East China Experimental Opera Troupe 舞 者 沈 蓓 （四）

At the end of 1951, the central government announced that the transition period had ended ahead of schedule, and all walks of life across the country would integrate from the war system to the peace building system, and fully transition to the stage of socialist construction. We also merged with Xinlu and Revolutionary University to form the East China Experimental Opera Troupe at the beginning of 52. (Note) The template is the Bolshoi Theatre. (The dean Zhang Tuo has been sent to the Soviet Union to study six months in advance.) The slogan is “Theatreization, Regularization, and Specialization”.

The first action of theatricalization, regularization, and specialization is professional refinement, and we can no longer fight as we did in the art troupe. I was in a singing team, and I practiced Italian bel canto with teacher Zheng Shumao “Mummy Mimi” every day, and rehearsed folk songs such as “Orchid Flower” or the musical “Four Sisters New Year”, and began to enter the life of a formal singer.

Everyone says that I have a golden voice, but unfortunately, I sing loudly like a Hongzhong, but it is too bright and straight. Once I use a beautiful voice and thin like a line, I am transferred to the dance team a few months later. Although I was still the youngest in the regiment at that time, I was 15 or 16 years old. Compared to the children who started professional training at the age of 8 or 9 now, I was really old. Moreover, if you bend over, move your legs, and measure your whole body according to the current enrollment, I am afraid that dancing will also be eliminated.

But there is no if, no matter what, I finally got on the dance boat. At that time, everyone’s yearning for “peace building” was enthusiastic and eager. “Like the Bolshoi Theatre”, the whole opera house was a common practice. After militarization, we were accustomed to being nervous and arduous. If you don’t eat breakfast, you should practice waist and leg exercises, stand upside down for less than three minutes, swing your waist a dozen times until your hands catch the ankle; kick at least a hundred times… Window carving”. The windows of the opera house building are high and narrow, just enough to stand a person, if you stand up and put your feet on the window mullions, the height of your legs will be at least 160 degrees. As a result, in the early morning, a beautiful sculpture set against the dawn appears in every window. Its posture is ever-changing, and men and women are different. When the singer woke up with sleepy eyes, we had finished a class, wiped our faces after breakfast, and went to ballet class again. After ballet is the basic training of classical dance. In the afternoon, classical dance swords, guns, figures, and folk dances. In the evening, they rehearse or study on their own. In a word, they are almost in the rehearsal hall from morning to night.

Two performance seasons a year. Performed in Shanghai in autumn (around National Day). The spring represents Shanghai to major cities. Most of them still inherited the revolutionary tradition, went to the mountains and the countryside, and shuttled between towns and cities. At the beginning, the program was inherited from Yan’an, which was still between the folk field self-entertainment form and the stage form. In addition to the Yangko waist drum, this “Dalianxiang” was also very popular at that time.

Looking at this photo from 65 years ago, I was really full of emotions. Many interesting scenes, like movie shots, came in front of my eyes. At that time, there were no theaters in the vast rural areas of China. The stages were all built up with door panels temporarily unloaded from the homes of ordinary people. Once in “Playing Lianxiang”, when it was Shu Qiao’s turn to lead the dance, how could she only listen to the voice of Lianxiang and not see her figure? She fell into a big gap and stuck to her thigh, but even though she couldn’t move, Shu Qiao was still dancing Lianxiang happily, leading everyone to continue dancing, and everyone happily followed the show to the end. It can be seen that at that time how passionate and simple we are. I don’t know if Qiaozijie, who is over 90, remembers this interesting story.

I wrote these fragments just to recall that we started from here and embarked on the ambitious journey of revitalizing Chinese dance art. The task of building China’s own music and dance profession lies in front of us, the first generation of professional dancers in New China, who are playing the drum of victory and twisting the liberation of Yangko to join the revolutionary artistic team. We learn from the effective experience of collecting and processing folk dances in the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, and follow the slogan of “Rescue Legacy, Go Deep into Life”, and go deep into the village with our backpacks. Rescue excavation of endangered folk art. In accordance with the principle of “removing the dross and taking the essence”, screening, identification, development, and reconstruction are carried out. As a result, creative dances corresponding to dances passed down in nature are produced. Batch after batch of excellent repertoires that are popular among the masses have appeared, such as “Picking Tea and Fighting Butterflies”, “The Big Tea Mountain”, “Red Silk Dance”, “Running Donkey” and so on, which have been passed down to this day.

