On June 15th, the academic forum to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the founding of Beijing Academy of Arts and Humanities was grandly held at Beijing International Drama Center·Caoyu Theater. Twenty-five experts and scholars from literature, drama, and humanities and social sciences gathered together. Among them, five experts, including Mo Yan, Liu Heng, He Jiping, Liao Ben, and Cao Lin, participated in the conference online to jointly create a new era for Beijing Arts and Crafts. This is also one of the important activities in the series of activities to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the founding of Beijing Academy of Arts and Crafts.
The forum was presided over by Feng Yuanzheng, Vice President of Beijing People’s Art Institute. Xie Xizhang and Xu Jian, director of the News Department of "Literary Newspaper", presided over the event.
This forum puts more emphasis on the topicality, forward-looking and constructiveness of the topic. In his welcome speech, Ren Ming, the dean of Beijing Renyi, said that at the historical node of the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the academy, Beijing Renyi must create new classics in the new era without the professional opinions of experts from all walks of life, and without the wisdom of good teachers and friends. speak freely. "We will embrace new opportunities and challenges with a more inclusive mentality and a grander pattern, manage the theater with more modern, scientific and advanced concepts and methods, and build Beijing Renyi into a more open and international A theater with a heart. We must pass on the artistic style and spirit of the people and make the theater more closely integrated with the people, with the nation, with the country, and with the times. Artists and artists will continue to strive for this, and work together to make Beijing Renyi has truly become: a theater for the people, a palace for the arts!"

Forum scene Photo by Li Chunguang

Continue to carry forward the advantages of "scholar-type theater" and further unite young and middle-aged playwrights
The host Feng Yuanzheng said in his opening remarks that since June, Beijing Renyi has successively held a series of activities such as script readings, classic clip evening parties, and classic repertoire broadcasts. "Especially on June 12, the 9-hour live broadcast, 50 million people entered the live broadcast room, expressed their blessings to Beijing Renyi, and pushed the commemorative activities to a climax. The birthday of the Beijing People's Art Theatre is also the birthday of our Chinese drama. festival."
Ren Ming, the dean of Beijing Renyi, mentioned in the following speech that three days ago, June 12 was an important day for Beijing Renyi and a historic time node. "Today, we chose to hold an academic forum for the 70th anniversary of the founding of the academy at the newly completed Caoyu Theater, which expresses our attitude of paying tribute to our predecessors and classics.
"For 70 years, Beijing Renyi has been a people's theater and an art theater just like its name. Renyi has used 70 years of stage practice and more than 300 ancient and modern Chinese and foreign dramas to serve the motherland, the people and the audience. Today, standing on the historical node of the 70th anniversary, we invite all experts and friends to participate in this academic forum, the purpose is to further open the horizon of Beijing Renyi, gather good words, build new consensus, and seek new development." Ren Ming said .

