Nandu News Reporter Li Chunhua The young lion is soaring into the sky! From January 11th to 14th, the Mandarin version of the musical "Lion" was performed at the Guangzhou Grand Theater. The play is directed by Sun Haipeng, produced by Zhang Miao as producer, and written by Li Zelin. It is authorized by the original film of the same name. It gathers the outstanding literary and artistic forces in the Greater Bay Area and is created by the top creative team of Chinese musicals. Jordan Chan and Kitty Chen join the cast. , Fang Shujian, Guo Hongxu, Chen Keming, Li Qiumeng, Liu Haoran, Feng Difei, Li Yuyan, Hao Xiaohui, Zhang Yikai and other powerful actors perform together.
Ajuan, a young man who pursues his dreams tirelessly, the carefree Xianyuqiang, the pungent yet gentle Azhen, the agile Amao, the strong-armed Agou, the domineering Brother Zhuang... The actors use their superb skills to express the story. The acting skills fit and restore the characters, fully mobilize the emotions, show the detailed changes in the characters' hearts, and make the characters stand on the stage. On the stage, the actors not only sang and danced, but also performed a high-intensity lion dance performance. There were 20 plum blossom stakes on the stage, with the highest height of 2.1 meters. There were also three wonderful lion dance duel scenes that required the actors to perform the lion dance. , the audience applauded and cheered after seeing each move's real kung fu. The performance incorporates a lot of Cantonese slang and adds interactive scenes with the audience, allowing the audience to become personal participants in the story and witness the growth of young Ajuan and his friends on the road to pursuing their dreams. The audience applauded more than twenty times and laughed continuously. The audience praised this as a sincere audio-visual feast. The dreams of young people bloomed on the stage, igniting the cultural enthusiasm of Yangcheng and inspiring every dream chaser to work hard and move forward.
Since the announcement of production, the musical "Lion" has attracted much attention from all walks of life. This is not only because it is adapted from the phenomenal Chinese comic film of the same name, but also because it brings together the outstanding literary and artistic forces of the Greater Bay Area and is committed to showing the unique charm of this region. The thousand-year-old lion dance is one of the important representatives of Guangfu’s cultural spiritual inheritance. In 2006, it was included in the first batch of national intangible cultural heritage lists. Excellent traditional culture is the root and soul of the Chinese nation. The musical "Lion Boy" focuses on the culture and customs of Lingnan lion dance. It uses a stage art form that is loved by the people to continue the Lingnan cultural context, polish the cultural brand, and let "non-featured people" "Legacy" glows with the glory of the times.
The story of the musical "The Young Lion" pays tribute to every hard-working Bay Area dream chaser. It is a song written for every hard-working little person. It is created through group portraits of urban life and the ordinary story of the male protagonist Ajuan's hard work in Guangzhou. , showing the unique flavor of life in Lingnan and the Bay Area on the stage. In the process of creating the musical "The Lion Boy", director He Nian focused on the creation of characters in terms of text expression and stage presentation, using realistic textures as the motivations of each little character, and carrying more historical background and humanities Caring strives to integrate elements such as dance, music and lion dance into the story, and encourage the audience to integrate into the plot and "share the same fate" with the characters.
"Anyone can do it, anyone can do it." The whole play starts with A-Juan's clean singing voice without any overture or even prelude, making people feel A-Juan's innocence directly. Gao Shizhang and Shun Weizhong, two artists who are considered a dream combination in the musical theater industry, have jointly created nearly 20 original songs for "The Young Lion", integrating Chinese and Western music elements, and using beautiful, delicate and touching melodies and lyrics to make the audience happy. Chinese traditional culture shows its style and vitality in the new era.
In terms of music design, one of the important components of the musical "The Young Lion" is the drum sound of the lion dance. Composer Gao Shizhang incorporated drum sounds into many key lion dance passages in the play, combining them with different musical elements. The drum sounds evolve and change with the evolution of people's hearts, from external origins to inner exchanges, which can be fast or slow. , can be light and strong, and even evolve into as graceful and delicate as ballet, modern dance and Latin dance. The sound of drums awakens the young man's boundless ambition. The young man Ajuan keeps falling down on the road to pursue his dream, but he still fails and tries again and again. Every sound of drum music also indicates that the fire in the protagonist's heart is ignited again, and the accumulated emotions in his heart are poured out with the passionate music. In the play, the drum sound will awaken the lion in the young man's heart, allowing him to break through the reality of losing himself. Dilemma, start again towards your dream.
