Reporter: The first dance you choreographed was March 3, which was the first Li dance in China to go global. How did you grasp this theme?
Chen Qiao: I think the most important thing about dance creation is that it comes from life. I just put the traditional festivals of the Li nationality on the screen. On the third day of the third lunar month, Li people in Dongfang County came to the slope in groups of three and five to pour out their love and find their partners by singing. In order to find out the details of the performance, I went to the slope field to experience life on March 3 and eavesdropped on people's love songs in the bushes. The boys almost thought I was Miss Li. At that time, all I wanted to do was to beautify the scenes, emotions and mentality of Li Men and the women who pursued love into the dance.
Reporter: Do you dance smoothly?
Chen Qiao: When I returned to the group, I told the leaders about this genre, and I also danced some bold and self-created dances. The team leader thought the theme was good, but the dance movements of the actors were not ideal, so he appointed an actor Liu Xuanliang to help me choreograph the male dance. 1956 "March 3rd" caused a great response as soon as it was staged, and was selected as an excellent program when it was selected by Guangdong Province to participate in the first national professional group music and dance performance, and participated in the performance of reporting to the central leadership in Huairentang. Later, it was introduced to the world stage by the China Art Troupe on the World Youth Students' Day, and all the national song and dance troupes participating in the performance learned this dance. At the symposium between the first national dance choreographer class and Soviet experts, they asked me what the choreographer's technique was. I don't understand these profound creative principles at all. I said I didn't think much, and my dance was just inspired by life.
Reporter: This dance is a very beautiful start for your creation. It must have a very special meaning to you, right?
Chen Qiao: This dance made Li people see their own dance for the first time, and produced their own programmed dance vocabulary and the concept of Li dance for the first time. This kind of dance has also stepped onto the international art hall. This is of course of great significance to me who is only 18 years old. After writing on March 3rd, I understand many ordinary details and phenomena of life. As long as you discover, dye and sublimate with your heart, you will certainly form a unique and touching dance image. In other words, to make a dance with vitality-it must come from life. My creation has since embarked on this road.
Reporter: It is said that this dance is also the beginning of your love?
Chen Qiao: Speaking of it, I looked down on Liu Xuanliang at first, because he was introduced into the group by me, and his qualifications were lower than mine. However, after the cooperation on March 3, he put forward many insightful opinions on the actor's action design, and he has a good impression on him since then. This time, March 3 not only made my creation gain something, but also was the bud of my love. I performed with him on March 3rd. Then we choreographed and danced a lot together. He grasped the big frame, I designed the dance movements and the overall structure, and we cooperated smoothly. Besides, we both danced together. Seven years later, he and I changed from a couple on stage to a couple in life. Later, we designated March 3rd as the wedding day, and the wedding photos used the stills of March 3rd. Straw hat dance
Reporter: Among the many dances you created, which one impressed you the most?
Chen Qiao: It's "grass dance". This is the time when I put the most beautiful side of Miss Li on the stage. Her theme is-look, how beautiful we are! In Lizhai, straw hats are the daily necessities of the Li nationality, woven with sunflower leaves and decorated with ribbons. I often see Li See girls playing by the river, covering their faces with straw hats and looking away, showing a lively and provocative look. This is how the straw hat dance was conceived.
Reporter: How did you show it by dancing? Look, how beautiful we are! The theme of?
Chen Qiao: Mainly from life, she captures and refines the external form of girls. I have lived and performed in Lizhai for a long time, and found that every time we go to the village to perform, those Li girls have some attractive habitual actions, such as covering their faces and secretly watching, and they are a little shy, because they are always used to walking by in straight narrow skirts. When standing, one foot is straight and the other foot is slightly bent, one is high and the other is low, and the action is oblique. I put this unique living habit of Li nationality into a dance vocabulary, which is the three-bend movement in Li nationality dance. Li girls have many beautiful handkerchiefs and anklets on their hands and feet. They all like to hang around in front of people. I found their beauty-loving nature from these details. After analysis, I carefully thought about some actions: when my hands are tilted outward, the bracelets on my hands can be well exposed in front of people. Then there is the action on the foot. How can we make the beautiful anklet visible and appreciate itself? I just used one foot, and I can see the anklet clearly when I kick it, which well expresses the mentality and living habits of girls who love beauty. In this way, I extracted the stylized standard movements from my own observation of life. Through the movements of chest, buttocks and feet, the whole dance combines the movements of lifting, throwing, turning, covering and wearing a straw hat to make Li girls youthful and energetic.
