Ballet "Banner" and "Legend of the White Snake" Debut in Beijing

Recently, the original ballet "The Banner" and "The Legend of the White Snake" produced by the Guangzhou Municipal Party Committee Propaganda Department of Guangdong Province and the Guangzhou Municipal Bureau of Culture, Radio, Television and Tourism, and jointly produced by Guangzhou Cultural Development Group Co., Ltd. were staged in Beijing one after another, bringing audiences a completely different artistic enjoyment. The two stage masterpieces rooted in Chinese culture and brought together a strong team of main creators will then tour to Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shijiazhuang, Chengdu and other places.

Both ballets have been included in the National Arts Fund-funded project and the key project of Guangzhou's municipal literary and artistic masterpieces, and "The Banner" won the 13th Chinese Dance Lotus Award. "How to use the ballet as an art form to create Chinese themes has always been a question of continuous exploration and practice for all dancers. The launch of the ballet" The Legend of the White Snake "and" The Banner "has the triple value of history, culture and art. The Guangzhou Ballet will continue to activate and break through the expression of Chinese excellent traditional culture in the new era, so that the Chinese style can go out of the international range." said Zou Gang, the producer, artistic director and head of the Guangzhou Ballet Company of the two dances.

As the first ballet in the history of Chinese stage art to tell the story of the 1927 Guangzhou Uprising, "The Banner" is based on historical materials and takes real historical figures as the main line. It integrates revolutionary realism and romanticism, and reproduces the magnificent historical picture of the martyrs fighting for the survival of the country and the liberation of the people. "The Banner" was specially invited by Yu Ping as a screenwriter, and at the same time invited young composer Yang Fan, national first-class stage art designer Qin Liyun, national first-class stage art designer Ren Dongsheng, and costume designer Cui Xiaodong to help, presenting the era style, humanistic landscape, and combat atmosphere of old Guangzhou in detail on the stage, bringing strong visual and ideological impact to the audience.

The characters in the ballet "The Legend of the White Snake" are rich and heavy in emotion, with great drama tension and stage appeal; the overall music integrates elements such as jazz, pop, national style, opera, etc., and combines various musical styles to innovate, which is refreshing. The "new" of the play is not only a reshaping of the story form, but also a continuation and development of the excellent traditional Chinese culture and a tribute to the classic IP. In addition to making full use of the cultural elements of the Song Dynasty, it presents a unique oriental texture in the expression of details such as picture artistic conception, music arrangement, and clothing, and also uses multimedia set technology to achieve a high degree of integration with traditional culture in the visual presentation and plot advancement.

The styling design of the characters in the play, how to achieve the fusion of modern and classical verve, and make classical literature become contemporary classics, etc., are issues that Ye Jintian constantly thinks about in the creation of "The Legend of the White Snake". "The Legend of the White Snake is a traditional mythological story, which explores the love of the human world, illusion and essence, so I think of the tranquility and timeless, simple but profound aesthetics of the Song Dynasty. In my creation, my creative focus is on re-expressing the classics, showing the contemporary verve of classical aesthetics, so that people in different eras can feel its original flavor." Ye Jintian said.

Wang Ge, the chief director of the ballet "The Banner" and "The Legend of the White Snake", said that the two dance plays can be said to be the projection of history in the contemporary era, expressing and showing the confidence and self-improvement of Chinese culture from different themes and perspectives. "'The Banner' is written with revolutionary romanticism to hold high the great banner and use realism to shape the group portraits of heroes. It is an eulogy to the times and a tribute to history. The appeal of the dance drama lies in showing the intrinsic character of the characters and the dramatic tension caused by the entanglement of the relationship between the characters. In the shuttle of different time and space, it depicts the beautiful emotions between heroes and their families, lovers and comrades-in-arms, and contrasts sharply with the heroism of the final sacrifice, so that the audience can think consciously while being moved." "The Legend of the White Snake is different from the traditional story, and uses a more humorous way to convey Eastern culture and Eastern philosophy," Wang Ge said. "The dance drama is based on the original plot to carry out a reasonable interpretation and reconstruction, adding new characters and new elements to form a narrative that is more suitable for the current aesthetic, and strives to present and discuss positive mainstream values in a larger pattern."