On the evening of March 8th and 9th, the acrobatic drama "Tianshan Snow" jointly produced by the Shanghai Acrobatic Troupe, Shanghai Circus School, and Xinjiang Art Theater Acrobatic Troupe came to Beijing for the first time and was presented at the Central Opera House.
Acrobatics is a traditional Chinese art with a long history and profound cultural heritage. From traditional acrobatics to acrobatic drama, the acrobatic art performances that were known for their skills in the past were combined with lyrical and expressive expressions, achieving a new breakthrough.
In 2021, the Shanghai Acrobatic Troupe brought the red-themed acrobatic drama "Battle of Shanghai" to Beijing to perform, allowing Beijing audiences to experience the combination of drama and technology, and use acrobatic language to promote the narrative of the story. Three years later, the realistic-themed "Tianshan Snow", based on "Battle of Shanghai", further explores the stage art presentation of acrobatic art and explores acrobatic art narrative and character emotional expression.
The acrobatic drama "Tianshan Snow" took three years to create and stage. It is guided by the eagle spirit of "flying against the wind" and the story of acrobats is used throughout, connecting the two places, three generations and people of all ethnic groups in Shanghai and Xinjiang over the past seventy years. The process of building and developing Xinjiang.
Adapted from real events
According to the organizer, the acrobatic drama "Snow on Tianshan Mountain" is the first acrobatic drama with the theme of aiding and nourishing Xinjiang. In 2017, the Xinjiang class dance show of Shanghai Circus School won the 6th Monte Carlo The gold medal in the "New Generation" International Circus Festival competition was used as the starting point for creation. It adopts a first-person narrative and uses the memories of the protagonist Wang Xuefeng to outline the story from the People's Liberation Army's colonization and border garrison in the early days of the founding of New China, to the national youth's involvement in border construction in the 1950s and 1960s, and then to Breaking mountains and opening roads to build a road of friendship continues into the historical process of deepening cultural and educational cooperation between acrobats in Shanghai and Xinjiang in the new era.
This is a fateful meeting in the long history, and it is also a story that is happening now. The creation and performance process of "Tianshan Snow" is itself a process of integration and interaction of acrobatic arts in Shanghai and Xinjiang.
is a large-scale stage work co-created, educated and performed by Shanghai and Xinjiang. It includes actors from the Shanghai Acrobatic Troupe and Shanghai Circus School, as well as actors from the Xinjiang Art Theater Acrobatic Troupe and the Adilida Wazi Art Inheritance Center in Yingjisha County, Kashgar Working hand in hand with actors from the Kashgar Zepu County Song and Dance Acrobatic Troupe. A total of more than 80 actors from 5 groups from the two places participated. Not only that, "Tianshan Snow" has also become the first acrobatic drama created in Xinjiang, which has also given many Xinjiang actors more opportunities to appear on big stages across the country.
In November 2023, after completing its premiere performance at the China Shanghai International Arts Festival, the crew of "Tianshan Snow" also traveled more than 5,500 kilometers to the Kashgar region of Xinjiang to carry out a cultural tour to enrich Xinjiang.
Scene 6 Hometown Love.
Among the more than 80 actors in "Tianshan Snow", there are nearly 20 Xinjiang actors, 11 of whom are from the Xinjiang class of Shanghai Circus School. During the creation and rehearsal process of "Tianshan Snow", good news came out in the training of acrobatic talents in Shanghai and Xinjiang. Just two weeks before its premiere, the "Shaking Bar - Eagle" program participated in the 19th China Wuqiao International Acrobatic Arts Won the Golden Lion Honor Award. This plot has also been added to the plot of "Snow on Tianshan Mountain", becoming a play-within-a-play "based on real events".
From the creation of "Tianshan Snow" to the present, actors from Xinjiang and actors from Shanghai have eaten, lived and trained together, establishing a profound friendship. During the interview, Xinjiang actors mentioned that they stayed in Shanghai for rehearsing during the Spring Festival last year, and teachers from the Shanghai Circus School took them home for New Year’s Eve dinner; many Xinjiang actors come from relatively isolated southern Xinjiang, and their Chinese is based on the Actors in Shanghai slowly get better at getting along.
On April 22, 2023, when the play was being put together in the theater, it coincided with the important festival in Xinjiang, the Rouzi Festival. The crew prepared a small surprise for the Xinjiang cast and crew and sent holiday blessings with roasted whole lamb; Shanghai actors Through rehearsals, performances, and in-depth collection and tour of Xinjiang, I have a deeper experience of Xinjiang's customs and customs, and I have become more comfortable dancing Xinjiang dance. On the
stage, many of the singing and dancing scenes were reproduced from the actors' daily interactions.
Telling stories with acrobatics
Due to the long plot span of the acrobatic drama "Tianshan Snow" and the many and complex scenes, the creative team revised the draft nine times to continuously enrich the creative connotation of the drama, and finally condensed it into a large-scale drama with more than 100 minutes and 21 new programs. Vaudeville.
"Tianshan Snow" incorporates elements such as drama, dance, and magic, and displays traditional acrobatic skills such as diabolo, drumming, ball skills, flower beds, one-handed jackpot, bar shaking, and silk hanging.
Among them, the "Friendship Road" scene is the most thrilling scene in the whole play. The national intangible cultural heritage "Dawazi" (high-altitude walking rope) breaks through many difficulties such as rope length, fulcrum, and load-bearing in the play, improving the performance. The thrill, appreciation and artistic tension allow the audience to feel the breathtaking, dangerous, strange, beautiful and unique artistic charm of acrobatics at close range; the aerial trapeze, a Shanghai-style acrobatic show, is also the "ignition point" of this scene. It is worth mentioning that the trapeze performance presented in "Tianshan Snow" has set a record for the first time nationwide that this program is performed on a framed stage, which places higher demands on actors.
In addition to danger, beauty is also another key word in the acrobatic drama "Tianshan Snow". In the "Silk Road" scene, the "Flying" actors will lead the audience to fly over the snowy peaks of Tianshan Mountain, Qiuci Thousand Buddha Caves, and the ancient city of Loulan, allowing the audience to experience an audio-visual experience like "flying over the horizon" in the theater.
In addition to improving the overall technical level of the program, the play also focuses on the integration of performance, dance and character setting, further reflecting the complementarity of drama and acrobatics. Actors need to hone their acting skills and enhance their ability to portray characters while training their skills.
"Tianshan Snow" is not only produced by Hujiang United on stage, but also by the creative team behind the scenes. The artistic director of the play is Yu Yigang, vice chairman of the Chinese Acrobats Association, and the artistic consultant is Adili Wushur, the representative inheritor of the Uyghur Dawaz, a national intangible cultural heritage project. The play is written by the well-known playwright Yu Rongjun, with the famous military artist Li Chunyan as the chief director, and stage art workers from Shanghai and Xinjiang such as Xuekerati Aiyireti, Liu Liang, Gao Qun, and Bo Le as the executive directors.
In addition, the creative team also innovatively used Unreal Engine software, motion capture technology, virtual shooting, LED wide color gamut screen and other technologies in stage design and multimedia to create an immersive audio-visual experience across time and space. In the music design, it almost covers most of the common ethnic instruments in Xinjiang, such as eagle flute, Dudar, tambourine, hot wapu and other ethnic instruments. It has extremely strong ethnic characteristics and is created based on the local ethnic music of Xinjiang. . In addition, it also incorporates the melodies of Xinjiang national music such as "Send You a Rose" and "Send You a Elaeagnus Flower".
