In recent years, the art of dance drama in China has made great progress. Many artists and dance troupes have actively explored and made remarkable achievements: dance dramas have a wide range of themes, rich vocabulary and diverse forms. However, there are still some shortcomings in music, dance beauty, dance texture, clothing and some external factors. The ballet "Hanging the Red Lantern High", which was selected as the top ten masterpieces by the second "National Excellent Project", has made great breakthroughs in these aspects. Its success brings us some enlightenment: we should boldly innovate and break through the artistic form of dance drama, draw nutrients from our national cultural heritage, look around the world, understand the present situation and development trend of today's art, and be eclectic. Only in this way can we create excellent dance drama works that represent the strongest voice of the times.
Keywords: innovative development of dance drama
In recent decades, China's ballet has made great progress. Many artists and dance troupes actively explored and made remarkable achievements, creating a large number of excellent ballet works. The ballet "Hanging the Red Lantern High", which was rated as one of the top ten masterpieces of the second National Excellent Project, is one of the representative works. This dance drama has made many bold breakthroughs in music, dance beauty, dance texture, costumes and some external factors, which has injected new vitality into the development of China dance drama. Let us re-examine the future development direction of China dance drama.
First of all, a brief analysis of the ballet "Raise the Red Lantern"
The ballet "Raise the Red Lantern" is a large-scale original ballet produced by the Central Ballet Company. It is adapted from the famous film director Zhang Yimou's film of the same name. The screenwriter and director of the dance drama are Zhang Yimou, and the dance is composed by Wang Xinpeng and Wang Yuanyuan. The music creator of the dance drama is Chen Qigang, and the first broadcast time is 200 1.
Artistic Features of Ballet "Hanging the Red Lantern High"
The play has opened a picture of old folk customs for people, including going to the theatre and playing mahjong. China is very distinctive. On the basis of attaching importance to inheriting traditional culture, the director boldly absorbed the essence of various art categories, achieving harmony, unity, coherent plot, compact structure and constant highlights. Especially in the beauty of dance, the expression of music and dance forms and the outstanding grasp of visual language, it is refreshing for the audience.
1. Ballet symphony music with national characteristics. Chen Qigang, the composer of the dance drama "Hanging the Red Lantern High", has created beautiful duet music, the vicissitudes of Beijing opera in Tsing Yi, the imitation of mahjong washing, and the disorderly waving of sticks by servants on the basis of a large number of Beijing operas, folk songs, folk tunes and folk percussion music. Music sounds like messy material, but it's all appropriate, natural and smooth.
2. Transform colorful film expression means. Zhang Yimou, a cinematographer, also showed his outstanding grasp of visual language and superiority in spatial montage and visual psychological suggestion. (1) Show the contents contained in the play clearly and cheaply to the audience by means of visual hints. The opening red lantern not only echoes the title of the play, but also represents the happiness of China, indicating that there will be happy events at the beginning of the dance drama. The opening and closing of the multi-storey movable partition door creates different environments and presents different plots. (2) The use of montage in movies makes the development of the plot look more natural and vivid. In the first scene of the wedding night, the twisted and struggling light and shadow behind the paper, the explosion of the worn paper curtain and the fall of the red cloth not only have a high visual impact, but also imply the story of the destruction of the virgin bud, which deeply contains the sadness of this night.
After more than three years of performance and revision, the ballet "Raise the Red Lantern" once again appeared on the Beijing stage. On the stage of Hanging the Red Lantern, we can see that the narrative focus of the original wives and concubines has been shifted, and its theme has been sublimated by the unique narrative way of ballet. We can see that Zhang Yimou, who doesn't know how to dance, has effectively explored the visual perception of ballet art, and we can also see that the artistic ideal of "ballet and nationality" of the creator has been raised with "Hanging the Red Lantern High". ...
1. Ballet is a stage performance art with strong sense of form.
Ballet is a stage performance art with strong sense of form. Even people who are not particularly familiar with this artistic style know that it is "tiptoe dancing", that it is tall and straight, that it is slender, that it is "swan-like" and that it is quiet. In fact, ballet with a strong sense of form has accumulated the spirit of western culture, including Christian spirit, Gothic aesthetics and gentlemanly demeanor. According to the principle of cultural communication, a certain cultural form adheres to the originality and purity of the form more than its native parent after spreading to foreign countries. Although the form of ballet has been divorced from the original cultural spirit under the acceptance of China people, it is not easy to inject China's cultural spirit into this abstract geometric form. What's more, The Story of the Red Lantern is faced with such cultural customs and social habits as "wives and concubines in groups". Zhang Yimou's original intention of hanging the ballet "Hanging the Red Lantern High" may be the symbol of lanterns, the implication of Peking Opera and the cultural color of traditional China, but he has to subvert the narrative focus and key figures of the original work first, otherwise it will be subverted by the "sense of form" of the ballet. Zhang Yimou, who attaches great importance to the important role of "form" in artistic expression, can't ignore the "sense of form" of ballet art and do whatever he wants.