One of the most famous is the Anhui Huagu Lamp. (Note) It has more than 400 vocabularies and more than 50 basic steps. The movements are enthusiastic, unrestrained, vigorous and free and easy. Among them, the typical movements of Sandaowan emphasize the twisting of the waist, which is an important feature of Oriental dance “S” type. fully reflect. Actors have superb rolling skills and even difficult lifting movements, which are unique in Chinese dance. So much so that it won the reputation of “Oriental Ballet”.

After discovering such a rich mine, we who didn’t know where there was Chinese dance back then, of course, were like bees who found a large sea of ​​flowers, naturally rushing to them. I went to Huaiyuan, Anhui to apprentice art three times, and it’s true. At that time, the “Huagu Lantern” of our opera house was very famous, and it was the finale of the party every time. The appearance is when the actress stands on the shoulders of the actor and rushes like a whirlwind, which stuns the audience at once.

 1951年底，中央宣布，过渡时期提前结束，全国各行各业从战争体制向和平建设体制整合，全面转入社会主义建设阶段。我们也在52 年初和新旅、革大合併成立华东实验歌剧团。（注）范本是莫斯科大剧院。（院长张拓已提前半年派往苏联学习。）口号是“剧院化、正规化、专业化“。

剧院化、正规化、专业化第一个动作就是专业细化，不能再像文工团时那样打囫囵仗。我分在歌队，每天一面跟着郑菽茂老师“咪咪妈妈“练气学意大利美声，一面排练民歌如“兰花花”或歌舞剧《四姐妹拜年》等，开始进入正规的歌唱演员生活。

人人都说我是金嗓子，可惜，我唱大嗓声如洪钟，可太亮太直，一用美声又细的像条线，数月后又调到舞队。那时我在团里虽仍属最小，也已十五六岁，比起现在八、九岁就开始专业训练的孩子，实属老也。而且如果按现时招生那样，弯腰搬腿，全身丈量的标准，恐怕搞舞蹈也在淘汰之列。

1952年5月,由“新安旅行团”、“青年文工团“、“革大文工团”合并,成立“华东人民艺术剧院歌剧团”（今上海歌剧院）。成为我国成就卓著、声誉斐然的音乐戏剧和声乐艺术表演团体。数十年来，歌剧院创作演出了众多影响深远的歌剧、舞剧、合唱、歌舞、器乐等剧（节）目。如舞剧《小刀会》、《凤鸣歧山》、《吴越春秋》、《半屏山》、《木兰飘香》；歌剧《仰天长啸》、《多布杰》、《楚霸王》、《杜兰多公主》、《海峡之花》、《蝙蝠》等。该团主要编导和演员:舒巧、白水、仲林、李群、叶银章、陈健民、郑韵、恽迎世、周洁、顾红、张玉照、徐森忠、王少若等；主要作曲有:商易、刘念劬、庄德淳。曾出访朝鲜、印尼、缅甸、匈牙利、捷克、瑞士、波兰、希腊等国家和香港地区。

不过没有如果，不管怎么着，最终上了舞蹈这条船。那时大家对“和平建设”的向往，热烈又急切，“像莫斯科大剧院那样”，整个歌剧院，勤学苦练蔚然成风，经过军事化锻炼的我们，紧张艰苦早习以为常，每天天不亮起床，早饭不吃就先练腰腿功，倒立不到三分钟不下来，甩腰十几次直到手抓住脚脖子为止；踢腿至少一百次、、、、、、还有一道风景——“窗雕”。歌剧院大楼的窗户又高又窄，刚够站一个人，如果站上去，再把脚搁到窗棂上，那腿的高度就至少在160度以上。于是，清晨，每个窗户都会出现一座在晨曦衬托下的美丽雕塑，它姿态千变万化，男女各不相同。当歌唱演员睡眼惺忪起床时，我们已练完一堂课，吃过早饭抹把脸，又上芭蕾课去了。芭蕾后是古典舞基训。下午古典舞刀枪靶子、身段和民间舞，晚上或排练或自习，一句话，几乎从早到晚在排练厅摸爬滚打。

