Report on Taoist Shadow Play in Huanxian County

Beijing, the third memory about shadow play: "Li" measured the market temperature with shadow play.

CCTV International September 2003 18 10:50

There are 92 sets of shadow play boxes in Huan County, and there are more than 50 shadow play classes that perform in the countryside all the year round, which is rare in the country.

It doesn't matter whether the shadow play is profitable or not when it is put on the commercial stage. The key is to try how deep Quyi is in the cultural market and have a "pony crossing the river" experience.

The performance of Daoqing Shadow Play in Huan County, Gansu Province was postponed for some reason.

Even so, Li Ge of Beijing Sino-American Tongji Culture Communication Co., Ltd. said that he was used to burning the midnight oil recently. As the deputy general manager of the company and the organizer of the Daoqing Shadow Play in Huan County, Gansu Province, Li Ge's intense work rhythm may be reasonable-although everything is ready for the performance, he thinks there are still some details to be improved.

Li Ge's original name was Li Ge. As for "Li", this is the nickname given to him by his friends. Because he likes some folk arts, including shadow play, folk songs, paper-cutting, and those young or old folk artists, Li Ge has very limited topics to talk with his friends, except folk arts.

For this performance, Li Ge was both excited and a little flustered: for the first time, the ancient shadow play art was introduced to the public in a commercial way, and no one knew what the result would be.

"There is no turning arrow before opening the bow!" Li Ge said, "It doesn't seem to matter whether we make money or not. The key is that we have made a useful attempt. " Shadow play has potential commercial value.

Although he loves Quyi, Li Gezhen has not been in contact with shadow play for a long time. "I have long heard about this matter. Sounds like fun. I can't find it all over the street. " Li Ge said.

It was not until June 5438+ 10 last year that Li Ge, who had just arrived at Tongji Culture Company, got in touch with the Daoqing Shadow Play Art Troupe in Huanxian County, Gansu Province, which was then in Beijing to declare the intangible cultural heritage of the United Nations.

Perhaps it is because of my professional sensitivity, or perhaps I really love Quyi. "At that time, I squeezed through the crowd and decided to sponsor a benefit performance of Peking University Tsinghua." Li Ge recalled.

Li Ge still remembers the scene of performing in Peking University: there is still more than an hour before the performance time, and many students have gathered in the multi-function hall of Yuan Shao of Peking University. When the performance started, there were no pedestrians in the aisle. With the ups and downs of the plot in the play, the applause is more enthusiastic every time. After the scheduled three performances were finished, the audience strongly demanded another performance. Some students ran backstage to pester the old artist to explain the mystery of playing shadow play. It was in these two performances that Li Ge suddenly realized the huge potential commercial value of folk art itself.

"There are many free performances, but will more people try commercial performances? Once the art of shadow play is combined with business, can it save its declining trend? " After that, an impulse to try to market shadow play in a commercial way has been lurking in Li Ge's heart. Put shadow play on the commercial stage

The time is finally ripe. Just after New Year's Day in 2003, Li Ge and his party made a special trip to Huan County, Gansu Province, and made a seven-day inspection of the Taoist shadow play in the county. After a long period of analysis and demonstration, Li Ge decided to put the Taoist shadow play on the Beijing stage by commercial means. Before that, such a thing had never happened.

In Li Ge's view, it doesn't matter whether shadow play is put on the commercial stage. The key is to try how deep Quyi is in the cultural market and have a "pony crossing the river" experience.

Li Ge believes that although the number of shadow play performance groups in China is still limited, not many can really be put on the stage, some acting skills are not rough, or the cast is incomplete, and there are many who stick to the old ways and few who innovate in content and form. However, after more than 300 years of historical and cultural accumulation, the art of Taoist shadow play in Huan County, Gansu Province, while retaining the original excellent repertoire, has also created a large number of works that the masses like. Moreover, in Huan County, shadow play is still the main form of entertainment for local people. Shadow play is a must-sing play in the slack season and at weddings and funerals, so it retains the most primitive and simple northwest customs. To some extent, the shadow play in Huan County is a microcosm of local farming culture.

"The troupe is loosely organized, the actors are all farmers, and they all sing songs handed down from the times. From singing to shadow play as a whole, they are original." Li Ge said, "We just want to present this authentic and touching folk art to the audience completely. Although it is a commercial performance, we absolutely guarantee its true colors. "

Li Ge said that although the capital, manpower and material resources invested in this shadow play performance in Beijing can't be compared with the performance scenes of large-scale production at all, it is related to the shadow play performance, and we dare not be careless at all.

Especially in the choice of performance forms, there are more than 100 kinds of classical, modern, serious and humorous plays of Taoist shadow play in Huan County, and there are more than a thousand shadow play figures in the theater box alone. After repeated careful selection, more than ten plays, such as traditional story Monkey King Thrice Defeats the Skeleton Demon, street joke Wang Qi is afraid of his wife, and legendary story Qin Shiling, have become the plays to meet the audience.

Considering that the shadow puppeteer speaks the northwest dialect, which is difficult for the audience to understand, Li Ge arranges the lyrics according to the recorded materials and provides subtitles during the performance.

Li Ge also extended his meticulous work to the production of posters and the selection of performance venues. The exquisite texture of the poster, coupled with the shadow puppeteers who stretch their fists and kick or coquetry, not only highlights the vicissitudes of shadow play itself, but also lacks the nostalgia pursued by modern people; The performance venue is Beibing Army Theater, which is popular and has good audio-visual effects. The price of eating "crab"

When explaining his shadow play to others, Li Ge often used the phrase "Dare to eat the first crab" to describe his adventurous behavior.

The fact is just as Li Ge said. Compared with the current situation of domestic mass cultural commercial performances, the traditional folk cultural performance market has always been neglected, and some official or private companies have come up with the idea of applying folk art to commercial means, hoping to create a second youth for folk art while making profits. However, contrary to expectations, under the pressure of all parties in the market, some bold and novel ideas aborted.

"To tell the truth, spend more than 20 universal back on the show? Even I have no idea now. I can't catch any sand in the eyes of the market. What I can do is to do my best to do the rest! " Li Ge said.

In fact, some pessimistic phenomena have approached Li Ge. According to the reporter's understanding, although the organizer promised to buy a ticket at the highest price (200 yuan) to get a shadow play performer, the total number of tickets sold in one week was less than 100, among which many consumers were Li's "buddies" and the rest were people who liked folk art in the circle.

The box office is a barometer of the performance market. Li Ge is taking shadow play to measure the temperature of the folk art performance market.

To some extent, Li Ge and his Tongji culture are a horse that dares to wade. Water depth is not their special concern, but the process of exploration.

"It is deceptive to say that you don't want to make money, and it is not realistic to say that you want to make money. When we decide to do this, we hope to make money, because once we make money, we will attract more powerful professional or non-professional performance companies to enter the folk art market with more mature commercial operation means, which will undoubtedly have positive significance for the protection and inheritance of folk art; And if we lose money, then at least we will bring the shadow play in the northwest to the eyes of Beijingers, so that everyone can know more specifically what shadow play is! " Li Ge said.

Maybe that's all the exploration is about.

Ryan. Qiao, director of the Research Center for Intangible Cultural Heritage of the Central Academy of Fine Arts, recently commented on Li Ge's behavior: "He pushed folk art into the abyss of commercialization and opened up a new way for folk art to get out of the predicament."