Xu Yuanzhuo, a student of the National Academy of Chinese Theater Arts, works on a stop-motion animated short film inspired by the tale of Chang'e, the moon deity.[Photo provided to China Daily]
Students of a leading performing arts university get inspiration from both myth and technology, Cheng Yuezhu reports.
Young people can popularize traditional culture among their peers by making it both fun and educational. Students of new media art at the National Academy of Chinese Theater Arts showcased their works that use art and technology to promote traditional culture at an exhibition at Enjoy Art Museum in Beijing from May 26 to 30.
The title of the exhibition, Zuochang, is a term to describe traditional performing arts. It indicates going onstage to perform. This was apt for the occasion as the students were about to graduate and it recognized their achievement in bridging the traditional and the modern.
Of Chinese folk tales, the story of Chang'e, the moon deity, is one of the least obscure. According to one version of mythology, she, then-mortal, took her husband's elixir to prevent a villain from stealing it. She then flew to the moon and has been living there with a rabbit for company.
Despite being a fictional character, her moon-landing journey has been realized by China's lunar exploration project as the program is named after her. Last year, Chang'e 5 probe successfully landed on the moon. It returned to Earth with lunar samples.
Inspired by the ancient tale and China's lunar achievements, animation student Xu Yuanzhuo created a stop-motion animated short film that was shown at the exhibition.
"I remember staying up late to witness the moment when Chang'e 5 returned with lunar soil samples. The entire time I was so thrilled and inspired. It seems that for thousands of years, Chinese people had longed to go to the moon, and the dream had come true," Xu says.
His rendition extends the original story and takes a focus on life on the moon. In his imagination, the tale that Chang'e lives an immortal life on the moon is not as lonely or gloomy as one might think.
In his short film, Chang'e is accompanied by a rabbit family living in a lunar crater. One day when a bunny loses its way, the mother rabbit asks Chang'e for help to find the bunny and reunite the family.
Xu says he saw commonalities between the tale and the lunar exploration project.
"By protecting the elixir, Chang'e proved her devotion and valor that match the space exploration spirit of dedication and resolution. Dedication is the spirit of our times, and the transformation from a mortal to a deity symbolizes the drastic changes in modern China," he explains.
The National Academy of Chinese Theater Arts centers on Chinese opera. It boasts many outstanding productions of The Legend of White Snake, which was first adapted into a Peking Opera piece by Tian Han, the academy's first principal and a well-known playwright and author.
New media works showcase the students' talent in combining technology with traditional performing arts.[Photo by Chen Yuezhu/China Daily]
Many graduates chose the production as a subject matter for the exhibition, creating drawings and designs that give their own rendition of the love story between a snake-turned-woman and a kindhearted young man.
Shao Jiawei, majoring in digital media arts, is one such student. His graduation project was a pop-up book with augmented reality features.
The book provides six main scenes from the original production, with detailed illustrations of the characters as well as layers of drawings of architecture and landscape. The book includes script excerpts of each scene and enclosed cards with QR codes, which viewers can scan to read the synopsis and lyrics and watch a short animation showing the movements of the characters.
"The Legend of White Snake is one of the most eminent productions of our school, and the original story has been adapted into TV series and films in recent years. For me, a book is an educational way to inherit traditional culture," Shao says, adding that the pop-up book will be good material for the youth to know more about Peking Opera and also serve as a collectible item for the art form's fans.
Another student, Jia Guangqing, designed a digital picture book with user interaction and eye-tracking technology. It tells the story of Peking Man fossils from Zhoukoudian in suburban Beijing.
Entitled Travel to the Distant Past, the story adopts the viewpoint of a child, who along with his parents travels back in time. In different eras, they learn about the lifestyles and customs of ancient people, including burial rituals and fire-making technique.
As a student of interactive design, Jia has been introduced to various methods that can provide a captivating experience to the audience, but she chose the eye-tracking device to make her design enjoyable for children with motor neuron disease.
"In this age of technological development, we can't focus only on the general public. I hope that children with special needs can also experience the convenience and fun of advanced technology," Jia says.
In 2020, she visited the Zhoukoudian site and discovered that the museum was experimenting with ways to bring the exhibits online. She then developed an interest to try out for herself. "The site remains stationary. You need to go there to learn about it. I thought maybe I could bring it online, so it can appeal to a wider audience."
The exhibition presented works of 17 postgraduate students who have majored in opera animation, visual design and media art, as well as 68 undergraduate students who are majoring in animation, digital media art, visual communication design and fine arts.
"The exhibition shows the creativity of our graduates and that traditional culture gives a lot more to explore in the new era. It's gratifying to see that students have transformed their years of learning into such works, and that they have given a modern interpretation to the traditional arts," says Yin Xiaodong, head of the academy.
