Ballet originated in Italy, but the first ballet that is truly recognized as the first ballet was "The Queen's Happy Ballet" performed in France in 1581. King Louis XIV of France loved ballet and in 1651 he starred in the Sun God in "Cassandra". At that time, all the court ballets were played by boys. It was not until 1681 that actresses joined and adopted toe performances. From "Court ballet", "drama ballet", "stage ballet", and then to "romantic ballet", ballet has changed and developed in continuous innovation. More than 300 years later, the art of ballet was brought to China by Soviet expert Bi An Gushev.
If "Swan Lake" with a 100-year history is a family heirloom of Russia and " Giselle " is a German story, then "Red Detachment of Women" is an innovative work of China. For 60 years, it has been a repertoire of the Central Ballet.
In 1964, Zhongba began to create "Red Detachment of Women". My classmates and I were the first new actors in the group. I danced from group dance, led the dance , solo dance, and danced until I completed the filming of the movie "Red Detachment of Women" in 1971. I participated in the creation, repeated modification, performance, and the entire process of filming the movie. Here, I would like to talk about some of my experiences during the creation process.
1. "Red Detachment of Women", starting from the "Three Dances"
ballet "Red Detachment of Women", first tried to arrange three dances "Five Inch Knife", "Happy Female Soldier" and "The Li Girl Under the Whip". As the leader of the Li ethnic dance, it is difficult to use ballet to express the oppressed image and retain the characteristics of ethnic dance.
After repeated trial and error, the director selected two boy group Ding to compile a three-person dance . Usually, the double dance in classical ballet, and the three-person dance are all about the actress' graceful and gentle dance postures, which are like slow motion in the movie for the audience to appreciate. This three-person dance is contrary to the traditional style of ballet. It adopts a girl's two ballet movements, ground jet dances, and runs towards the entrance of the platform. The two group dicks grabbed her arms and threw them backwards into the sky, like holding a cross, and instantly went down. It adopts the fork in Chinese Peking Opera, and then turned around and pushed the group dick away with a big waist to show resistance. That feeling symbolizes falling from the earth to hell. I think such a synthesis shows the character well.
In addition to the innovation of dance movements and changes in costumes, it also provides infinite possibilities for displaying the plot. The Li ethnic dance is the ethnic dance of Hainan Island . She wears a narrow, short skirt. But wearing such clothing cannot do big moves, and the skirt must be torn apart! Costume designer Li Keyu changed the tumbler for this specific plot. Added 100 folds to the joints of the skirt. When a large movement is needed, the skirt will open and close like an accordion to match the movement. These are creation, these are innovation, and there are many little stories like this.
2. Teamwork achieves classics - the second creation of actors
In the dance drama, I performed the group dance of the Detachment of Women, skipped the sword dance, and later performed the company commander, and finally made a movie to play Wu Qinghua. In this series of processes, the problem often encounters is how to innovate ballet and Chinese dance movements between and .
When performing the role of Tsinghua, director Jiang Zuhui emphasized that her stubborn personality is the indestructible Wu Qinghua. In the first game, the director took an action called kicking the purple gold crown. This action originated from a technical action of the Chinese opera Dao Madan.
The most impressive example is that the female general in "Rainbow Bridge Gifts Pearl" picked up a spear on the battlefield, kicked left and right, with front legs, hind legs, explored the sea, and kicked the purple gold crown in reverse to block enemies from all directions. The performance of the exciting part of kicking the golden crown in reverse will arouse the audience's applause.
The inverted kicking purple gold crown in Chinese opera does not leave the ground. Kick backwards to the golden crown on top of your head. Our directors ask to leap out, feel like taking off, move this look into the air, and show the meaning of rushing out of the cage and overthrowing oppression.In order to conform to Wu Qinghua's personality, I boldly performed this move. When jumping into the air with half-squats and jumping into the air, the pure classical ballet movement Sisongframe was used. Quickly kick the front leg high, try to reach 50 degrees, open the left foot backward, and stack the chest at an angle of 140 degrees, form a large aerial jump. The two fists clenched can better show Wu Qinghua's determination to break through the dark forces and run towards the liberated areas. The action was very effective and left a deep impression on the audience. Later, the Purple Gold Crown Dance became a classic advertisement for "The Red Detachment of Women" and became a household name. I think that's what our actors play in the choreography process. The actors complete the integration of dramatic movements and dance movements by understanding the director's intentions, grasping and sublimating the movements, and innovating them.
like inverted kicking Zijin Crown and Lizu Dance, there are many innovative moves. For example, the most typical swan movement in Swan Lake shows the swan's beautiful long neck and the feeling of leaping with open wings. Such a beautiful move is not applicable to the Detachment of Women. If a female warrior wants to show the strength of a warrior, we transform it into: holding a big knife in his hand, clenching his fists, and showing the heroic posture of the Detachment of Women.
3. Art comes from life, higher than life - the transformation of the ballet "Red Detachment of Women"
In the ballet "Red Detachment of Women", the actors who are used to the performance of Western princes and princesses encountered great difficulties in the crew. In the first rank, the actors were at a loss with prop guns. The gun was in their hands, like holding a fire stick, not knowing where to point? The appearance action arranged by
is: take two steps and stand your toes, and take two steps and stand your toes. The actor felt uncomfortable and showed traces of swans and fairies from time to time, and was completely out of shape. At this time, the leaders of the Ministry of Culture discovered this problem during the review and said that we were "just like women but not like military personnel", and then arranged for us to go down to the army, go deep into life, and experience life. In this way, the actors arrived at the army, and they worked with the soldiers in the army, practicing every day, standing and kneeling to shoot, and marching at night. With real life in the army, the actresses pick up guns and look very good.
has returned from deep into life, and the rich materials are endless. Li Chengxiang director choreographed in one go. The women's soldiers appeared in neat and powerful steps, and the collection of ballet toes was recorded. The nine-person sword dance led by Hong Changqing and the powerful grenade dance of the female soldiers developed to a climax. All the women's soldiers picked up their guns and assassination fucked in an orderly manner, ending with the shouts of killing. The heroic image of the Detachment of Women finally stood out. This is the result of life and higher than life.
Drops of water form a river, this is how our creation is, a movement, a dance, and a cumulative expression, forming today's "Red Detachment of Women".
Speaker resume
Xue Jinghua, a national first-class actor, and the original main actor of the Central Ballet. Professionals of the State Council and recipients of special contribution allowances. Director and consultant of the Chinese Dancers Association. Deputies to the Fourth National People's Congress and representatives to the Fourth Cultural Congress.
once played the protagonist of the dance drama "Red Detachment of Women". The drama was filmed as a movie in 1971. After the movie was released, it became a household name and became a classic, which deeply influenced generations of young people. The dance drama film won the first prize in the 1972 Venice Film Festival. Foreign press comments "The actress has beautiful figures and lines, and the movements are completed without any flaws to hit..."
National Grand Theater Art Popularization Ministry of Education/Planning
Xue Jinghua/Text
Wang Yuwei/Compilation
