Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, June 19th, title: Working hard to promote stage art creation and production to create a new situation-Minister of Culture and Tourism Hu Heping talks about deepening the reform of state-owned art troupe
Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhou Wei
The General Office of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the General Office of the State Council have recently issued the “Opinions on Deepening the Reform of State-owned Art Academy”, making comprehensive arrangements for the reform and development of the State-owned Art Academy in the new era. Hu Heping, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Minister of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, accepted an exclusive interview with reporters from Xinhua News Agency on issues related to the study and implementation of the “Opinions”.
Must firmly hold the right direction
Question: How do you understand the significance of the release of the “Opinions”?
Answer: The “Opinions” are specific measures to implement the spirit of General Secretary Jinping’s important speech and instructions on cultural and artistic work. It is an important institutional arrangement to promote the implementation of important arrangements for the central government’s reform of state-owned cultural and artistic academies.
In recent years, the majority of state-owned art troupes have adhered to the people-centered creative orientation and launched a number of well-known excellent works. At the same time, it is undeniable that there are also problems of lack of quality, “plateaus” and “peaks”. There are still few masterpieces with “meaning” and “meaning”, and there is still a certain gap compared with the new requirements and expectations of the masses for literary and artistic works. The role of the state-owned art troupe as the main front of the propaganda, ideological and cultural front has yet to be strengthened, and its vitality has not been fully stimulated. Especially since 2020, the new crown pneumonia epidemic has brought a greater impact on the creation and performance of the troupe.
Faced with these problems, in the final analysis, it is necessary to further deepen the reform, continue to innovate the management system and operating mechanism, strengthen policy coordination, stimulate the vitality of the system, and allow the state-owned art troupe to fully innovate and create vitality.
Question: What are the core requirements for deepening the reform of state-owned art troupes in the new era?
Answer: The state-owned literary and artistic troupe is the main front of the propaganda and ideological and cultural front. To deepen the reform of the state-owned literary and artistic troupe, we must firmly grasp the right direction.
To study and implement the spirit of the “Opinions”, it is necessary to give full play to the party’s role in guiding the direction, seeking the overall situation, setting policies, and promoting reforms, and put the party’s leadership through the entire process of the reform and development of the state-owned art troupe. We must adhere to the people-centered creative orientation, take the cultivation and promotion of core socialist values as the fundamental task, dig deep into the Chinese cultural heritage, and actively reflect the great practice of socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era. It is necessary to follow the law of artistic development, to strengthen the creation of fine stage art as a key task, and to improve quality as the lifeblood of literary and artistic works. It is necessary to establish and improve the production system and mechanism of literary and artistic creation that puts social benefits in the first place and unifies social and economic benefits, and guide art workers to consciously pursue both virtue and art, emphasize taste, style and responsibility, and resist vulgarity and kitsch. We must persist in promoting development through reforms, highlight problem orientation, give full play to the role of social forces and market mechanisms, and continuously enhance development vitality.
Clear function positioning is the first task of reform
Question: What is the primary task of reform?
Answer: At present, there are some problems and difficulties in the reform and development of some state-owned art troupes. One important reason is that the function positioning is not clear enough. For this reason, the “Opinions” regard “defining functional positioning” as the primary task of the reform, emphasizing that “the state-owned art academies are the backbone of the prosperity and development of socialist literature and art, and are an important force in providing public cultural services and developing the cultural industry.”
On this basis, the “Opinions” put forward the goals and directions for reform and development of different types of state-owned art and art troupes, such as those directly under the state, provincial-level troupes, prefecture-level cities, and county-level troupes. The colleges directly under the state should strengthen the awareness of the “national team”, focus on creating outstanding stage art works that reflect the national standard and national characteristics and have international influence, and demonstrate to drive the development of this art category. Provincial (autonomous region, municipality) affiliated colleges should fully tap local characteristic resources, strengthen regional superior art categories, and become the leader and promoter of regional stage art creation and production. In principle, the municipal (prefecture, state, league) and county (city, district, and banner) affiliated institutes take serving the grassroots as their main task, and undertake more work such as policy propaganda, public services, performances for benefiting the people, and popularization of art.
Question: Please talk about the idea of ”classification advance reform”.
Answer: At present, there are more than 2,100 state-owned art troupes across the country. Due to different art categories, different regions, different functions, and different operating mechanisms, it is necessary to adopt differentiated treatment and categorized guidance to promote reforms.
On the basis of the previous round of reforms, the “Opinions” further clarified the scope of retaining the business system and transfer enterprises to ensure full coverage and leave no blanks. The “Opinions” emphasized that the state-owned art troupe, which has clearly retained the nature of a public institution, as a public welfare cultural institution, must highlight and strengthen the public welfare attribute and further enhance its vitality. The established performing arts enterprise groups must give full play to their advantages in aggregation and strive to become a backbone cultural enterprise. The state-owned arts and art troupes that are not included in the scope of retaining the nature of public institutions must focus on improving market adaptability and development vitality, and create conditions for transformation into enterprises and restructuring.