Reporter: Your "Cao Li Dance" has had a far-reaching impact on the creation of the entire Li dance in terms of dance movements?
Chen Qiao: Yes, this is the most typical work I have created. Most of the later Li dances were inseparable from these three elements: three bends, kicking and sticking hands. Touch a snail
Reporter: The dance "Touch Snail" gives people a special feeling. Its basic movements are left hand, left foot and right foot. How did you come up with this unique dance move?
Chen Qiao: Every time I go to the countryside, I try to blend in with my children. Children are naive, unlike adults. They can dance with their hands and feet as long as they drink, and children have to play with them. At that time, they liked to play with homemade herringbone wooden slippers and often beat them with wooden slippers. When their little feet wear adult wooden slippers, most of them walk with their left hands and feet, and their right hands and feet are very cute. I not only play with them, but also often go to the river to touch snails with them. The movement characteristic of "touching snails" dance is to develop the rhythm of Li dance. After this dance performance, a reporter from Hong Kong interviewed me and published an article entitled "Chen Qiao said: The left hand and the left foot are also dances". It is in order to discover the movements of left hand and left foot, which show the childlike innocence and frankness of children, so I have accumulated a long time to create this dance.
Reporter: How many years have you been creating this dance?
Chen Qiao: It should be said that I came into contact with Li children in the 1950s, but 198 1 it only took two days to compile this dance. This is the longest dance I have ever created. It has been used by me for nearly 30 years, which is really a long-term accumulation and occasionally obtained.
Reporter: This "Touch Snail" dance skillfully uses the upper and lower space of the bamboo bridge in the middle of the stage, forming a three-dimensional cross stage picture. At that time, how did you come up with this creative set technique to express it?
Chen Qiao: There are streams everywhere in Hainan, and every village will pass through the wooden bridge. And when I walk on the mountain in the village, I often meet some red mountain crab, which is very painful to bite. These personal experiences are particularly impressive. With these life materials, I want to blend them together, so I came up with the theme of touching snails, moving the scene of Hongshan crab being bitten into the water, and then performing dances on the bridge, which made me more interested in life. This is the first time I have adopted a three-dimensional crossing dance scene on the stage. Strange flowers on the sea floor
Reporter: 1982, you were invited to participate in the creation of the central large-scale music and dance epic Song of the Chinese Revolution, and took charge of one scene, Strange Flowers under the Sea, which reflected the workers' dance, which was very different from the folk dance you usually created. Must have been very nervous at that time?
Chen Qiao: Of course, "Welding Flowers under the Sea" shows the dance of workers welding pipes under the sea, but I usually come into contact with the countryside and have no idea about workers' lives. My heart is beating drums. However, I also said that I am a very competitive person, which I find difficult, but it can also be used as a breakthrough in my dance creation career. I want to prove that I am successful not only in choreography of national dances, but also in urban dances.
Reporter: How did you find a breakthrough later?
Chen Qiao: I went to Dagang Oilfield to experience life and learn about their work. With these life accumulation, how can I really show a person swimming in the water after I come back? I thought of a stool with wheels. People lie on stools or on their backs. People move forward when the wheels roll. When they move to the stage, an image of swimming in the sea will become vivid on the stage through the effect of ultraviolet rays.
I put forward this idea with few supporters and many opponents. Someone even said to me suspiciously, can sliding around with a stool be called dancing? I started my own experiment with the feeling of being the first to eat crabs. I asked the prop team to make a stool, which can only slide, but can't turn, and it is very unstable. I try to slide around the room myself to see if I can stand on the stool and dance. At first, I fell off the stool from time to time, either hitting my head against the wall or falling on the floor, which made me black and blue. Later, the wheel was further improved until I could stand on it and dance freely, and the wheel was used by actors.
Reporter: this dance uses a lot of props, and it must have taken a lot of energy in design?
Chen Qiao: Yes, I can't remember how many times I changed this dance. Dance is about beauty. I want to show the movements of hard welders. Some scenery is very important, so I chose artificial underwater flowers to wake up the sleeping seabed and welcome oil workers. This expression theme is very lyrical and romantic, and some acrobatic techniques are used. The whole dance was bright and splendid, and they all said that they didn't expect me, a folk dancer, to make the life of workers so vivid.