The opening ceremony is directed by Wang Erping, the Tai Chi head coach of the Guangdong Wushu Team, who is a martial arts expert, choreographer and star, and is known as the "Prince of Tai Chi".
At the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, Wang Erping, the martial arts expert choreographer and star of the opening ceremony director group and the Tai Chi head coach of the Guangdong Wushu Team, led the Tai Chi masters of the Guangdong team to demonstrate the integration of tradition and modernity, classics and fashion. of balance, harmony and nature. The Tai Chi charm of flowing clouds and flowing water, the unity of nature and man, is peaceful and elegant in spirituality, calm and relaxed, relaxed and natural; in the vast world, it has the air of an immortal and a king.
In the program, a Tai Chi master slowly rose up on the drawing paper in the center of the stage and danced Tai Chi. The surrounding 286 actors held 286 sand curtains to form a three-story space. On the sand curtains, the images projected by the lights made the stage suddenly appear three-dimensional. The sand curtain sometimes shows the waves of the sea, sometimes green trees grow, and sometimes it turns into a rotating starry sky, forming an artistic conception of flowers blooming and falling, and endless life.
There are also 11 Tai Chi masters who appear and disappear in the "three-dimensional image" of the sand curtain, like fish, birds, and moving clouds and flowing water. Among these 11 people is Wang Erping, and what Guangdong people are proud of is that almost all of the 10 Tai Chi masters led by Wang Erping are members of the Guangdong Wushu Team, and only one is from the Shaanxi Team.
While thousands of people were performing Tai Chi, a group of children appeared in the center of the stage. In a scroll, the children colored black and white pictures.
Children and Tai Chi combine movement and stillness to complement each other. In the blend of tradition and modernity, it shows the relationship between man and nature, expresses the love that arises from the harmony between man and man, man and the world, man and nature, and explains the most essential harmony of Tai Chi in the balanced existence of heaven, earth and man. realm.
□ Special Correspondent Shi Shaozong
Our newspaper, Beijing, August 8th
Inheritance and innovation make the "Tai Chi flavor" stronger
Better than the Spring Festival Gala's "Wandering Clouds and Flowing Water"
As soon as the opening ceremony ended, Wang Erping, the 40-year-old "Prince of Tai Chi", immediately accepted an exclusive interview with our reporter.
Wang Erping started practicing martial arts at the age of 7 and was selected into the Henan Provincial Wushu Team at the age of 13. He is now the Tai Chi head coach of the Guangdong Wushu Team and the Tai Chi coach of the Chinese Wushu Team. As a Tai Chi expert and famous teacher, Wang Erping has arranged martial arts Tai Chi performances for the Asian Games, the International Olympic Committee and other events. He participated in the creation and creation of the martial arts Tai Chi program "Xingyun Liushui" for the 2007 Spring Festival Gala of CCTV and won an award. This time, he participated in the creation and performance of the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games.
On August 8, 2007, according to the instructions of the leaders and the ideas put forward by Zhang Yimou, the chief director of the Olympic opening ceremony, and Chen Weiya and Zhang Jigang, the deputy chief directors, Wang Erping, director Meng Yan and other choreographers started Tai Chi The creation work of boxing. Wang Erping took his students Guo Yina and Dong Qing from the Guangdong Wushu Team to start rehearsals. After many experiments, Director Zhang Yimou and Wang Erping discussed and formed specific creative ideas and determined the creative direction of Tai Chi. At the end of 2007, we started rehearsing a thousand-person Tai Chi formation.
The Tai Chi performance at the opening ceremony belongs to the program of the "Nature" chapter, which is easily reminiscent of the amazing Tai Chi performance "Wandering Clouds and Flowing Water" in the 2007 Spring Festival Gala. Wang Erping said that there are differences in the practice methods of "Nature" and "Xingyunliushui". ""Wandering Clouds and Flowing Waters" is a bit 'flat' overall, and the contrast is not obvious enough. For example, a Tai Chi move called 'Single Whip' is used in "Wandering Clouds and Flowing Waters". The Yang style Tai Chi move is used in "Wandering Clouds and Flowing Waters". In "Nature", I used Wu Tai Chi style, Wu style, and Yang style Tai Chi's 'single whip' are integrated together," Wang Erping said.
The guiding ideology of creating this part of the Tai Chi performance at the opening ceremony is: inherit the tradition with a little innovation. "We mainly consider that this is the first time that martial arts will be displayed in the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games, and the opening ceremony is broadcast live to the world. We want the audience to see the Tai Chi they usually practice. If there are too many innovations, it will be different from the traditional Tai Chi. There are too many differences in boxing, and the effect is not good," Wang Erping said.