2. Sublimate the theme of the original work according to the narrative characteristics of ballet.
It is said that the ballet "Raise the Red Lantern" is adapted from Zhang Yimou's film of the same name, but Zhang Yimou's film is adapted from Su Tong's novel "Wives and Concubines" with different names. I don't think the choice of Zhang Yimou movies is the "national character" that China caters to the expectations of the western world. Judging from the change of the novel "Wives and Concubines" to the movie "Hanging Red Lantern", it is better to say that Zhang Yimou pays more attention to the artistic tension and cultural connotation of "lens language" in material selection. The characteristics of "lens language" in film narration determine that the direct description of "wives and concubines in groups" is hidden behind the metaphor of Hanging Up the Red Lantern, and there is no need to change the narrative focus and focus of the original work, because under the lens of Hanging Up the Red Lantern, it is still the old man sleeping willow and his wives and concubines vying for favor. But obviously, the ballet narrative decided by the "sense of form" of ballet refused to become the "male master" On the one hand, this is because the aesthetic norms of the body language of the ballet "male master" exclude the triviality and malice of the "master", on the other hand, it is difficult to choose the "female master" because of the "wives and concubines" of the master. As a result, the ballet "The Story of the Red Lantern" brought together the "male masters" of the troupe Wusheng who had an affair with the third wife, and the third wife naturally became the "female master"; Then, the "cheating" events of male and female CEOs unfold along their own narrative logic. It is not the "various phenomena" in "Wives and Concubines", but the "consistency" of their original "pure love". Therefore, the main narrative line of the ballet "Hanging the Red Lantern High" is reflected in the four duets between the third wife and her lover, Wu Sheng of the troupe: in the opening remarks, the third wife recalled the "pure love" duet of her old lover when she was forced to get married; In the third act, Wu Sheng, a troupe, met his third wife's "love" duet while singing in the hall. In the third act, the third wife, regardless of family law, committed herself to the "cheating" duet of her old lover; Finally, Wu Sheng of the troupe and his third wife were killed by Master's stick ... In my opinion, the narrative feature of the dance drama is to set the plot according to the fate of the male and female dancers. Although "Hanging the Red Lantern High" can't completely get rid of the composition framework of the original plot, the plot framework of the original has been put into the background, and the theme of the original has been sublimated due to the transformation of the focus characters. It is worth noting that, under the observation of this narrative feature, the clue that mistresses are in trouble from telling stories to asking pets to light lamps inevitably gives people a sense of branching.
3. Pursuing the dance form of "ballet and nationality".
The narrative of ballet is centered on the third wife and Wu Sheng of the troupe, which is the fundamental difference between the ballet "Hanging the Red Lantern High" and the film of the same name. However, as a ballet narrative, Zhang Yimou's "body language" from the perspective of "lens language" still has a problem of how to be both a ballet and a nation. Originally, the "body language" of ballet art had a problem of flexibility and adjustment when portraying the characters of the Chinese nation, but Zhang Yimou, who was eager to let the audience, especially the western audience, enter the "China culture" through a "ballet", seemed to focus only on the "lens language" disposal of things such as Peking Opera, Mahjong, Zhaobi and lanterns. Therefore, I don't think that "telling the story clearly" and "depicting the inner world of the characters" are the most fundamental problems in the revision of the ballet "Hanging the Red Lantern High". The most fundamental problem is that "Raise the Red Lantern" must first become a real "ballet" by looking at the body language of ballet. To solve this fundamental problem, there is an important premise, that is, according to the narrative characteristics of ballet, especially ballet, structuring dramatic characters and launching dramatic conflicts. The revised "Raise the Red Lantern" has made great progress in strengthening the "body language" of the ballet itself: first, around the revelation of the fate of the leading dance of men and women, the structural skeleton of the ballet is constructed through four pairs of dances; Secondly, the presentation of national culture and folk customs permeates the dance steps and paths of ballet art; Third, try to incorporate the dynamic stage representation of daily life into the aesthetic paradigm of ballet art "body language" ... Although there are still dance fragments of "ballet for ballet's sake" and the situation that "body language" is replaced by "lens language", Holding the Red Lantern High has made a great leap in the expression of the dance form of "ballet and nationality".