By Zhang Yi, Chen Zhenqing

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Village Gala Shows during Spring Festival in Rui’an

By Zhang Yi, Chen Zhenqing

文化禮堂演出 A show at a village cultural center in Rui’an

CCTV, China’s largest television network, has been holding an annual celebration gala show on the eve of Spring Festival since 1983. Over years, similar gala shows have spilled over, from cities, smaller television stations, and internet all the way down to villages across the country.

Rui’an, a county-level city in southeastern Zhejiang, has been holding such grassroots celebrations for years. Rui’an Starlight Art Troupe, a private business, enjoys fame in the south of Zhejiang. The other day, we talked with Fang Yongnan, director of the troupe, to learn about their preparations for the Spring Festival shows on the road.

The 10-yer-old grassroots entertainment business has amateur artists who enjoyed themselves by singing and performing in public areas in downtown Rui’an. As they were frequently invited to stage shows everywhere, they decided to set up this business. The troupe’s history testifies to the huge local market demand for entertainment programs.

The lunar January is always the best time for the troupe. In 2014, the troupe performed for the first fifteen nights of the month at Yuhai Square in Rui’an. During that time, it squeezed time to appear at grassroots gala shows at the invitation of villages around Rui’an. The invitations had come a few months earlier in 2013.

Fang Yongnan revealed the secret of the troupe’s fast growth: “We understand the grassroots people and we adapt flexibly to their needs and wants.”

The Spring Festival market has diverse demands and the troupe tries to cater well to these demands. A team of performers work at Lakeview Park in the old downtown in Rui’an the year round. Their performance is free of charge for the public. During the Spring Festival, artists bring their best shows at the park to the rural areas. The best shows are designed and then improved at the park as if the park were the rehearsal ground.

The most popular shows are all created to cater to the local tastes and are based on local stories, events, people. Some items are designed to publicize big social issues and promote local projects such as safety in workplaces and energy preservation and reduction of waste discharge.

One big secret to get popularity is to get local villagers to appear in programs. Starlight sends its producers to villages a few days in advance. They create programs with local talents and rehearse with local talents. Such local participation always makes village audiences laugh and cheer. This practice endears the troupe to people and ensures more invitations to come their way in the future.

Nowadays, the local entertainment market is increasingly going recreational. That is, more and more villages are willing to stage their own gala shows during the Spring Festival. The popularity of opera plays has waned a little bit. This is exactly where Starlight Art Troupe comes in. The troupe works with local villages to produce gala shows. The troupe trains village performers and creates programs. One of the best programs is the village song. The village song is part of a cultural reconstruction movement across the province. Villages are encouraged to sing their own village songs. Nowadays, many villages do have their own songs, showing pride in ecology, tradition, legends, history, and culture of individual villages. The troupe’s own programs and village programs get together to form a complete gala show. The troupe applies this formula to the village gala show market around Rui’an. It has proved to be a formula of success.

What the director told us tallies with what we know about the local entertainment market. The big rehearsal of the gala show of 2016 at Xitan Village started a long time ago. More than 1,000 people attended a dress rehearsal. It rained, but the audience stayed to watch the whole show.