In terms of difficult movements, Wang Erping changed the connection of two difficult movements in "Xingyunliushui" to 3 times, and the difficulty also increased. The difficult action in "Xingyunliushui" is the connection of movement and stillness, while in "Nature" it is the connection of movement and movement. "Our focus is not on pursuing the difficulty of movements, but on the essence of Tai Chi. In layman's terms, Tai Chi has a stronger flavor. The specific manifestations are: the rhythm is clearer, slower when it is slow, faster when it is fast, and hard and soft. The contrast is also more obvious. If you can sum it up in one sentence, it means that the content of traditional Tai Chi is more expressive." Wang Erping commented on "Natural" with great interest, "The connection of three difficult jump movements has never appeared before. This makes the performance better than "Wandering Clouds and Flowing Waters."
Our reporter asked, since the Tai Chi shown in the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games is better than the Tai Chi performed in the 2007 Spring Festival Gala. , can this routine be directly used as the Guangdong team's self-selected routine in future Tai Chi national competitions? Wang Erping replied: "The Tai Chi shown in the opening ceremony is not comprehensive enough in content and is not suitable for competition, but some of the movements can be included in competition routines.
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Reduce dance and present real Tai Chi
It is more flavorful than the “Tai Chi dance” in Athens
There was also a Tai Chi performance at the closing ceremony of the Athens Olympics , but because it was created by a professional dance choreographer and the performers were also dancers, strictly speaking it was not Tai Chi, but a dance-like performance of Tai Chi. It might be more appropriate to call it "Tai Chi dance". This kind of "Tai Chi dance" was criticized by many audiences at the time, especially in the martial arts community, who believed that it was a "blasphemy" to Tai Chi.
The Tai Chi performance in the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics was to express " It serves the concept of harmony in "Nature" and must be integrated with other artistic means. How to express it is an artistic question. The key is which form can better express Tai Chi, that is, in traditional Chinese culture Which is the harmonious concept that is more acceptable to the public, "Tai Chi dance" or Tai Chi? Wang Erping revealed that in fact, during the creation process, because many people in the directing team were majoring in dance, they also Wang Erping, who is a professional martial arts athlete and specializes in Tai Chi, did not object to this attempt. He explained to this reporter: "I also considered it from the perspective of multiple expression techniques. The problem is, it's worth the effort. In addition, I also want Tai Chi professional athletes to learn the different artistic expression methods of Tai Chi. This is also very beneficial to both myself and my team members in improving their artistic expression. "
Chief director Zhang Yimou did not dare to draw conclusions easily about this dance-based Tai Chi. When Wang Erping took out his own Tai Chi, everyone's eyes lit up. Zhang Yimou said: "This is The real Tai Chi still has flavor and value. "After going around in a big circle, everyone found that Tai Chi as a martial arts routine is more expressive and valuable for appreciation. Zhang Yimou finally made the decision: the opening ceremony should still show a more authentic Tai Chi.
Wang Erping said : "As a martial arts expert director, I am responsible for the true nature of Tai Chi, but other directors also have to put forward some opinions. It should be said that everyone participates and discusses with everyone. My opinions are mainly on the main body and technical style of martial arts, and I control the technical aspects. The performances of more than 2,000 people were mainly based on Tai Chi, but also included other types of boxing such as Shaolin boxing. The creation of these martial arts movements was mainly based on my opinions. The thousand-person martial arts performance has a dance-like tendency, which is the need of artistic performance, but I have transformed it into the expression of martial arts. Specifically, I add footwork and movements to the offensive and defensive consciousness of martial arts. These actors are all students from Henan Shaolin Tagou Martial Arts School. They are martial arts practitioners themselves. They can easily fulfill my requirements. "
Wang Erping also revealed the changes in the creation process of "Nature". In the 11-person team, Wang Erping, as the leading actor, used to practice Tai Chi with a scroll to express "holding the "Traditional Culture" means "traditional culture", but during the experiment, the effect was not very good, and it was later cancelled. After the Tai Chi master's performance, there was a Tai Chi performance by thousands of people. The original background sound was the sound of children reading. This was Zhang Yimou's idea. The effect was very good. In the end, everyone felt that music should be added to the sound of reading to make the background sound richer.
As for the number of people participating in the Thousand People Tai Chi, the director said it was 2008, but the actual number was 2136. This is because although the concept was to use 2008 people to fit in with the 2008 Beijing Olympics, during the on-site rehearsal at the "Bird's Nest", the director team discovered that there were some problems with the points where the 2008 martial arts performers were standing. There are no people at the spots, which affects the overall visual effect. If there are people at these spots, 128 more people will be needed. In this way, the total number of people performing is actually 2136.