Rockbund Art Museum 上海外滩美术馆

The exhibition An Opera for Animals takes the history of opera as its departure point in exploring the relationship between contemporary/traditional performance, fantasy, group spectacle and the environments in which they inhabit. In the West, at the height of opera’s development, the art form became increasingly integrated with the ambitious colonialist visions and political clout of European countries. As another art form native to the West, ballet was a form of dance enjoyed in royal courts, and in the 1950s had never been used before as a political symbol. However, as we reflect on our own history, ballet entered China infused with ideological significance - ballet experts from the Soviet Union were invited to teach the dance form in Beijing, China, demonstrating the friendly political relations between China and the Soviet Union.

Due to the prevalence of revolution-themed plays during the period of the Cultural Revolution, the Chinese people were not strangers to the art of ballet, one could even go so far as to say they were quite familiar with it. The ballet The Red Detachment of Women, being the most famous example, is the most classic instance of “Chinese appropriation of Western culture” by Chinese people, that is infused with national ideologies. During this time, ballet dancers in these contemporary revolutionary dramas were tasked with a prominent ideological function – they were the story-tellers of China’s national image.

While art has a liberating spirit, it also has its aspect of formal training. In whatever facet of art, it is always produced through specific, repeated techniques. To analyze such techniques is the starting point for investigating how specific artworks and art styles create dialogues, shape and mold bodies, as well as for identification purposes. Just how did the language of dance in these revolutionary dramas mold and train the bodies of their dancers, and how did it construct the images of characters within these dramas?

Choreographer and dancer Wen Hui belongs to the generation of dancers who have enacted and matured through eight of those model dramas, and carries mixed feelings and experiences concerning the artistic works of that era. In a manner that could be called “archival theater”, she revisited the ballet The Red Detachment of Women. With the emerging reconstructions of social class narratives and historical accounts, as well as the complex influences that the discourse of Liberation has had on the relationship between sexes, the body has become a means for the recording of events and thus an important historical archive.

For this talk we have invited Wen Hui, creator of Red and Li Jing, Associate Professor of Sociology at Zhejiang University to review and reflect on the fabrication of content within model operas as an art form, with the hope of understanding the relationships between the present age, the individual and art. The objective of establishing such a connection between the Cultural Revolution period and present-day society lies in exploring the current duplication and consumption of those once-politicized cultural symbols, as well as the contemporary significance of the budding feminist consciousness hidden within the massive narrative of social class liberation.

展览《百物曲》以“歌剧”的历史为切入点，探讨当代和传统表演、幻想、群体性奇观与其所栖居的环境之间的关系。在西方，当歌剧发展至巅峰时，它也越来越多地与雄心勃勃的殖民愿景和国家层面的影响力相结合。反观我们的历史，芭蕾作为西洋宫廷的足尖舞蹈形式，在上世纪50年代末曾作为一种政治符号，饱含着意识形态进入中国：苏联的芭蕾舞专家被请到中国北京教授芭蕾舞这种舞蹈形式，是中苏两国之间友好关系的一种体现。

启蒙于文革期间不断上演的革命舞剧，大众对于芭蕾舞并不陌生，甚至可以说是非常熟悉。比如最为著名的《红色娘子军》，也是中国人或者说国家意识形态中“洋为中用”最经典文本之一。至此，革命现代戏赋予了芭蕾舞者的身体以格外突出的意识形态功能——他们是国家形象的演绎者。

艺术有解放的精神，亦有规训的面象。其中的任何一面，首先都是通过特定的、系统的技术来完成的。拆解这些技术，是探索特定艺术作品和风格如何建构话语、形塑身体和身份认同的起点。革命样板戏的舞蹈语言是如何对身体形态的进行了塑造、规训，它又是如何构建剧中的人物形象？

