National Dance Drama "Silk Road Flower Rain": Giving Dunhuang Music and Dance a Contemporary Life

On May 23, 1979, the national dance drama "Silk Road Flower Rain" premiered at the Yellow River Theater in Lanzhou, and on October 1 at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, which immediately caused a sensation and was called "Living Dunhuang Murals, Beautiful Artistic Enjoyment". The creators are bold and innovative, excavating the treasure house of Dunhuang art, transforming the mottled murals in the Mogao Grottoes into lively dancing gestures, and bringing still pictures, historical moments, and cultural exchanges on the Silk Road to the stage, touching the heart. In the past 45 years, "Silk Road Flower Rain" has left Dunhuang and gone to the world. It has been performed in more than 40 countries and regions for nearly 4,000 times, and there is a "Dunhuang wind" everywhere it goes. This national dance drama born in northwest China has also opened a new type of dance: Dunhuang dance. More than 20 stage art masterpieces, such as "Dunhuang Ancient Music" and "Great Dream Dunhuang", were influenced by it.

The stage art works represented by "Silk Road Flowers and Rain" have brought the thousand-year-old monuments back to contemporary life and played an important role in promoting Chinese culture to the international stage. Looking back at the development process of Dunhuang dance, it is of enlightenment significance to further promote the creative transformation and innovative development of Chinese excellent traditional culture.

1. The mottled murals turn into graceful dances

In 1977, the Propaganda Department of the Gansu Provincial Party Committee decided to explore Dunhuang culture and create a Dunhuang-themed stage play. To this end, the Gansu Provincial Song and Dance Troupe (now the Gansu Provincial Song and Dance Theater) sent seven batches of editors to Dunhuang. After three years, seven went to the Mogao Grottoes to collect dance materials.

"It's as vast as a sea of smoke, never seen before!" Faced with this cultural treasure that has experienced thousands of years of wind and frost, the artists were deeply shocked. In the 492 caves in the southern area of the Mogao Grottoes, music and dance images can be seen everywhere, and various dance forms and a variety of musical instruments can be seen on the walls, which greatly inspired their creative inspiration. However, giving new life to these historical sites that have been silent for thousands of years and transforming them into modern stage art is a huge challenge for the artists, which is something that has "never been done before."

One of the biggest problems facing the creators is that the image of the mural is static. What kind of dance movement should be used to connect them? During the collection period, the main creative team copied the dance gestures in the mural one by one into "paper paintings" and hung them all over the walls, imitating these gestures over and over again, and exploring the rules. They finally extracted the core law of the dance form from the static Dunhuang mural music and dance posture - the "S-shaped" "three curves" formed by the bending of the head, shoulders and hips. Among them, the classic image that best explains the S-shaped dance vocabulary is the "rebound pipa": the image of the rebound pipa created by the heroine "Ying Niang" in the play brilliantly presents the elegant and charming beauty of oriental women in front of the audience. In the process of transforming these dance vocabulary into dynamic performances, the creative team cleverly allowed countless static shapes to flow through S-shaped movements, forming a unique dance style and pioneering a new genre of Chinese classical dance - Dunhuang Dance.

Found the core dance vocabulary, what story should I tell? Dunhuang is a place where the four major cultural systems of China, India, Greece, and Islam converge, and it is an expo park where Chinese and Western cultures blend. Isn't the story of friendly exchanges between China and foreign countries on the ancient Silk Road precisely the cultural gene of China's openness and inclusiveness that has lasted for thousands of years? Therefore, a story reflecting the friendly exchanges between Chinese and foreign people of all ethnic groups was born: Dunhuang painter "Shenbi Zhang" and his daughter Ying Niang rescued the Persian merchant Inus who was trapped in the desert. Later, the father and daughter were separated by robbers, and Inus came to help. The exquisite dance and the ups and downs of the storyline lead the audience through the clouds of history, step on the ancient Silk Road, and feel the touching friendship of people's hearts.

"Silk Road Flower Rain" not only creatively transforms the ancient mural music and dance art into a living "Dunhuang music and dance", making it a distinct Chinese cultural symbol, but also integrates the theme of "openness, communication, friendship" into the national dance drama, and uses the charm of dance to show the spiritual connotation of Chinese culture tolerance, self-confidence, enthusiasm, and peace-loving. In addition, the music of the dance drama also creatively integrates musical elements such as Han and Tang Dynasties, Western Regions, Persia, and Buddhism, showing the characteristics of multicultural blending. For example, the theme music of the dance drama is composed on the keynote of the ancient pipa song "Moon'er High", forming a unique musical style.

2. Continuously inject contemporary art aesthetics

Since the creative production of "Dunhuang Dance" in "Flower Rain on the Silk Road", the artists have used the creative concept of "based on Dunhuang murals but not limited to Dunhuang murals" to explore the incision of Dunhuang music and dance in line with the times with contemporary art aesthetics, and pursue the combination of its artistic value and practical value, bringing a richer aesthetic experience to the audience.

