Since its birth four years ago, lishui sands has become a banner of cultural industry in Lijiang, Yunnan and even the whole country. More importantly, it shows the vigorous vitality of folk performing groups.
Meet the challenge bravely
In September, 2002, 18-year-old He was admitted to the lishui sands crew, which had just started shooting for less than four months. At that time, no one could tell whether this large-scale dance, which combined national song and dance elements with modern high-tech sound and photoelectric means, could stand in Lijiang.
He once danced traditional Naxi dance on a small stage less than 20 square meters in Yushui Village, Lijiang. Lishui sands gave her a great shock: the 400-square-meter stage of Lijiang International Cultural Exchange Center, a huge team of more than 80 actors, and three chapters of 90-minute poetic dance.
Li Mei thinks that their basic skills are far behind those of lishui sands's actors. "They are all great, some are from Lijiang National Song and Dance Troupe, and some are from other provinces and cities." She made up her mind to have a place in this first large-scale dance in Yunnan. After two months' hard training, she finally succeeded in joining the group dance "lishui sands", which shows the Miao "Torch Festival". "I grew up!" She said with joy.
Lishui sands is also growing. Zhou Zhiqiang, general manager of lishui sands Performing Arts Co., Ltd., is still worried about the initial situation: at the end of 200 1, he came to Lijiang and never set foot in the performing arts industry. It took only three months from project establishment to creation, and it officially premiered on May 1 2002. "In the beginning, there was almost no audience. June 1 day, one person in the audience. My memory is too deep! After the performance, foreign tourists left a sentence: the program is very good and the publicity is not enough. " The tourists' words made Zhou Zhiqiang full of confidence in the lishui sands project itself and its positioning. He immediately adjusted his propaganda strategy, invited the local government to hold a special promotion meeting for lishui sands, and gradually won the audience's reputation through a series of measures, such as organizing tour guides to attend lectures, attracting tourism teams to watch performances, and making use of media publicity. Finally, in June 2002, lishui sands began to walk out of the trough. At this time, Li Meigang got her first role in lishui sands through her unremitting efforts.
Coincidentally, after taking the first successful step, Zhou Zhiqiang and Li Mei also set their next goals respectively: to take Yunnan national culture as the soul and take modern science and technology as the means to hold a tourism dance party in lishui sands to challenge the market; Challenge the heroine of lishui sands with her own efforts.
In the end, both of them succeeded in 2004.
This year, Li Mei became the "pillar" of the group. Lishui sands and its enterprises are regarded as one of the most pioneering private Shang Yan in the industry and awarded the title of "Cultural Industry Demonstration Base" by the Ministry of Culture. Was named "Top Ten Growth Enterprises of China Cultural Industry in 2004"; It was awarded as "National 100 Excellent Literary and Art Groups" at the Seventh Art Festival in China; In 2005, he won the gold medal and bronze medal in the fifth China Dance Lotus Award. In the same year, it was awarded as a famous trademark in Yunnan Province.
Crisis creates brilliance.
Li Mei on the stage is beautiful: her dancing is gentle and charming, her performance is precise and devoted, and her shyness, anger, despair and happiness are just right. When the applause lasted for a long time, when all the actors in lishui sands collectively stood in the spotlight that suddenly turned on, she was tightly wrapped in a broad warmth. She is sincerely proud that she is an important member of lishui sands, and even more proud of the dedication of this team.
To make a good program, only accurate market positioning is not enough. Zhou Zhiqiang said that lishui sands's innovation in mechanism and system made He such an obscure little role a "pillar". Moreover, it is the competition mechanism of private performance groups that makes Li Mei, a pillar of Taiwan, unable to sit back and relax: she must get used to accepting challenges.
Li Mei got the heroine in this way: according to the regulations, she applied to the head of the dance troupe for the leading role, and competed with the heroine in all directions at that time, and then all the actors voted to decide who was qualified to be the leading role. And Li Mei fought for it. But in the past two years, she had to accept the challenges of other actors again and again, and tried her best to show her housekeeping skills and hold the "position".
"The system not only ensures the fairness of actor selection, but also encourages actors to keep moving forward." According to Li Mei, competition for posts and distribution according to work are the biggest secrets of lishui sands's success. Actors and dancers regard skill level as a prerequisite for hiring or playing an important role. The main income of actors is determined by this: performance skills, role-playing, appearance frequency, professionalism and discipline. "For example, if I dance duet, the protagonist can get 20 points, and the small role can get 6 or 7 points; Actors have angle A and angle B. If angle A fails, angle B will be pushed up immediately. If you jump more, you will get more points, and your income will naturally be high. "
The sense of crisis is everywhere. Li Mei thinks that if it is the level of 2002, it will definitely not be able to squeeze into lishui sands now. Tired? Tired, four games a day in peak season, at least 1 game a day in off-season. Sometimes they enter at 2 pm and leave at midnight 12. "But willingly! This is why lishui sands can always be passionate: the actors want to dance more and better. " She said.
The success of this dynamic "private" mechanism in lishui sands has promoted the advancement of actors and attracted more actors to join it. Zhou Zhiqiang introduced that among the more than 80 actors in the troupe, 3 1 came from the original Lijiang Song and Dance Troupe, most of the rest were recruited locally, and a small number of actors came from all over Yunnan or even outside the province.
Many actors have personal feelings about "state-owned" and "private". 3 1 The former Lijiang Song and Dance Troupe became shareholders after the transformation, and together with lishui sands Performing Arts Company, they set up a national performing arts company to provide actor protection for lishui sands, open up a broader industrial space and carefully train young actors. They are deeply touched by the transformation of their identity: "There was no passion before the transformation. Now, you can prove your value, awaken your love for dance, awaken your professional dignity, and awaken your deep pride and recognition of your national culture. "
Sharp market awareness, real closeness to the audience, reasonable institutional arrangements, scientific operation mechanism ... Looking back on lishui sands's four years of struggle and success, Zhou Zhiqiang was filled with emotion: in 2004, lishui sands gave 786 performances; In 2005, 846 performances were performed; 2006 is approaching the mark of 1000 games; More than 60 public welfare performances. Some experts said that "lishui sands" has become a wonderful work in the domestic national performance field. Zhou Zhiqiang believes that this is an opportunity brought to enterprises by the state's policy of promoting cultural system reform and developing cultural industries. Lishui sands seized this opportunity with the full support of all parties, and the innate market awareness of private enterprises played a key role in lishui sands's success: artworks are also products and the only way out for enterprise development.
In the face of lishui sands's outstanding performance of more than 3,000 performances in four years, Zhou Zhiqiang calmly looked around: "In these four years, a large number of tourist songs and dances, such as Yunnan Image, Mount Paranasi and Butterfly Dream, have emerged in Yunnan alone. We are thinking about what is out of date and what needs further exploration. Lishui sands must be prepared for danger in times of peace. "
Li Mei, 22, is still a glamorous heroine. She confidently told reporters: "Of course, I hope to be the protagonist forever, but I am not afraid to meet the challenge! I believe that competitive and energetic lishui sands will produce more and better dancers. "