Ren Ming, Dean of Beijing Arts and Crafts

Drama educator and director artist Xu Xiaozhong, who is 94 years old this year, also came to the forum. When speaking, he first recalled the establishment of Beijing Renyi in 1952. Cao Yu, Jiao Juyin, Ouyang Shanzun, and Zhao Qiyang, the "Big Four", were discussing how to form the artistic style of Beijing Renyi. "These four gentlemen talked about the famous "Big Four 42 Hours" in the history of modern Chinese drama. They expressed their consensus: 1. First, adhere to the basic principle that life is the source of artistic creation, and earnestly learn from life; 2. Study comprehensively and dialectically and apply the Stanislavsky system; 3. At the same time, earnestly inherit and absorb the laws and expression methods of national opera art. National traditions include our national literature, painting, calligraphy, music, dance, folk art, etc., Eclectic and integrated.”
Beijing Renyi is a traditional theater for performing "Guo Moruo", "Lao She" and "Cao Yu". There are not only "Cao Yu", "Thunderstorm", "Sunrise" and "Beijing People" with poetic realism, but also "Lao She" and "Dragon Beard". "Ditch", "Camel Xiangzi" and "Tea House" describe the city life in Beijing, and are full of realism in the realistic style of rural poetry. In addition, Guo Moruo's historical dramas "Tiger Rune", "Cai Wenji" and "Wu Zetian" have formed a romantic spirit that combines Chinese literature and traditional opera aesthetics on the basis of realism.
When performing foreign classic repertoires such as "The Man with a Gun", "The Seagull", "Mutiny" and "Aesop", the theater can draw on and absorb their realism and modernism on the basis of its own art. Artistic viewpoints and aesthetic characteristics of value. There are also a number of modern plays such as "Bright Sky", "Red Heart", "Red Rock" and "The Younger Generation", which reflect the passion of Beijing's art of the times.
"This is the cornerstone of Beijing People's Art Theatre's artistic style and aesthetic tradition. On this cornerstone, Beijing People's Art Theatre has provided a number of excellent stage art works for the development of my country's socialist culture and art, and cultivated Renyi's own two Generations, three, and four generations of performing artists are the ones who have propped up the magnificent art palace of Beijing People's Art Theatre, and what is very valuable is that Beijing People's Art Theatre has cultivated several generations of our audiences with healthy aesthetics." Xu Xiaozhong Say.
Keep upright and innovate, carry forward the past and open up the future. Xu Xiaozhong recalled that in the late autumn of 1986, Liu Jinyun's "Master Dog Nirvana" was performed. In June 1988, He Jiping's "The First Floor in the World" was performed. "The writers and directors of these two performances have combined the pursuit of new concepts of drama with the cornerstone of the Beijing People's Art Theater's aesthetic tradition, which has given us profound inspiration for the exploration and experimentation of drama in the new era."
At the end of his speech, Xu Xiaozhong pointed out that Beijing Renyi especially needs to continue to carry forward the advantages of "scholar-type theater", further unite young and middle-aged playwrights, directors, actors and experts and scholars from all walks of life, and hold more "current creation academic seminars" to promote artists and artists. Academic exchanges between experts and scholars. He pointed out, "Mr. Cao Yu said that Beijing People's Art must not only become a museum for reserving plays. He said that we need different artistic styles and different styles of plays to enrich the art of this theater, which will make The theater is not a stagnant pool, of course, the theater will not abandon the so-called Beijing art style that it has acquired through hardships and hard work, but we will never reject new creations to develop and nourish our traditions.”

Theatre educator and director artist Xu Xiaozhong

Pu Cunxin, actor of Beijing Renyi Theater and chairman of the Chinese Drama Association, said in his speech that Beijing People's Art Theater, as a national-level drama troupe with a unique style of acting, has always adhered to the party's literary and art policies and the people's people since its establishment in 1952. With the joint efforts of several generations of artists, he has created performances including "Dragon Beard Ditch", "Cai Wenji", "Thunderstorm", "Tea House", "The First Floor in the World" and "Li Bai" And a series of classic plays. "He created the famous Beijing People's Performing Arts School, wrote a splendid chapter in the history of Chinese drama, became a famous cultural brand in Beijing and even in the whole country, and occupies an important position in the international theater circle, worthy of the title of a national art palace. ."
Pu Cunxin said that the Chinese Dramatists Association and Beijing People's Art Theatre have a deep relationship. At the conference, Pu Cunxin and President Ren Ming became members of the presidium.

Pu Cunxin, actor of Beijing Renyi Theater and chairman of the Chinese Drama Association