As the first work of Dunhuang dance, "Silk Road Flower Rain" has been continuously injected into the aesthetics of contemporary art in 45 years of interpretation, and it has continued to grow and last for a long time. When this work was born, it was in the early stage of reform and opening up. In the context of the era of emancipation of the mind, novel body language, new plot interpretation, and rich ethnic style of clothing and Taoism and music accurately captured people's deep spiritual desires, making it a great success. In 2008, as a gift for the Beijing Olympic Games, "Silk Road Flower Rain" underwent a "major operation" to once again adapt to the aesthetic needs of audiences in the new era. The main creative team, on the one hand, expanded the body language of the dance in the original version, boldly integrated modern dance elements into solo dance, duet dance, trio dance and group dance, emphasizing the free flow of the dancer's body and the display of personality, and depicted the characters more delicately; on the other hand, rearranged the music, highlighting the three-dimensional and heavy sense of the music, the melody reverberates, hits the heart, and is majestic and more symphonic, which has undergone great changes compared with the restrained emotional expression in Chinese classical music, strengthening the live appeal. At the first Silk Road (Dunhuang) International Cultural Expo in 2016, "Silk Road Flower Rain" was renewed again. Modern digital technologies such as projection technology and large-screen technology appeared on the stage, and many fashionable elements were added to the actors' costumes, props and shapes. The new version of the dance drama also tried to change the way the story was told, speeding up the rhythm of some dances, adding new dances to recreate the old appearance of Dunhuang and the ancient Silk Road, and further fitting the aesthetic habits of modern audiences.

The aesthetic orientation embodied in "Silk Road Flowers and Rain" has deeply influenced the creation of many Dunhuang dances in the future, such as the large-scale dance drama "Dream Dunhuang" created by Lanzhou Song and Dance Theater in 2000, the dance "Avalokitesvara" performed at the closing ceremony of the Athens Paralympic Games and the 2005 CCTV Spring Festival Gala, the dance "Flying Sky" performed at the 2008 CCTV Spring Festival Gala, and the dance "Millennium Covenant" performed at the first "Belt and Road Initiative" International Cooperation Summit Gala. These works are born out of Dunhuang murals. On the basis of inheriting the characteristics of "Silk Road Flowers and Rain", they continue to explore Dunhuang culture from a contemporary perspective, which further highlights the core characteristics of Dunhuang culture "mutual learning and integration": in terms of dance, classical dance and modern dance, folk dance and ballet are boldly interwoven and integrated to complement each other; the music field also shows the characteristics of diversity, where different styles of music such as traditional and modern, national and world, electronic and symphony learn from each other and coexist.

3. Promote the inheritance and innovation of Dunhuang dance

In recent years, creators have paid more and more attention to drawing nutrients from the excellent traditional Chinese culture. In the field of stage art, many ancient music and dance themes have been reinterpreted, such as "Tang Palace Night Banquet", "Luoshen Water Fu", "Rebound Pipa Pipa Pipe", "Silk Road Music · Tang Yun Echo", "Music Move Dunhuang" and other dance, concert, immersive performance works, or borrow modern technology, or use the latest research results, break through the inherent means of expression, and explore new practical experience in innovation, providing new ideas and reference for the creative transformation and innovative development of Dunhuang music and dance.

Continue to dig deeper into the cultural connotation of Dunhuang music and dance. The study of Dunhuang music and dance should not be limited to the study of mural images, but also include history and culture into the research scope. Compared with the innovative achievements of Dunhuang "dance", there is still a big gap in the depth and breadth of its research and practice of "music", and there is still a lot of room and possibility for creation and transformation. Take "music" in contemporary Dunhuang music and dance as an example. At present, it is mainly presented by playing recordings. This is different from the ancient music and dance culture where music was also displayed on the stage in visual form, missing the core characteristics of "music" and "dance". We have also noticed that some of the so-called "Dunhuang music and dance" theme works are often just a few movements floating on the surface, the content is empty and lacks connotation, reducing the cultural connotation of Dunhuang music and dance.

Focusing on talent training and inheritance. To promote the inheritance and innovation of Dunhuang music and dance art requires more professionals who research, create and perform Dunhuang dance. Academic institutions and universities such as Dunhuang Research Institute, Beijing Dance Academy, Northwest Normal University and Northwest University for Nationalities have already made explorations and attempts in talent training programs, curriculum design, textbook construction and practice platform construction. However, in the cultivation of creative talents, we still urgently need to seek new breakthroughs in enhancing innovation ability and cultivating innovation consciousness, so as to continue to inject a steady stream of new impetus into the creative transformation and innovative development of Dunhuang music and dance.

Innovative expression techniques. In the tide of digitization, informatization and intelligence, people's lifestyles and ideas are undergoing profound changes. New creative techniques and concepts should be absorbed in open communication to improve the aesthetic level. At the same time, creators' use of virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), film and television technology on the stage should not overwhelm the guests, but should be harmoniously integrated with dance movements, music, clothing and other elements. The cultural background and historical value of Dunhuang dance should be respected, and the traditional charm and artistic style of Dunhuang dance should be maintained.