Encountering Images on Stage: More Possibilities for Artistic Expression
2025-01-15
With the promotion of 5G technology and the development of media integration, offline performances of stage art, digital innovation, and dual performance integration have become important forms of creative expression in the global stage art industry. In 2024, the digital drama Literature and Art in the War of Resistance, the dance drama film The Never Gone Wave, The Journey of a Legendary Landscape Painting, the line drawing stage documentary film New Dragon Gate Inn of Shaoxing Opera, and the Beijing opera film Lock Lin Bag will be launched one after another, forming a diversified collective image creation of Chinese stage art. The stage art images that break through the limitations of a single time and space in the theater, and use innovative forms of artistic expression to better meet the cultural needs of different audiences, have attracted widespread attention from the industry and academia. The development of Chinese stage art with "electricity" has a clear historical context and rich forms of expression. In China, opera was the first to move from the stage to the screen, becoming a stage art with "electricity". In 1905, at the Fengtai Photography Studio in Beijing, the famous Peking Opera performer Tan Xinpei stood in front of the camera and performed scenes of "volunteer", "knife dance", and "confrontation" from "Dingjun Mountain", sounding the drums and gongs of "shadow play" creation. In the 1940s and 1950s, director Fei Mu and Mei Lanfang starred in the color film "Life and Death Hate", using the filming method of "long shot slow motion" to create a long-lasting atmosphere and hazy atmosphere in the narrative of the film, exploring the "air theory" style in the aesthetics of nationalized films. Afterwards, the first stage drama film of New China produced by Shanghai Film Studio, "Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai," successfully went abroad and won double awards at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival and the Edinburgh International Film Festival. In the 1950s and 1960s, Chinese opera flourished with a variety of styles, and the development of opera films also reached its peak. The Yue opera film "Dream of the Red Chamber" left behind the classic image of Daiyu, the Kunqu opera film "Fifteen Passes" presents the charm of this play as "one play revived a genre", the Shao opera film "Sun Wukong Three Beats the White Bone Demon" has become an important traditional puzzle in the "Wukong Universe", and the Beijing opera film "Wild Boar Forest" is known as the most representative and influential masterpiece of this period. Since the 21st century, there have still been excellent works in traditional Chinese opera films. Director Zheng Dasheng's Peking Opera film "Integrity in Jackie Chan" explores the aesthetic style debate between realism and freehand brushwork through visual space. Director Teng Junjie's 3D version of the Peking Opera film "Farewell My Concubine" premiered in the United States and became a cultural calling card for Chinese film overseas exchanges. The Cantonese opera film "The Legend of the White Snake: Love" has gone viral on short video websites and gained popularity among young audiences on the internet. The Peking Opera film "Locking the Lin Bag" starring Zhang Huoding, a descendant of the Cheng School, has provided more fans with the opportunity to appreciate the artistic charm of the Cheng School on the big screen. At present, in the context of media convergence, Chinese stage art images have various forms of cross media creation and rapid development speed. Firstly, it is a digital drama that uses the most suitable angle to shoot the stage play live and plays it in theaters or video platforms. The high-definition projection of stage art was first introduced to China in 2015 and has since become an important trend in the development of digital drama. The National Theatre of China has launched the "CNT Live" brand and launched digital drama works such as "Literature and Art in the Anti Japanese War" and "The Age of Heroes". The National Peking Opera Theatre of China has launched a 5G+4K version of "Dragon and Phoenix Bringing Auspiciousness" for broadcasting at home and abroad. Audiences can freely choose viewing angles such as "watching the big play", "the corner is here", "the perspective of the qin and drum master" using intelligent applications. These works redefine the viewing relationship in the digital age through digital, multi camera, and immersive online interactive viewing modes. Secondly, it is a stage art film created by integrating digital technology based on the original stage works. For example, the dance drama films "Never Die Wave" and "The Journey of a Legendary Landscape Painting", with the innovative concept of "real stage+digital space", emphasize the integration of more film and television style and language on the basis of maintaining the art noumenon of dance drama. The XR theatrical image "Macbeth" uses digital technology to break the boundaries of the real stage and construct an imaginative space without boundaries. Finally, interactive theatrical imagery represented by virtual reality technology, such as the immersive opera "Daiyu Burial Flower" by Shanghai Theatre Academy, brings a sense of immersion to the audience through the virtual scenes and interactive narrative modes of situational reproduction. Viewers can use mixed reality headsets and handheld devices to watch works anytime, anywhere. Looking back at history, it can be found that there are intricate connections between stage art and imagery in China. Opera art has nurtured the development of Chinese cinema, and cinema has become an effective medium for disseminating opera art. The two have a mutually beneficial relationship. At present, from the perspective of Internet culture, stage art image creation deeply integrates stage and image, and makes traditional stage art glow with new brilliance by emphasizing the presence and interaction of narrative methods and quick and flexible communication methods. Compared to traditional stage art, cross media created stage art images focus on deconstructing and reconstructing the relationship between theater performance and traditional theatrical stage performance, which is relatively fixed and unchanging. In the narrative process of linear time and space, Western drama maintains a "fourth wall" relationship between performance and viewing. Chinese opera art often uses the technique of "bowing" to break out of the situation and engage in direct