The “Opinions” emphasized that state-owned art troupes, whether they are enterprises or enterprises, must deepen the reform of internal mechanisms and fully stimulate endogenous motivation. The colleges and universities should improve various policies such as finance, personnel, and income distribution, strengthen their own management capabilities, and improve service quality and efficiency. The transferred enterprise group should improve the corporate governance structure, and form an asset organization and operation management model that reflects the characteristics of cultural enterprises and meets the requirements of the modern enterprise system.
Performance-centered link
Question: How do you understand that the reform of state-owned art troupes should “focus on performances”?
Answer: Performance is the core link of stage art and a key indicator to test the effectiveness of the reform of state-owned art troupes. The “Opinions” put forward the performance as the central link, which fully embodies the people-centered development thought, and reflects the observance and respect of the law of art development and the development of colleges and troupes. Only by closely focusing on the central link of performance and continuously providing the audience with high-quality art products, can we truly achieve “putting social benefits first and unifying social and economic benefits”.
Question: How to understand the “Opinions” to consolidate and give play to the leading position and leading role of the state-owned art troupe in the production of stage art.
Answer: This is the main goal of the reform of the state-owned art troupe. We must strive to establish and improve the sustainable development system, mechanism and policy system of the large number of plays, the variety of plays, the reasonable layout of the theater, and the large numbers of talents in the theater, so as to achieve a significant improvement in the quality, management level, and service efficiency of the state-owned theater and theater. . The first is to firmly grasp scripts as the foundation of the development of artistic performance, adhere to the people-centered creation orientation, take targeted measures for script creation and creative talents, and improve the long-term mechanism to support the creation of excellent scripts. The second is to firmly grasp the hard power of the repertoire, an artistic performance group, to activate the creative vitality of the main subjects of choreographers, music, and stage art, and establish a sound production and performance system and mechanism for repertoires with correct orientation, fresh content, popular with the masses, and frequent performances. The third is to firmly grasp the core force of the performers, the core force in the development of the art performance business, and focus on the construction of artistic morality and style, comprehensively assess the quality and quantity of performances, determine the income distribution, job title evaluation and welfare guarantees of the performers, and fully provide for the actors. Display artistic talents and create a good system and mechanism environment. The fourth is to firmly grasp the theater, an important carrier for the development of artistic performance, and promote the establishment of a sound theater supply system that integrates urban and rural planning, inventory revitalization, continuous expansion, and a dynamic balance of layout. Fifth, by improving the creation, production and performance mechanism, guide the vast number of artists to go deep into their lives, take root in the people’s artistic creation, and devote the best spiritual food to the people. The sixth is to further strengthen and improve the work of literary and artistic criticism, and to make the “steering wheel” of literary and artistic criticism more effective in guiding creation, launching fine works, enhancing aesthetics, and leading fashion.
Make good use of high gold content support policies
Question: The “Opinions” has issued a series of high-gold support policies and support measures. How to guide the state-owned art academies to make good use of these policies?
Answer: The “Opinions” emphasizes that governments at all levels should implement supporting policies for qualified state-owned art troupes, support state-owned art troupes to enhance creative production capacity, strengthen cultural and artistic exchanges, protect and inherit cultural heritage, and carry out cultural activities to benefit the people. In addition to providing a series of support measures for scripts, plays, theaters, and actors, the “Opinions” also clarified other support policies such as strengthening financial security and encouraging social forces to participate.
Artistic talents are the most core competitive resource of the state-owned art troupe. The “Opinions” put forward corresponding incentive policies for strengthening the construction of the talent team, and enriched the protection measures for important actors. The “Opinions” emphasized that the construction of the talent team of the state-owned art academies should be included in the unified plan for the construction of the talent team of the propaganda and cultural system, and the talent training, introduction, management, guarantee and reward mechanism should be improved. The “Opinions” also consider high-level talents, business backbones, personnel with outstanding performance, personnel in key positions and special positions as important actors in accordance with the actual production of the state-owned art troupe, and their roles in income distribution, job title evaluation, and welfare Policy guarantees have been provided in terms of guarantees, exchanges and training, honors and commendations.
The culture and tourism department will strengthen communication and coordination with relevant departments, further refine the various policy measures in the “Opinions”, go all out to promote the implementation of the policies, and effectively convert the policy dividends into the dividends of the reform and development of the state-owned art troupe. Efforts should be made to form a good environment for the reform and development of state-owned art troupes.
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