars in the Western Jin Dynasty. of small objects.

From the collection of more than 1.86 million pieces (sets) of the Forbidden City, the play selected several precious cultural relics such as Luduan, Pingfu Tie, Mei Que, Jin Mou Yonggu Cup as character prototypes.Photo by Beijing News reporter Pu Feng

Beijing News:During the viewing process, I also asked the children on the side. Many children said that they liked the Forbidden City cat the most. Is this within your expectation? Did the addition of characters such as the Forbidden City cat and butterfly take this into consideration?

XueWoodsgiveIt must be expected, because when it comes to cultural relics, history, and the Forbidden City, the content will be very deep, and children are prone to a sense of strangeness, so the royal cat is added as a fun harmony. In the early days, we also focused on examining the Royal Cat of the Forbidden City, and which positions are easy to appear. “Obai”, as the most famous Internet celebrity royal cat, is the most domineering. In the play, it is naturally the existence of “Captain Cat”.

Of course, we still don’t want to show the royal cat too much in the repertoire that tells the story of cultural relics. I hope that if there is an opportunity in the future, I can make a story about the royal cat in the Forbidden City for children.

Beijing News:Children and grandchildren Yongbao useThis sentencerun throughthe wholemusical, youHow do you understand this sentence?

XueWoodsgiveAt the beginning of writing the script outline, I was thinking, tell the story of the Forbidden City to children and parents, what is the most important thing to tell? In fact, there are many perspectives, such as more habitual growth, bravery, strength… I think children’s experiences in the process of growing up are enough to teach them the meaning of these words. In the first musical of the Forbidden City, it is still necessary to talk about the inheritance of the Forbidden City and the spread of culture, and explore the reasons why it continues to this day.

In an exchange with experts from the Forbidden City, I learned that most of the bronze wares are engraved with the phrase “for children and grandchildren Yongbao”, until later when the script was discussed for the title, I learned that the Forbidden City’s cultural relics protection research related workers have always been there. A unified name – Dian Shou, which echoes the previous sentence, the profound meaning of the long-term continuation of culture.

The strong sense of mission of each “guardian” has enabled the cultural relics and culture of the Forbidden City to be preserved and passed down to the present day. This is also an important proposition of our musical.

Beijing News reporter Ma Jinqian

Edited by Tang Zheng, proofreaded by Liu JunReturn to Sohu, see more

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