Original title: People in the industry in Beijing and Shanghai discuss the hot spots of cultural industry development (introduction)

New space stimulates new creation and cultivates new audience (theme)

Beijing Daily reporter Wang Run

In recent years, the new space for performing arts has become a hot spot in the development of the national cultural industry. Beijing and Shanghai, as cities with the most prosperous performance market and the most active creative production, have made many successful explorations in this regard. How to play new space with new creation? How to open the big pattern with small space? Recently, two industry conversations focused on the new space for performing arts at the same time. Creators, operation managers, experts and scholars from both places gathered together to share their experiences and discuss the development of the new space.

The creators of the New Space for Performing Arts Project in Beijing and Shanghai held a conversation at the Drum Tower West Theater in Beijing. From left to right, the guests were Fei Yiqun, Feng Kangjie, Zhang Xiao and Bian Fujun.

"Dazhen Explores Zhao Driving Geese" won the Best Producer Award of the 2024 Shanghai Jing'an Drama Valley One Drama Awards.

Popular products frequently appear and influence the whole country

In Beijing 77 Theater, the second part of the Panoramic Immersion Interactive Theater "The Great Truth Exploring Zhao Chasing Goose" continues the popularity of the first part, and has performed nearly 50 times since its debut in April; Miss Julie, an environmental suspense theatre created by Fanxing Drama Village, has broken through 100; In Gulou West Theater, Mahua FunAge immersive interactive comedy "Crazy Barber Shop" came to Beijing for three weeks for the first time; At the same time, the environmental musical drama "Border Town" produced by the Gulou West Drama was stationed in the Drama Salon Theater of Shanghai Drama Arts Center for nearly a month... At present, many popular dramas in the new performance space of Beijing and Shanghai are in the hot show, and these performances not only target local audiences, but also radiate their influence to the whole country.

Taking the Mad Barber Shop as an example, since its debut in Shanghai in September 2021, the project has performed more than 2000 times nationwide, and won the fifth place at the box office of national drama and the first place in immersive drama in 2022. With the first performance of the play in Beijing, a conversation activity with the theme of "New Space, New Creation, New Audience - Beijing and Shanghai Discuss New Space for Performing Arts" was held in the Drum Tower West Theater.

The director of Mad Barber's introduced the production fee: "The Earl of Wulong Mountain, the hottest work before Mahua FunAge, has been performed nationwide for 14 years and just celebrated 3000 performances this year." In only three years, it has reached such a scale in the number of shows, which has brought surprises in terms of box office, public praise, IP influence, commercial brand influence and cross-border cooperation. "

Fei Yiqun said that the success of the "Crazy Barber Shop" stems from the unique nature of the project: "Mahua FunAge has not taken the path of a small theater since the first new performance space work" Crazy Barber Shop ", and each work is located in a commercial complex. And two-thirds of the play is completed with the audience. Each scene has different audiences and different regions, which makes the work show different features. It can be said that it is a drama or a game. Some audiences even say that it is script killing, reasoning and experiment. "

As the most popular new performance space project in Beijing, The Great Truth Detective Zhao Chasing Goose, produced by Grasping Ma Aix, has just won the Best Producer Award of the Year and the Nomination of the Best Small Theater of the Year for the 2024 Shanghai Jing'an Drama Valley One Drama Awards, and has started its national tour. Bian Fujun, co-founder of Beijing Zhuoma Aix, said: "The new performance space interacts with more young people through new forms, injects new vitality into traditional projects, and broadens the industrial edge of the new space."

New space brings new challenges to creation

Zhang Xiao, the director of such works as "A True Story of Zhao Chasing Geese" and "Miss Julie", said frankly that with the upsurge of new space for performing arts, his creative concept has changed greatly. "Now, when audiences come to the theater, they hope to get a different feeling and experience, and need more emotional release and emotional value." He believed that, The development of new space performing arts is not simply a matter of artistic creation. "As a director, I used to only focus on rehearsal, but now I have to think not only about the style and scheduling of the works, but also about the performance price ratio, audience seats, box office recycling, standing in the position of the production team, thinking about problems, and having higher requirements for young creators."

The Mad Barber Shop, directed and starred by Feng Kangjie, has a lot of interactive links with the audience. It has high requirements for actors and requires strong improvisation and field control ability. Feng Kangjie is good at mobilizing the audience to actively participate in "solving the case", and quickly transforming the interactive content into jokes into the story. When performing in different cities, Crazy Barber Shop will be adapted locally. When performing in Beijing, the "Mrs. Zhou" in the play will be set as a Beijinger with Beijing accent, and many Beijing place names will appear in the lines, which will quickly shorten the distance with Beijing audiences.

Establish a large pattern and cultivate new audiences

If Shanghai's new performing arts space project pays more attention to commerciality and audience consumption experience, Beijing's new performing arts space creation is more diversified and exploratory, emphasizing the unity of economic and social benefits. At the symposium on the theme of "big pattern in small space - trendy new space for performing arts" hosted by the Beijing Federation of Literary and Art Circles, Hu Na, associate professor of the Chinese Academy of Drama, pointed out that as a new thing, the development of new space for performing arts will inevitably have a profound impact on the entire drama ecology, cultural system, etc. In the process of promoting new space for performing arts and building a "performing arts city" in Beijing, We should integrate production, learning and research, and pay more attention to the cultivation of artistic talents, management talents and audience groups.

Wang Dong, president of Beijing Children's Art Theatre, believes that the "big play" in "big play looks at Beijing" does not mean the amount of investment, but the size of the pattern, which is the size of the complexity of the cultural industry. In the process of promoting the development of a new space for performing arts, art troupes must have a market awareness, always pay attention to reality, and insight into the changes in the market and the needs of the audience. The immersive Beijing Opera Teahouse launched by the Beijing Opera Troupe is a successful attempt. Cui Di, the head of the troupe, believes that only when the immersive drama meets the three conditions of "new performance space", "new audience interaction" and "new communication and promotion" can it create works that meet the aesthetic needs of the current audience.