Original title: Illuminating the beauty of performing arts with the light of numbers
core reading
Digital technology has brought about profound changes in performing arts creation, performing arts space and performance viewing relationships, promoted the integration of artistic creativity and scientific and technological means, and provided a more brilliant stage and a broader space for the birth of performing arts masterpieces.
As the cultural tourism industry transforms from sightseeing and vacation to cultural experience, the trend of immersive experience and scene-based consumption in the field of cultural tourism and performing arts has become more and more obvious, and performing arts and technology are becoming more and more deeply integrated.
Promote the development of performing arts equipment and accelerate the research and development of digital performing arts support technologies and platform systems. Integrated innovation in stage performing arts is imperative.
In the past two years, the domestic performance market has continued to boom, with various types of performing arts products emerging, and it is often difficult to get tickets. The “2023 National Performance Market Development Brief” released not long ago shows that in 2023, there will be more than 400,000 performances nationwide, with box office revenue of more than 50 billion yuan, and more than 170 million viewers. Behind this gratifying development trend, technology, especially digital technology, plays an important role.
Digital technology has brought about profound changes in performing arts creation, performing arts space and performance viewing relationships, promoted the integration of artistic creativity and scientific and technological means, and provided a more gorgeous stage and a broader space for the birth of performing arts masterpieces. In the new era, creating a “technological style” for stage performing arts and cultivating new productive forces in the performing arts industry will make theaters more attractive and make high-quality performing arts better enrich people’s spiritual and cultural lives.
Both online and offline, excellent performances benefit more audiences
The “Opinions on Promoting the Implementation of the National Cultural Digitalization Strategy” issued by the General Office of the CPC Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council proposed the development of new scenarios for digital cultural consumption and “vigorously develop new digital cultural experiences that integrate online and offline and combine online and presence.” The “14th Five-Year Plan for Cultural Development” also proposes to accelerate the development of new cultural formats including digital broadcasting. At the same time, cultural consumption is becoming increasingly strong, and people’s demand for high-quality performing arts has become increasingly prominent. Driven by both national policies and market demand, the combination of culture and technology, and the combination of online and offline have become important trends in current theatrical performances. Online broadcasts have performed well in recent years, and “cloud performing arts” forms have emerged one after another. “Online drama viewing” and “cloud entertainment” have become people’s new cultural lifestyles.
As a practitioner of domestic online broadcasts, the National Center for the Performing Arts launched a series of online performances in 2020. A total of nearly 200 performances have been broadcast from 2020 to 2023, including concerts, operas, dances, dramas, dramas and other art forms. The total number of clicks on the website exceeds 5 billion. The online performance of Peking Opera “Dragon and Phoenix” launched by the National Peking Opera Company, the “Dancing in Spring” performance launched by the China Opera and Dance Theater, and the “Grand Opera in Beijing” cloud broadcast, etc., have become the showcase of national stage art masterpieces and meet people’s cultural needs. artistic practice. The 13th China Arts Festival in 2022 will combine offline performances and online live broadcasts, and will be watched by more than 300 million people. The simultaneous development of online and offline art has expanded the audience for art and increased audience participation, allowing people to enjoy the feast of art without leaving home, and excellent performing arts can benefit more audiences.
As an extension of offline performances, online performances are not just a conversion of carriers and scenes, nor a simple copy of offline performances, but increasingly highlight its production and communication characteristics that adapt to the Internet environment. For example, through technical means such as secondary creation of lens language, scene reconstruction that integrates virtual and real, and free perspective switching, we can provide audiences with a more novel viewing experience. Another example is the use of real-time interactive modes such as “Cloud Box” and “Cloud Scream” to shorten the distance between viewers and enrich performances and interactions.
Online broadcasting is not simply “performance on the cloud”, but “performance on the cloud”, which is especially reflected in the fields of short videos and live broadcasts. Statistics show that most of the more than 300 existing opera types in my country have appeared on short video and live broadcast platforms, and thousands of professional opera actors perform online performances in live broadcast rooms all year round. Opera short videos and opera live broadcasts have attracted a large number of viewers, especially young people. Making good use of online performances is of great significance to improving the survival and development conditions of endangered dramas, promoting the protection and inheritance of dramas, and expanding the ways of “performing”, “watching” and “passing on” dramas.
Open up the stage and off stage, and develop immersive performing arts in depth
A history of the development of performing arts is also a history of stage changes. The form of theater continues to change with the changes of the times, technology and literary appreciation methods. Today, when information technology is deeply involved in production and life, artists are actively carrying out various creative innovations, trying to break through the inherent performance forms, innovating stage carriers, and constantly extending the artistic value and creative potential of stage works.