每年两个演出季。秋天（国庆前后）在上海公演。春天代表上海到各大城市亮相。更多的则还是继承革命传统，上山下乡，在各城镇穿梭。一开始节目也还是以从延安继承下来的那些还介乎民间田野自娱自乐形态和舞台形态之间的节目，除秧歌腰鼓外，这个《打莲湘》也是那时很流行的一个。

看着这张65年前的照片，实在是感慨万千，诸多有趣的画面如电影镜头一般，在眼前纷至沓来。那时中国广大农村根本没有剧场可言，舞台都是用临时卸自老百姓家的门板拼搭起来的。一次演《打莲湘》，轮到舒巧领舞时怎么只听莲湘声不见她的人影，再定睛一看，原来拼搭的舞台门板与门板间有很大的空隙，她一脚踩空掉到一个大缝中，一直卡到大腿，但人虽不能移动，舒巧却照样还在欢快地舞动着莲湘，领着大家继续跳，大家也兴高采烈地跟着把节目演完，可见那时的我们多么的热情单纯。这件趣事不知现已年过90 的巧子姐还记得否。   

我写下这些片段只是为了回溯我们正是从这里起步，踏上雄心勃勃的振兴中华舞蹈艺术的征程的。建设属于中国自己的音乐舞蹈专业的任务，摆在了我们这些打着胜利腰鼓，扭着解放秧歌投身革命文艺队伍的新中国第一代专业舞人面前。我们借鉴苏联东欧国家行之有效的对民间舞进行采集、加工的经验，遵循“抢救遗产，深入生活”的口号，打起背包深入村寨。对濒临绝境的民间艺术进行抢救性发掘。按照“去其糟粕，取其精华”的原则，进行筛选、鉴别、发展、再造。由此而产生出与自然传衍的舞蹈相对应的创作型舞蹈。一批又一批为群众喜闻乐见的优秀剧目出现了，如《采茶扑蝶》、《大茶山》、《红绸舞》、《跑驴》等等，传承至今。

其中最著名的要数安徽花鼓灯了。（注）它有四百多种语汇、五十多种基本步伐，动作热烈、奔放、矫健、洒脱，其中典型动作三道弯强调腰部的扭动，是东方舞蹈的重要特征“S”型的充分体现。男演员有高超的翻滚技巧，甚至于还有高难度的托举动作，这在中国舞蹈中是绝无仅有的。以至于得了《东方芭蕾》的美称。

发现了这样的富矿，对于当年不知哪里有中国舞的我们，当然像蜜蜂发现了大片花海一样，自然趋之若鹜。我曾三次去安徽怀远拜师学艺，可说得其真传。 当时我们歌剧院的《花鼓灯》是很有名的，每次都是晚会的压轴戏。出场就是女演员站在男演员的肩上如旋风一样飞奔而来，一下子就把观众都给怔住了。

花鼓灯是汉民族中集舞蹈、灯歌和锣鼓音乐、情节性的双（三）人舞和情绪性集体舞完美结合于一体的民间舞种。据传《花鼓灯》大禹时代就有了。大禹时代为什么产生《花鼓灯》无据可靠，但它和洪水这种天灾人祸有关却是有现实为据的。安徽是一个苦地方，年年发大水，唱个《花鼓戏》就成了人们外出乞讨的本钱。逃荒的过程接触到外面世界，又为他们不断从其他地方戏、杂技、武术、器乐、民歌中广收博采创造了条件，回到家乡，在丰收年节，拿出新招，争奇斗艳，以博称赞。技艺上的精益求精，使《花鼓灯》逐步发展出了一套完整的结构体系。到宋朝已发展成为比较系统的艺术形式，在民间舞蹈艺术中占据了举足轻重的地位。再经过元、明、清、民国时期的发展，至20世纪三四十年代形成了以安徽蚌埠、淮南、阜阳等为中心，辐射淮河中游河南、安徽、山东、江苏四省二十多个县、市的播布区。