Are the good days of martial arts novels and action movies over? At least "Falling Flowers and Flowing Water", which is defined as a "martial arts physical drama", still attracts young audiences. Following the Off Theater Festival in Avignon, the Edinburgh International Fringe Festival and the Wuzhen Theater Festival, this small theater work with a strong sense of play and experimentation debuted at the Jing'an Modern Theater Valley at the end of the May Day holiday. The theater was nearly full and the atmosphere of the performance was enthusiastic. Even though the comments on social networks after the performance were polarizing, this was in line with the original intention of the work. It tried to challenge the "consensus" and create some new stage performances related to "martial arts". Editor - Are these East Asian bodies and East Asian dramas that appear in modern space withered flowers or endless flowing water?
There were six people on the stage, one of whom was a musician. They were all dressed in black, with simplified facial makeup on their faces and hooked eyes and noses. Their style was similar to the harlequin face in Chinese opera. The figure of Wu Chou in opera and the physical performance of Kyogen in Noh drama. These elements of ancient East Asian drama are obviously appropriated into the body choreography. The first intuitive impression of the output of "Falling Flowers and Flowing Water" is that "martial arts" no longer serves as a specific narrative resource, but instead becomes a fresh "program" on the stage. In the heyday of martial arts films and action films, in the films of King Hu and Chang Cheh, the fight sequences and move-by-move choreography that became the highlight of the films drew on traditional opera and martial arts. On the stage at this moment, "martial arts" has changed from a noun to an adjective, and from a specific story to a generalized methodology.
"Falling Flowers and Flowing Water" has some scattered lines, but the "content" of these lines is not important. The actors' voice is far more worthy of attention than "what they say". The vague plot exists, but the performance itself is not intended to make the audience struggle to discern "what the plot is." Disagreement, conspiracy, killing, revenge, suffering, confrontation, evil will not prevail against good... This is not necessarily "this" Jianghu story, but a combination of various Jianghu grievances and young heroes that many viewers are familiar with. It is a condensation and summary of "these" and "this type" stories. It seems to go back to the origin of martial arts, and use the stage life painting method to draw the "periodic table of elements" of the Eastern Jianghu narrative.
"Falling Flowers and Flowing Water" is not just a simple refining of the martial arts genre narrative. The creator is consciously aware of the traditional and abstract "program" resources. After encountering the technology of contemporary theater, he transforms and becomes more creative at the same time. Rich ideograms - In this work, after the lighting is intervened many times, the action scenes of the people on the stage are projected onto the theater wall, and the shadows of the performers form new pictures and new expressions full of fluidity and variables. .
The composition of "Falling Flowers and Flowing Water" is similar to the one-act ballet "Etudes". Whether "martial arts" or "ballet", the choreographer dismantles complex narrative elements, uses rigorously trained bodies to display and collage basic skills, and ultimately inspires the tension of "drama" from pure physical skills. It's just that "Etude" is already an exquisitely finished product after countless hard work, while "Falling Flowers and Flowing Water" still retains the unfinished and open attribute. It is a work in the progressive tense. In particular, director Huang Junda and text author Miha said that their original intention was to use the space of the stage and the unique method of the stage to discuss why "martial arts" did not appear elsewhere, and only the cultural soil of East Asia grew this A strange plant? Faced with this ambitious dramatic issue, "Falling Flowers and Flowing Water" is the beginning of a challenging answer, but it is far from the end.
Author: Liu Qing
Text: Liu Qing Pictures: Pictures provided by the crew Editor: Wang Xiaoli Editor: Xing Xiaofang
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