Carry out normalized social theater performance activities, and the "hometown of drama" Songjiang Xinbang will resume stage and social theater | Drama | Songjiang Xinbang
In the Jiangnan region, watching plays used to be a common occurrence. As the "hometown of drama", Xinbang Town in Songjiang District used to have stages in every village and fans in every household. Drama has become an important spiritual and cultural life for the people after tea and dinner. However, as time passed, drama gradually faded out of people's lives. Recently, a symposium with the theme of "piloting social drama cultural activities in Xinbang Town" was held at the Army Drama Education Museum. Experts and scholars at the conference gave suggestions and brainstormed to conduct a "brainstorming" to find direction, ideas, and methods. They jointly discussed the feasibility of resuming stage performances and carrying out normalized social drama in Xinbang Town, the "hometown of folk culture and art in Shanghai"?
It is understood that drama is the characteristic and business card of Xinbang Town, which has produced a group of famous theatrical masters. In recent years, it has also become an important carrier of the construction of the "hometown of drama" in Songjiang. In Xinbang, almost every village has its own stage, ranging from a "snail shell dojo" with less than ten people to a large stage that can accommodate 500 people. Moreover, every year, a portion of the village's budget is allocated for the maintenance and upkeep of the stage, indicating the villagers' love for drama. So how to make drama more integrated into people's lives and form a new fashion for people's lives?
"We need to adopt a government led approach, introduce third-party professional operations, and leverage expert and scholar think tanks to create a new type of cultural and tourism integration project with drama as its characteristic. It will form an organic linkage with local attractions such as Xuelang Lake Resort, Lotus Festival, and Mud Park, and fully absorb the radiation spillover effect of the Shanghai LEGO Park Resort under construction, driving the development of local catering, homestay and other related industries, and creating a new chapter for rural revitalization." Gu Jieyan, Deputy District Mayor of Songjiang District, said that Songjiang District is still building "one town, one product". By exploring and refining the local culture, it will attract and retain people with its unique local culture. Let more people remember their homesickness and see their hometown.
It is reported that based on its own characteristics and accumulation, Songjiang District plans to carry out regular social drama performances in Xinbang Town, so that drama can come to the people's side and enter their lives.
Xinbang aims to create a distinctive new social drama that sets it apart from tradition, manifested in a new relationship of watching and performing. The performance space is not in tourist attractions, but at the entrance of Tiantou Village, not in professional theaters, but on rural stages; The audience is not tourists, but ordinary villagers; The performance group is not a professional theater troupe, but relies on folk forces. The performance content is not about big themes, large volumes, or large productions, but rather small yet refined, small yet lively, and small yet new.
New performance methods: creating a performance pattern of "one performance with five stages", with "one performance" being the central theater; "Wutai" refers to five rural small stages. The Central Theater performs every weekend, with a total of 100 performances throughout the year. There are five rural small stages that perform every Saturday, with 250 performances throughout the year. The other 15 performances are part of the Society Drama Festival series, creating a "365 Society Drama Day" and creating a lively atmosphere of weekly performances, village watching, and everyone participating.
New performance resources: Comprehensively integrate the performance resources of the district's folk theater troupes, opera salons, University City Youth Drama Society, local opera teams, Shangxi and other university Songjiang teaching bases, fully encourage villagers to entertain themselves and perform, and moderately introduce professional theater troupes to perform plays.
New operating model: driven by the government and supported by policies; Market participation and professional operation; Creative leadership, expert support. Make a plan and list the menu, organize rural social drama forums, develop derivative products of social drama, and make the cultural brand of Xinbang New Social Drama more practical and in-depth.
"Creating cases of returning drama to people's livelihoods, cultivating cultural and rural brands in Jiangnan will have positive demonstration and guiding value." The Director of the Academic Committee of Shanghai Theatre Academy, Army, stated that it is necessary to enrich the content of cultural Songjiang construction, promote the integration and development of rural tourism culture, optimize the development ecology of contemporary drama, enhance the performance strength of folk drama troupes, and cultivate backbone teams of rural drama.
The attendees also discussed specific issues such as "who looks," "who will perform," "where to perform," and "how to perform." They stated that they will establish an organizational structure for social drama performance activities as soon as possible, form institutional mechanisms to ensure their security, and at the same time, explore regional performance resources, venues, etc. to further refine the planning and implementation.