Lyricist Shum Weizhong gave full play to his imagination, put himself into the character, deeply explored the background of his growth, captured the character's mood described by the music and script, and made the lyrics fit the character's psychology. The lyrics of the musical "The Lion" written by him are touching and humorous, and are more in line with reality and create a strong sense of life.
"Even if there are many reasons to give up, only one is enough to persist!" Screenwriter Zhang Feifan integrated the spirit of self-improvement and enterprising spirit of generations of lion dancers into the creation of the script. In order to enhance the tension of the drama, a scene was also added in which Ajuan lost himself due to the gap between reality and dreams and was repeatedly crushed on the way to pursue his dreams, pushing the emotions of the whole drama to the highest peak. The musical "The Young Lion" also focuses on portraying the master-disciple relationship between Ajuan and Xianyuqiang, creating many touching scenes with laughter and tears.
The Chinese version of the musical "The Young Lion" started with real scenes and scenes, and gradually added stage expression techniques including light and shadow, multimedia projection special effects, and even some film language. While presenting the audience with richer stage visual effects, It can also retain the audience's imagination and present a "lion story" that is different from the animation.
stage design Sang Qi designed the stage around the growth trajectory of the protagonist "Ajuan". The entire stage was set up as a turntable with a diameter of 11.56 meters. At the same time, a 4x7 meter platform that could be lifted up and down was built in the middle of the turntable, using the form and power of space to embody the lion boy. Their upward and passionate spiritual core. At the same time, a set of rotatable triangular prism-shaped architectural structures are set up at the entrance of the stage. The three sides are: Lingnan rural buildings, Guangzhou arcades, and Guangzhou street scenes. While maintaining the characteristics of Guangzhou style Lingnan architecture, it also provides various levels of characters in the play. Character performance provides multi-dimensional and spatial expression in multiple spaces.
In the musical "Lion", the lighting design will "burn" throughout. Lighting designer Ren Dongsheng hopes to bring the audience into Ajuan's growth process, feel his pain, joy, frustration and hope, and experience every step of his growth. In terms of lighting visual presentation, the atmosphere of the Guangdong city that is in line with the protagonist's growth environment must also be extracted to refine the picture that is in line with the character's spiritual growth, and use imagery to enhance the inner changes of the protagonist.
In the multimedia design, Wang Jiadi inspected and collected a large number of unique architectural styles in the Lingnan area. While maintaining the traditional cultural features of rural towns in Guangdong, he focused on showing the modernity of Guangzhou and the urban atmosphere filled with fireworks, and combined the scenes of arcades and high-rise buildings. It is three-dimensionally presented in a multi-layered and multi-space stage image through three-dimensional animation. At the same time, combined with the use of some real-time images, the characters in the play are not afraid of hardships, are brave, and pursue their dreams, and perfectly combine animation production with character performances to reflect the unique traditional charm and modern artistic value of Guangdong Lion Dance. The stage space interprets multimedia images that are organic, reasonable and full of tension. The Chinese version of the
musical "The Lion" has more than 180 performance sets. The costume designer demon Zhang wrote exclusive character biographies and designed the shapes and costumes based on each character's personality and the personality characteristics of different actors. Each character will have the same representative elements to strengthen the character's characteristics and personality. At the same time, the "Cantonese" customs and customs are restored one by one in terms of character modeling and costume design accessories, striving to allow actors and audiences to intuitively feel the essence of Lingnan culture and the authentic Cantonese spirit from the costume modeling, and enhance the appeal of the play to the audience. . The successful premiere of the Chinese version of the
musical "The Lion" has added new strength to the increasingly prosperous and developing Guangzhou literary and artistic forces, added weight to the extended influence of Bay Area culture, and allowed the world to understand Guangdong's vitality through its cultural practice. and vitality.
Photography: Xia Dong