The “framed” stage, as a classic stage space form, is being broken. The spatial relationship between the audience and the actors is the focus of exploration in many new works. In recent years, a number of immersive theater spaces have emerged, trying to reshape the spatial logic between theater audience seats and performance stages, and on this basis, enhance an immersive experience with a deep sense of substitution and interactivity.
The door slowly opened, a lantern gradually lit up in the darkness, and holographic images of Red Army soldiers appeared on both sides. The revolutionary situation seemed to be present. This is the opening of the performance “Red Ribbon·The Great Journey” performed by Guiyang Long March Digital Technology Art Museum. This work integrates artificial intelligence, full-dimensional mechanical movement, virtual reality, three-dimensional sound field and other technological means. Through the venue space, live performances and holographic images, the scene is moved step by step, taking the audience into the historical scene.
“Only a Dream of Red Mansions·Theatrical Fantasy City” located in Langfang, Hebei Province combines the traditional Chinese aesthetics of freehand brushwork and blank space with modern scientific and technological means to create 108 situational spaces, allowing the audience to watch in different theaters and travel between history and reality. . The application of virtual reality, augmented reality, real-time interaction and other technical means in theater has achieved an artistic upgrading of classical literature classics.
As the cultural tourism industry transforms from sightseeing and vacation to cultural experience, the trend of immersive experience and scene-based consumption in the field of cultural tourism and performing arts has become more and more obvious. Performing arts and technology are becoming more and more deeply integrated, and some customized theater performances have emerged. For example, in some revolving theaters, the audience seat is located in the center of the theater, the stage is spread out 360 degrees around the auditorium, and the auditorium seats can also be rotated 360 degrees. With the help of the panoramic stage, not only can the ups and downs of the story be presented more realistically, but also the replacement and transformation of scenes can be completed more naturally, reducing the interruption of scene changes in the dark scene during traditional drama performances, and bringing a smooth feeling of “one shot to the end” .
Changes in the stage also profoundly affect the direction of drama creation. The immersive drama “Sleepless Night” is performed in different rooms. The audience is invited to enter with a “stage” connected from room to room. The audience becomes a co-creator of the story, and their choices and actions can determine the development of the plot. This creative method requires more story branches and scenes, and the creators add interactive narratives to the drama to ensure that each audience has a unique character experience. It can be seen that the changes in the stage have led to a trend of media integration in the form of performing arts. Different art media connect and interact with each other, and jointly enrich the aesthetic experience.
The integration of data and reality makes integrated innovation in stage performance imperative.
As human society enters the digital age, the process by which people obtain information, process information, and form cognition is also changing. In artistic cognition, there is no longer a clear distinction between reality and virtuality, and the integration of digital and reality has become a new trend in artistic creation. Mixed reality experimental theater, virtual concerts, etc. are typical examples. The virtual concert uses digital modeling of the concert and then applies it to the stage to create a highly impactful stage light and shadow and sense of space, giving the live audience an audio-visual experience that is both real and imaginary.
In this context of digital and real integration, the participants in performing arts are also changing. Those who perform on stage are not necessarily real actors, but may be digital people. Young audiences are increasingly accepting of digital people, and some virtual singers are more popular among young people. By using computer graphics technology, animation technology, holographic projection, real-time dynamic capture, etc., we can build a magnificent stage background for digital people and design difficult performance actions. At the opening ceremony of the 19th Asian Games in Hangzhou, the “digital torchbearers” gathered from more than 100 million people participating in the digital torch relay rushed to hold the torch high, rushed to the sky above the “Big Lotus”, and jumped 185 meters The long three-dimensional screen and the last torchbearer light the main torch tower together. This ignition method that integrates digital and real events has become a classic for the audience inside and outside the venue to interact with each other on the same screen.
With the matrix application of digital technologies such as artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and the Internet of Things, the performing arts field will continue to accelerate scene updates, stage updates, and experience updates. It is imperative to promote the development of performing arts equipment and accelerate the research and development of digital performing arts support technologies and platform systems. Integrated innovation in stage performing arts is imperative. Today, when theater performances, live performances, immersive performances, and interactive performances are in full bloom, exploring new mechanisms for integrated innovation in art, technology, equipment, and management will promote continuous innovation in the performing arts field and generate more cultural consumption scenarios.
Of course, technology applications ultimately serve stories, performances, and art. The deep integration of content and technology is an inherent requirement for the development of digital performing arts. It is expected that in the process of technology empowering art, more creators will follow the trend of the times and make good use of technological means to promote the quality and upgrading of the performing arts industry, open up new artistic dimensions and innovation space, and illuminate the beauty of performing arts with the light of digital.
(Zhang Yichun, author’s unit: China Institute of Art and Science and Technology)