身为舞蹈编舞和舞者的文慧，正是伴随着八个样板戏成长的那一代人，对那个时期的文艺作品怀有复杂的情感与体验，以“纪录剧场”的方式重访了《红色娘子军》。对阶级故事和历史记忆的重塑，解放话语对于性别关系的复杂影响一一浮现，身体因此成为一种记录技术和历史的重要档案。

本次对谈邀请了《红》的主创文慧与浙江大学社会学系副教授郦菁一起，从特定视角来回顾和反思样板戏这一艺术形式中的内容构建，以期了解我们的时代、艺术与个体之间的关系。尝试将文革时期与今天的社会进行对接的目的也在于探讨那些曾经政治化的文化符号在当下的复制和消费，以及隐藏在宏大阶级解放叙事中的女性解放意识在今天的实际意义。

LI Jing, Associate professor of sociology at Zhejiang University, Ph.D. graduate from the State University of New York. Li’s fields of research include: sociology of knowledge, political sociology and comparative history.

WEN Hui, Choreographer and dancer. She also makes documentary films and installations. She is one of the pioneers of Chinese contemporary dance theatre. Wen Hui graduated from Beijing Dance Academy in 1989 with a degree in Choreography. In 1994, she studied modern dance in New York. From 1997 to 1998, she received a scholarship from Asian Cultural Council to further her study of modern dance and theatre making in New York. In 1994, she formed Living Dance Studio with Wu Wenguang in Beijing, and has participated in curating and organizing numerous arts projects. For twenty years, Wen Hui has insisted in using theatre as an intervention in the society. Since 2008, she began to research the ways body form the archive of personal social documentation, using personal means to experiment how bodily memory catalyzes collision between history and reality. Living Dance Studio is an independent non-profit contemporary dance creative collective. Since 1994 till now, the company has been active at the cutting-edge of Chinese contemporary art as well as the most probing stages and festivals internationally. They have presented their works in over seventy cities in thirty countries, winning international high appraisals.French magazine Télescope describes Wen Hui as “a pioneer of dance…a miracle.” In 2015 wenhui’s work: “Dancing with Third Grandmother” “Dancing with Farmer workers"at the Venice Biennale in Italy.In 2004, Report on Body by Living Dance Studio won the “ZKB Patronage Prize” in Zürcher Theater Spektakel. In 2005, Wen Hui and Wu Wenguang established Caochangdi Workstation and co-curated the first “Cross-arts” International Dance Festival in Beijing. In the same year, they initiated European Artists Exchange Project and Young Choreographers Project.

郦菁，浙江大学社会学系副教授，纽约州立大学博士。研究领域为：知识社会学、政治社会学、历史比较研究。

文慧，舞蹈编导，舞者，同时做纪录片和装置作品。中国当代舞蹈剧场先锋。1989年毕业于北京舞蹈学院编导系。1994年赴美国纽约学习现代舞。1997至1998年获美国亚洲文化基金会 (Asian Cultural Council ) 奖金，再赴纽约研修现代舞及戏剧创作。1999至2000年加入美国著名当代编舞家Ralph Lemon 舞蹈团，在纽约BAM 2000 Next Wave Festival及美国巡演《地理三部曲 - Tree 》。1994年在北京创建“生活舞蹈工作室”。2005年文慧与吴文光共同创建草场地工作站，并共同创办《交叉》北京国际现代舞演出季。同年，他们开启了欧洲艺术家交流计划和青年编舞家计划。2015年文慧参与策划上海当代艺术博物馆PSA“聚裂”表演项目。25年来，文慧一直坚持以剧场的方式介入社会， 2008年她开始研究身体作为个人记录社会的资料馆和档案库，尝试身体记忆如何将历史与现实碰撞。2009年法国《望远镜》杂志称文慧为“舞蹈的拓荒者……一个奇迹”。 2015年“56届威尼斯双年展”参展艺术家，2011年，开始纪录片创作。2013年，开始做装置作品。2004年《身体报告》获苏黎世艺术节（ZÜRCHER THEATER SPEKTAKL）奖：ZKB Award。