Looking back on the glorious course of the "Silk Road Flowers and Rain", people play the role of Yingniang, inevitably there are many thoughts of the famous dance performance artist -- Fu Chunying:
"Silk Road Flowers and Rain"
Creator choreographer: Gansu Provincial Song and Dance Troupe, "Silk Road Flowers and Rain" creative group. Zhao Zhixun penned.
Choreographer: Liu Shaoxiong, Zhang Qiang, Zhu Jiang, Xu Qi, Yan Jianzhong.
Assistant choreographers: Zhang Jufang, An Jian, Xu Chenghua.
Composers: Han Zhongcai, Huting, Jiao Kai.
Choreographer: Li Mingqiang, Yang Qian (set), Hao Hanyi (costume), Yang Shuyun (make-up).
Consultants: Chang Shuhong, Duan Wenjie.
Performers Main Cast: He Yanyun, Fu Chunying, Zhang Li (as Yingniang A and B), Zhong Minghua, Wu Hongyu (as Shenpen Zhang A and B), Li Weimin (as Inus), Wu Hongyu (as Heshi Sectional Minister), Zhang Jik (as Dou Hu, a strong man), Jia Shiming (as City Cao).
Main section dancers: Flying Dance: Xin Zhumei, Wang Zhuyue, etc.; Horse Bell Dance: Zhou Jiaming, Wang Jian, etc.; Indian Dance: Zhang Li, etc.; Neishang Yuyi Dance: Sun Shufang, Yang Hong, Shi Min, etc.
Band: Gansu Provincial Song and Dance Troupe Chinese and Western Mixed Band. Conductor: Han Zhongcai. Artistic Director: Yi Yan.
The rise of the "Dunhuang School of Dance"
The "Silk Road Flowers and Rain" dance drama is a huge group of choreographers and directors, led by Zhao Zhixun and Liu Shaoxiong, and the premiere of Gansu Provincial Song and Dance Troupe (later changed to Gansu Song and Dance Drama Theatre, which is today's Gansu Dunhuang Art Theatre). Possess the "geographical" advantage of the "Silk Road Flowers and Rain" crew, in the scholars, experts help, after in-depth research, from the Mogao Caves to preserve the generations of dance drawings, selected, refined the typical static dance, to explore the action process posture - to make it! "resurrection", on the basis of which the dance vocabulary of this dance drama was established as a self-contained system. Silk Road Flowers and Rain" became the first dance drama in China to create a Dunhuang dance genre, and triggered the rise of the "Dunhuang Dance School", providing a new reference model for Chinese classical dance. The "S-dance" in which the heroine Yingniang "bounces the pipa" has become the signature of "Dunhuang Dance".
Sixteen Yingniangs in seven generations
The role of Yingniang is not an easy one to play. Yingniang's dance range is large, physical exertion is also large, each generation of Yingniang players have two to three rotating. Since its inception, the play *** emerged from seven generations of 16 Yingniang, behind their beauty, full of hardship. Every morning, when the other actors get up, the actors who play Yingniang have already trained for two to three hours. Each generation of Yingniang has put in unimaginable sweat for their roles.
The 1979 premiere of "Silk Road Flowers and Rain" was a national sensation, in which the Yingniang were played by He Yanyun (A) and Fu Chunying (B). The "first generation of Yingniang" He Yanyun recalled in an article: "In order to make the static Dunhuang frescoes dance, the choreographers and directors worked diligently, and I became their experimental 'gyroscope'; I danced a thousand times as if possessed, and every dance posture was formed without fail. Every dance formation, all condensed blood and sweat."
Fu Chunying, who is also a "first-generation Yingniang," followed her husband, actor Zhou Lijing, to Beijing during the glorious stage of her career, and served as a teacher of physical training in colleges and universities, and was stabbed to death by a burglar a few years later, which made the "Yingniang fans" who liked her sigh with sadness.
Shi Min became the third generation of Yingniang players at the age of 17, following He Yanyun and Fu Chunying. Nearly 20 years later, Shi Min retired from the youth dance troupe and became a classical dance teacher at the Beijing Dance Academy. She self-financed the shooting of personal dance art film "Dunhuang does not sleep" "the worship of the art of Dunhuang, with the dance performance".
"The fourth generation of Yingniang" Li Hong, there is a section of the disk dance performance, to be in a diameter of 1.6 meters on the lotus platform to do more than 20 times in a row turn over. In order to practice this skill, Li Hong regardless of the occasion, time, free time to practice, but also not hesitate to eat bazhou to reduce weight, lose more than 10 kilograms in 20 days.
Liu Shaoxiong (a member of the creative team of the "Silk" drama and a scriptwriter) described Fu Chunying in this way: her performance is charming and graceful, with a mixture of rigidity and flexibility, and she is good at blending inner passion and outer beauty together, resulting in a blended artistic realm.
"When the play was still in the rehearsal stage, four groups of actresses were chosen for the role of Yingniang, namely He Yanyun, Zhang Li, Fu Chunying and Yang Hong, all of whom were very lovely. He Yanyun's strong shaping, steady dance, good expressiveness, shaping the inner world of Yingniang is more in place; I am so impressed with Zhang Li, her Indian dance is simply jumping out of the blue, I see that there is no one in the country can be compared with her, absolutely world-class level, elegant modeling, bright dance; Fu Chunying's movements are softer, she is a both beautiful and smart, progressing quickly; Yang Hong and later Shi Min ''Dance on a Plate'' was well danced; Yang Hong's first performance I remember was in the former Soviet Union, and it won the audience's favorable comments after the performance. They were all good, all very inviting."