Bring the stage to ordinary people's doorsteps --Hebei Dachang Ping Opera Song-and-Dance Troupe, a journey of serving farmers and the grassroots

Recently, the authorities honored the eighth batch of model collectives serving farmers and grassroots cultural undertakings, which includes the Hebei Dachang Ping Opera Song-and-Dance Troupe. Established 46 years ago, this grassroots opera troupe once almost went bankrupt, but has now built up a fine reputation and become a local cultural symbol. Discussing the reason behind the success, Zhao Deping, head of the troupe, said: "Ordinary people do not care if you are performing old Ping Opera or new opera, what they want to and like to listen to, are stories that can move them in their own language."

In the conference room of Dachang Ping Opera Song-and-Dance Troupe Entertainment LLC., there are many medals of honor on the wall. "Chinese Cao Yu Theater and Drama Award”, "Chinese Hundred Flowers Film Award" and other certificates of honor are also neatly placed on the bookshelf. These honors illustrated the progressive journey of the opera troupe which based itself in the grassroots, served the masses, and became a banner of national culture.

Old management system, shrinking economic benefits, the difficulty to expand the scale of operation...Established in 1974, Dachang Ping Opera Song-and-Dance Troupe experienced short-lived prosperity before the slip of the entire Chinese opera art market, and quickly fell into a survival crisis. In 1982, Zhao Deping, at the time 36-years-old, became the head of the opera troupe. After conducting investigative research from different angles, he boldly carried out a reform by proposing small-sized operas, modern operas, and serving farmers as the primary goals of the opera troupe. The newly rehearsed modern Ping Opera "The Girl Who Can't Get Married" were performed in dozens of different types of local drama styles and was filmed into a movie, which became the opera film with the most published copies at the time.

How to make the operas more down-to-earth to attract more audiences? For many years, Dachang Ping Opera Song-and-Dance Troupe always grasped the trendy topics and needs of grassroots and rural development. They refined and deepened the themes of their works and consistently created new opera contents. The early operas of "The Girl Who Can't Get Married", "Between Tears and Laughter" acutely denounced the harm of rural feudal customs on individuals, families, and society. They were true representations of the social life in rural communities in the initial stage of the reform and opening-up. In addition, the later productions of "The Male Representative of Woman's Congress", "Water Wall" were closely integrated with the issues that our nation faced during the process of reform and opening-up, where it presented the changing values, financial disputes, and different conflicts. In recent years, the performances of "Autumn Moon" and "Jiao Yulu" dug deeper into human nature and human feelings, inherited traditional Chinese culture, promoted core values, and had a positive impact on reality.

Zhao explains that for many years, his policy for the troupe was to "write opera for farmers, rehearse, and perform". Every opera emerged from life, took roots in rural villages, and received enthusiastic welcome from farmers. Over the years, the opera troupe travelled through the villages in the Beijng-Tianjin-Hebei region, over half of the year they are active in villages, and perform as many as six to seven sessions a day. Aside from full-scale dramas, they also create almost one hundred small-scale dramas and sketches.

To strengthen the construction of the public cultural service system and to enrich people's cultural lives, the troupe also established a platform for volunteer services, with activities of "opera entering campuses", "opera entering villages", "opera entering communities", and "opera entering enterprises". These aim to propel the discussion of operas, facilitate the flow of human talents into creating, performing, and exhibiting literature and art, comprehensively elevate the level of public cultural services, and accelerate the development of opera culture. At present, Dachang Ping Opera Song-and-Dance Troupe brought its mobile stage to the doorsteps of over 20 different provinces, cities, and districts, with over 6,000 performances and over 4 million audiences in total.

"We will continue to produce cultural works that focus on rural themes and reflect thematic values of the time. We hope that Dachang will become an exhibition center that will contribute to the continuous development of the prosperity of Yan-Zhao culture."

Contributed by Geng Jiankuo and Chen Yuanqiu, Guangming Daily reporters

Translated by Zhang Junye