Contemporary Theater Art and the City
On the afternoon of the 15th, the theme of the last forum was "Theatre and the City", which was a relatively new and contemporary topic in the field of Beijing humanities research.
In his opening remarks, the host and director of the News Department of "Literature Newspaper" Xu Jian said that each country has its own drama culture, and theaters in different countries and cities have become the most active carriers for activating or embodying drama culture. Theater Theater is not only a physical building, but also a composition of cultural facilities. Its existence and evolution also naturally participate in the writing of drama history, reflecting the polyphonic relationship between drama and the times, drama and aesthetics. At the same time, with the development and progress of the city, the relationship between the theater and the city has also changed from such a practical function in physical space to a part of the city's human geography, which constitutes the historical and cultural memory of the city, and then becomes the city's historical and cultural memory. A cultural card.
The 70th anniversary of the establishment of Beijing People’s Art Institute, from the first theater, the Capital Theater, to today’s five theater groups, especially with the establishment and opening of the Beijing International Theater Center last year, has not only made it a new landmark of Beijing culture, but also made Beijingers The development of art has entered a new pattern. The development of the Capital Theater and the development of the theater group not only witnesses the growth and changes of Beijing's arts and performances, but also increasingly becomes an inseparable part of Beijing's urban culture, reflecting the city's virtue, dignity, and Inclusion and innovation.

Theme Forum "Theatre and the City"

Cao Lin, President of China Stage Art Society and professor of Shanghai Theater Academy, has long been concerned about stage technology and the trend of drama performance. The title of his speech this time is "Contemporary Theater Art and City". "First of all, to explain the topic of my speech, the theater mentioned here has two meanings. One refers to the architectural space that carries performances in the traditional sense, which is usually called a conventional theater; the other is to connect theater and art together. Use, so-called theatre art. The preceding prefix emphasizes the contemporary, and aims to appeal to the present, forward-looking and constructive purpose of the conference.”
Cao Lin specially wrote a paper for participating in this seminar. Due to the length of the paper, he concentrated on the following points:
First, with the development of the city, the act of watching dramas has been introduced from the open air to the indoors, gradually forming a standard theater, or becoming a regular theater, which is closely connected with the urban public cultural system. From the beginning of the establishment of the academy to the Moscow Art Theater, Renyi has gone through 70 years. The Capital Theater he used has maximized the role of the city's theater center. It is not only a professional exchange platform for drama art, but also popularized to the public. The window of drama culture plays the role of representing the civilization image of the capital from one side.
Second, 70 years of development and accumulation have formed the Beijing Renyi Drama School and its unique artistic style, but it also has another kind of crisis hidden, that is, it is easy to become single and conservative. The artistic tradition is alive. After the mid-20th century, the post-modernism trend in the field of urban planning and architectural design swept all the categories of artistic creation including drama. Modern design can be roughly divided into four levels: one is urban planning and design, the other is architectural design, the third is design of daily necessities, which is conventionally called industrial product design, and the fourth is art design. The performance design we are engaged in should belong to the fourth level of artistic design. Compared with the content filled in the previous conventional theaters, the new generation of dramatists and audiences are more concerned about getting rid of the increasingly homogeneous urban space. In recent years, the five new and expanded performance spaces of Beijing Renyi will not only bring vitality to the city, but will also form a gathering place for theater arts in a certain field.
Third, Beijing Renyi's special geographical location and the cultural background of the capital have created its personality and also determined its future. In the future, what the audience expects is not only to relive the classics of realism and watch the multi-expression boutiques here, but also to pursue various possibilities of contemporary theater art outside the conventional theater, bringing new theater aesthetics to the audience. From different angles, we can enhance the urban temperament and extend the influence of the capital's culture.
Fourth, in the past 70 years, Beijing Renyi has been devoted to the continuous exploration of the elements and methods of theatrical space, the connection with urban development, and the flexible use of technology, to some extent, for the National Theatre Troupe. played a leading role. We have reason to believe that Beijing Renyi will continue to explore more possibilities to rebalance the urban environment and interaction methods under different real conditions.
"At present, the media integration under the background of digital technology has turned online and offline, reality and virtual communication and communication across time and space into reality. If we take contemporary theater art into the background and techniques of the 21st century and reconsider, we will find that In the future, the scope of drama will expand to a wider space. Recently, a series of online performances in conjunction with the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the academy have demonstrated this to tens of millions of online audiences. Looking forward, digital technology will Make the theater art and the city more closely connected." Cao Lin said.

Cao Lin, President of China Stage Art Society and Professor of Shanghai Theater Academy