舞蹈创作,精品为上

On Quality Works of Dance Creation

"鼓舞四方—2017优秀舞蹈创作作品一览"是中国舞蹈家协会与上海国际舞蹈中心发展基金会联合主办的一场舞蹈演出专场。笔者从整台22个节目中选取了几个有代表性的作品进行分析和探讨,强调舞蹈创作应当关注舞蹈精品建设问题,并针对解决"舞蹈精品"缺乏的问题提出了自己的见解。其一,创作者要有精品意识,即创造出人民大众喜爱的"真、善、美"的舞蹈形象。其二,注重创作现实主义题材的舞蹈作品,而不是一味复古,编创与神话或古人生活相关的舞蹈作品。其三,舞蹈动作要追求创新、精湛,不要模仿、克隆,要避免雷同化。其四,"深扎",即深入生活才能创作出具有时代精神和思想内涵的好作品。进而强调,"精品"追求是使得舞蹈作品具有长久生命力的保证,亦是人类舞蹈文化搭建金字塔的砖石和支撑点。

'Inspiring China: 2017 Excellent Dance Works' is a dance performance jointly organized by Chinese Dancers Association and Shanghai International Dance Center Development Foundation.There are many outstanding works included in the performance, one of which is the solo dance 'Grandmother’s Figure.' This work focuses on one of the key points of dance creation: having 'dance' in it. The creator firstly selected the theme suitable for dance performance, that is, a young person missing his departed grandma. In order to vividly express the thoughts of the characters in the works, the choreographer Ageer boldly used many superb techniques such as jumping and spinning in the dance. These dance movements are derived from the techniques of Chinese classical dance, modern dance, and street dance, whichwere 'exploded' out with his inner emotions. To express the remembrance of his grandmother, all movements were landed in the folk-dance way—using insteps or knees to land. This is not a showoff of techniques, but using dance movements to create dance images. How to make dance works touch the audience? In the author’s point of view, there must be 'dance' in the work. The dance movements originated from life and refined beyond life can help create distinct and characteristic dance images. Another example is the duet dance 'Meet You on the Road' by the young choreographer WU Huan, which is a dance piece with artistic appeals. Its success lies, first and foremost, in the creator’s ideas, that is, his work has a distinctive theme. Through the exquisite body language of the male and female dancers and their exposed emotions, it displays the heartbreaking yet beautiful love. Secondly, WU creats a novel and unique form of dance performance based on life andcharacters. The movements, facial expressions, costumes, and stage design(lighting) all serve the content of the work and the images of the characters. Especially, the lifts in the dance, expressing 'they want to love but cannot love,' are quite touching and has received good artistic effects.Among the group dances in this performance, the artistically touching one with a vivid image is 'Grandpas.' The plot of this work is concise and shows the living conditions of a group of old herders who live on the prairie. This is a 'new' Mongolian dance piece. First of all, it is new in terms of its content. The dance vividly depicts the spirit of the old herdsmen and narrates their patriotism;their lives are colorful and stable. Especially the group selfie scene at the end recreates the herdsmen’s fashion that advances with the times. Secondly, it is new in terms of its form. In the past Mongolian dance works, it would mostly take the form of 'Andai Dance' performed by the beautiful girls or 'Horse-riding Dance' by the boys. The group dance 'Grandpas' starts from the principle that 'form follows function' and proceeds in need of expressing the new era, the new life, and the new feeling. It innovates with respect to building dance characters. Another group dance 'Hook-hook Umbrella' shares the same kind of novelty. The dance mainly depicts the customs of love of young Miao people in western Hunan. The dance has developed many stances and styles that are refined from life in order to express the thoughts and emotions of the characters. The major merit of those two group dances lies in their depth going in life, so that the theme of each dance and the form of the performance manifest a new meaning.Looking at 'Inspiring China,' the author believes that the urgent problem to be solved in dance creation lies in thebuilding of high-quality dances. So how can the problem of lacking 'quality dance works' be solved? The author’s personal point of view is as follows: Firstly, creators must have a sense of quality, that is to pay attention to creating dance images of 'truth, goodness, and beauty' that people love. Secondly, they should pay attention to creating dance pieces of realistic themes rather than works that are blindly retro, create myths, or about life of the people in the ancient past. Because we are now in the era of realizing the 'Chinese dream,' and there are many epic stories in real life, as the creators of people’s arts, we need to pay attention to the livelihood of people. Thirdly, dance movements call for innovation and excellence rather than imitation or blind copy—all the dance movements adopted for the creation of dance characters warrant innovation. Fourthly, deeply rooted, that is to go deep in life. Only when the creators are rooted in life can they create works with the spirit of the times. Otherwise, they would pay attention to the beauty of the form but neglect the key elements of their works such as the subject and the theme, the people and the environment, all of which are important factors from life. And there would not be good works. A quality work lies in a high degree of unity of its content and form. Dominantly, the content determines the form, and the form follows the content. In this sense, a deep root in life is particularly important.In short, 'quality' is what warrants long-term vitality of dance works, and it also serves as masonry and support for the construction of the pyramid of human dance culture. Therefore, in dance creation, quality goes first.