dialogue with the audience. Stage art images will reshape the viewing and performance relationship in front of the screen as their own intrinsic value and conscious creative direction, mainly reflected in emphasizing three aspects: "spatial reconstruction", "viewpoint stitching", and "subjective experience". Using situational changes to reconstruct narrative space and bring different psychological experiences to the audience. Stage art images fully utilize the visual and auditory techniques of "far, wide, medium, close, push, pull, shake, and follow" in film and television art, giving stage drama a new expression. In the dance drama film "Eternal Waves", the camera's slow motion changes the scene from a panoramic view to a close-up of the characters, creating a visual emphasis and emotional release in the body narrative of the dance. The audience can notice details that cannot be captured in the theater. The changes in scenery and the rhythm of editing are important methods to enrich the stage rhythm. For example, in the dance drama film "The Eternal Radio Wave", the two scenes of "Qipao Dance" and "Driver Fighting" are filmed completely according to the scenes of the film's martial arts scenes, with sharp camera combinations, which enhance the rhythm of the film and add dramatic conflicts. Using axis photography to construct character relationships, creating a seamless visual connection between the audience and the characters. Stage art imaging involves moving the camera onto the stage and using a triangular camera position with "forward and backward" movements to create a positional exchange between the audience and the characters, allowing the audience to experience a shared breathing and destiny with the characters. The scene of Xia Yan and Mao Dun meeting in the theatrical film "Literature and Art in the War of Resistance Against Japan" is captured by the camera from the positions of the upper and lower side screen strips. The expressions and expressions of appreciation in their eyes during communication are presented to the audience without reservation through shoulder to shoulder relationships and back to body shots, allowing historical figures to reunite with current audiences across time and space. In order to meet the expectations of young audiences, the Yue Opera stage documentary film "New Dragon Gate Inn" specially designed close-up shots of Jin Xiangyu and Jia Ting meeting, allowing fans to have a fully immersive viewing experience. Using a camera to represent the perspective of the characters in the play, creating a subjective shot. It is said that 'there are a thousand images of Hamlet in the eyes of a thousand spectators', but what kind of scenery does Hamlet see in his eyes? This is unknown in traditional stage art performances, but in stage art images, the use of subjective lenses allows the audience to see the other person, the audience, and the imaginative space seen in the eyes of the characters on stage. Imagine in Kunqu Opera's "Garden Tour", when Du Liniang comes to the backyard and sings, "It turns out that all kinds of flowers and flowers are blooming, like this, all contributing to the ruins of the well. What kind of beautiful scenery is there on a good day? Who's home is there to enjoy?" This kind of spring scenery, which could only be established through "singing and dancing stories" to create audience psychological imagination and virtual display, can be concretely displayed through subjective lenses and digital special effects technology, bringing stunning beauty to people. We should explore the elements and laws of the integration and innovative development of stage art, film and television technology, and digital technology. Stage art images have important value for the comprehensive development of society and culture. On the one hand, it can explore the value-added potential of digital products in stage art, solve the survival and development difficulties of small and medium-sized theater troupes in China, and provide a new path for digital development for sending plays to rural areas and comprehensively promoting rural cultural revitalization. On the other hand, it provides new technologies, new media, and new contexts in inheriting excellent traditional Chinese culture, meeting the diverse viewing needs of young audiences, and cultivating young audiences. At present, more and more creators are keenly capturing the unique charm and potential of stage art images. However, compared with mature foreign brands, the development of stage art images in China presents problems such as late start, weak dissemination, and few works. Some creators have unclear understanding of the creative rules of stage art images, and industry standards and norms have not yet been established, resulting in uneven quality of works. Moreover, traditional Chinese opera films with a century long development history are also facing market bottlenecks such as low screening rates and weak attention today. Therefore, while creating stage art images, it is also necessary to pay attention to theoretical summarization, extract the elements, experiences, and methods of the integration and innovative development of stage art, film and television technology, and digital technology, construct theoretical frameworks, and cross research fields. From a theoretical perspective, the first step is to clarify the concept, types, and styles of digital creation of stage art images. Secondly, based on offline performances, it is necessary to compare the changes in themes, content, narrative, etc. from stage to screen, and provide theoretical summaries for different types of stage art visual works, clarifying the connotation and extension of the form of the works. From the perspective of creative practice, it is necessary to analyze the image works produced across different types of stage art forms, explore the artistic laws of their integration from dimensions such as composition, photography, lighting, music and sound, and visual effects, and find the key links in their transformation. From the perspective of communication pathways, through the mutual meaning and mutual promotion between stage and image, this study further reveals the modern transformation and intertextual dissemination of traditional Chinese stage art, providing a mode and method of online and offline dual performance integration and mutual promotion for art forms such as opera+image, dance drama+image, puppetry+image, and quyi+image under the category of grand drama. (New Society)
Edit:momo Responsible editor:Chen zhaozhao
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