In order to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, the Shanghai Ballet's 60th anniversary celebration performance of the Chinese original ballet "The White-Haired Girl" will be performed in Beijing from August 16th to 18th, participating in the National Center for the Performing Arts' National Style Dance. Classic series of performances.
In this performance, the 85-year-old famous conductor Chen Xieyang will appear on stage again. He has been the conductor of "The White-Haired Girl" since 1965 and is one of the first conductors to conduct the large-scale ballet "The White-Haired Girl". In addition, the China Film Orchestra and the China Radio Choir will provide live accompaniment and chorus, and Shanghai Opera House singers He Xiaonan and Zheng Yao will serve as soloists. This is also the first time the play has been performed in Beijing with live accompaniment, solo and chorus since it was revived in 1989.
In 1964, the Chinese original ballet "The White-Haired Girl" was born on the stage of the fifth "Shanghai Spring". It marked a breakthrough for Chinese ballet from scratch and was the first to tell Chinese stories in the world language of ballet. One of the Chinese ballets. "The White-Haired Girl is the starting point of Shanghai-style ballet and one of the foundation works of Chinese ballet. Ballet veterans represented by Hu Rongrong, Fu Aidi, Cheng Daihui and Lin Yangyang led the teachers and students of the Shanghai Dance School to jointly create it, illuminating the ballet A beautiful vision of Chineseization and nationalization," said Xin Lili, artistic director of Shanghai Ballet.
Stills from the Shanghai Ballet's ballet "The White-Haired Girl", "Dachun" played by Xu Jingkun and "White-Haired Girl" played by Guo Wenjin
In 1971, the color art film "The White-Haired Girl" was shot by the Shanghai Film Studio and filmed in Screened nationwide, the film made the show a household name. "The White-Haired Girl" not only uses foreign ballet vocabulary, but also draws on a large number of national folk dances, traditional operas, martial arts and other materials, while perfectly combining reality and romance. In 1979, the Shanghai Ballet was established on the basis of the "White-Haired Girl" crew, taking over the important task of inheriting the classics and inheriting the original artistic intentions and feelings of "The White-Haired Girl".
In terms of music, the ballet "The White-Haired Girl" retains the "North Wind Blows" and "Tie the Red Headband" and other tracks from the original opera. It also absorbs a large number of folk songs from North China such as Hebei Bangzi and Shanxi Bangzi as material, and uses a combination of orchestral music and national musical instruments. The combined form gives the dance drama a distinctive national style and a rich sense of life.
"The White-Haired Girl" has infected several generations of Chinese people with its true history and romantic emotions. In 1994, the play was awarded the "Chinese Nation's 20th Century Dance Classics Competition and Performance Classic Award" by the Ministry of Culture. In 2021, it was listed by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism as a "Key Support Work for the Stage Art Quality Creation Project to Celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the Founding of the Communist Party of China."
Stills from the Shanghai Ballet's ballet "The White-Haired Girl", "Dachun" played by Zhang Wenjun and "Xi'er" played by Zhao Meici
Spanning a century, "The White-Haired Girl" is still full of vitality, with total performances at home and abroad It has performed more than 2,000 times and has been performed not only all over the country, but also in France, Australia, Singapore, Canada, the United States, Japan, North Korea and other parts of the world. Each generation of Shanghai Ballet's principal and main actors began their artistic careers by playing "Xi'er" and "Wang Dachun", using the best actors to inherit the most classic works, and then using the most classic works to cultivate and educate each generation of actors. It has become a fine tradition of Shanghai Ballet.
The leading actors this time are chief star Qi Bingxue, "post-00s" main actors Xu Jingkun, Guo Wenjin, main actors Zhang Wenjun, Zhao Meici, etc. In order to present the artistic charm of "The White-Haired Girl" authentically, the dance company specially invited Lu Caigen, who has been the lighting engineer of "The White-Haired Girl" since 1964, to "return to the world."
Shanghai Ballet Director Ji Pingping said: "The original Chinese ballet "The White-Haired Girl" shows the world the original spirit of Chinese ballet art. We will continue to adhere to our ingenuity and perseverance, tell Chinese stories well, and take the path of creating for the people. ."
