[Special Report] Ruxianguli Aibaidula — the ‘evergreen of magic’ at Happy Valley Shenzhen

Ruxianguli Aibaidula

Ruxianguli Aibaidula, female, of Uygur ethnicity, born on 11 August 1970, is a National Class-A Performer (the highest professional rank for performers in China). She joined Happy Valley Shenzhen in July 1998 and currently serves as Chief Magician and Assistant Art Director of Shenzhen OCT Happy Valley Tourism Company; Secretary-General and Project Director of the China Magic Culture and Creative Industry Base; part-time Vice-President of the Shenzhen Federation of Literary and Art Circles; President of the Shenzhen Acrobats Association; Vice-President of the Shenzhen Association of Culture and Art Experts; Vice-President of the Shenzhen–Hong Kong Literature and Art Exchange Association; Executive Vice-President of the Shenzhen Performing Arts Association; Vice-President of the Guangdong Acrobats Association; member of the Council of the China Acrobats Association and Vice-Director of its Magic Committee; a deputy to the 8th National People's Congress; and a member of the 6th Shenzhen Municipal Committee of the CPPCC. She receives the special government expert allowance granted by the State Council. She has been named an OCT "Outstanding Young Worker" and "Advanced Individual" by OCT Group; an "Advanced Worker of Shenzhen" by the Shenzhen Federation of Trade Unions; awarded the medal "Pengcheng Youth of Achievement for Outstanding Contribution to the Construction of Shenzhen" by the Shenzhen Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League and the Shenzhen Youth Federation; and given the "Ethnic Unity" Advanced Individual Award by the Shenzhen Municipal Government. On 27 September 2019 she received the honorary title of "National Model Individual for Ethnic Unity and Progress".

On 27 September 2019 the National Conference to Commend Ethnic Unity and Progress was held in Beijing. The conference honoured 665 national model collectives and 812 model individuals for ethnic unity and progress. Comrade Ruxianguli Aibaidula, Vice-Director of the Magic Art Committee of the China Acrobats Association and Assistant Art Director of Happy Valley Shenzhen, received the honorary title of "National Model Individual for Ethnic Unity and Progress".

At Happy Valley Shenzhen, whenever magic is mentioned the first person everyone thinks of is "Teacher Ruxian" — a veteran Party member of 25 years' standing, and a Happy Valley person who has been rooted in the park since July 1998 and has grown up together with Happy Valley Shenzhen.

Over these 21 years she has poured her heart into her work and successfully woven the tradition of magic performance into Happy Valley's system of festivals and performing-arts products. From lead performer to programme creator; from steadily deepening her own artistry to single-handedly training internationally acclaimed young magicians such as Fu Yandong, Xin Yafei, Liu Bei, Zuli and Aihemai; from taking part in staging the first "Happy Valley Shenzhen International Magic Festival" in 2002, to Happy Valley Shenzhen hosting the "China Golden Chrysanthemum Award National Magic Competition" three times, and on to 2019, when seven parks of the Happy Valley chain joined forces to stage the Happy Valley International Magic Festival together with the 2019 "Happy Valley Cup" International Youth Magic Competition; from the radiant "Queen of Magic" to the gracious and easy-going "Teacher Ruxian" — Ruxianguli's artistic career has always been closely bound up with Happy Valley's leap-forward development, and it has borne rich fruit.

From the Nation's Frontier to the Front Line of Reform and Opening-Up

A "Rising Star of Magic" Finds Her Home at "Happy OCT"

As early as the 1990s the young Ruxianguli Aibaidula was already making her mark at arts festivals in Xinjiang and across the country, on the strength of her outstanding artistic gift and her superb magic acts. Card Artistry, the sleight-of-hand act she created herself, won the "Golden Lion Award" — the highest prize conferred by the Ministry of Culture — at the 3rd National Acrobatics and Magic Competition in 1990. She has also received the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region's "Develop Xinjiang, Build Xinjiang — May Day Labour Medal" and honorary titles including Outstanding Professional and Technical Worker, "Outstanding Young Person", "Model Worker" and Advanced Worker.

In July 1998 Happy Valley Shenzhen, then still under construction, held out an olive branch to Ruxianguli. Set on pursuing her dream, she resolved to "go south", coming to Shenzhen, the very front line of reform and opening-up, and joining the Happy Valley family. Happy Valley Shenzhen's philosophy of "joy for oneself, joy for others" and OCT's distinctive gene of "creative imagination" made a deep impression on her; she felt that innovation in the art of magic is inseparable from imagination, and that the whole purpose of magic performance is to pass on joy. In the years that followed, working from the particular character of Happy Valley Shenzhen's products, she and her colleagues formed teams to tackle the hard problems, blending elements of magic, acrobatics, dance and comedy to create a succession of large-scale performing-arts productions such as Happy MD, Dreamland Divine Comedy, Magic Rose and Light of Magic, in which she herself starred. Through everyone's joint efforts, Happy Valley Shenzhen's performing-arts system was built with magic at its core, delivering joy through performance and shaping its identity through its products; as the park's successive phases of products continued to develop, they won unanimous praise from tens of millions of visitors and created substantial brand value for Happy Valley. In 1999 the magic drama Dreamland Divine Comedy, starring Ruxianguli, won the "Special Award" for Best Production from the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles; in 2000 Magic Radiance, which she created and starred in, represented OCT and won the "Gold Award" at the performing-arts showcase of central-government units based in Shenzhen.

From "Chief Magician" to "Chief Promotion Officer"

Rooted at Happy Valley Shenzhen, Cultivating Fertile Ground for Magic

As the Happy Valley brand grew and expanded, Ruxianguli's role at work also changed. In 2013 she took on the post of Assistant Art Director of Happy Valley Shenzhen, and the stage on which she could apply her talents became larger and broader.

In her own professional field, Ruxianguli made full use of her role as "Chief Magician" in passing on skills, guiding and mentoring. She attached great importance to discovering and training the next generation of young magic talent, and from within the Happy Valley Shenzhen performance team she nurtured young magicians such as Fu Yandong, Xin Yafei, Liu Bei, Zuli and Aihemai, who later became known at home and abroad. At the same time she kept bringing forth new work and steadily raising the quality of Happy Valley Shenzhen's performing-arts products, creating a series of brand-new magic situational dramas and children's shows aimed at young people and the family market — Phantom Traces, Light of Magic, Dream Shenzhen, Dream Show and Illusion City among them — all warmly received on every side. In 2014 the large-scale magic situational drama Dream Shenzhen at Happy Valley Shenzhen was named a designated production of the arts festival of the 10th China (Shenzhen) International Cultural Industries Fair.

In her daily work Ruxianguli brought together the advancement of the art of magic and the promotion of the OCT and Happy Valley brands, taking it upon herself to act as Happy Valley's "chief promoter" in the field of culture and the arts. She made the most of the posts she holds in a number of professional associations and social organisations to help Happy Valley Shenzhen's magic performances "go out" and to bring the finest magic resources from across the country and around the world "in". Under her leadership and impetus, Happy Valley Shenzhen successfully hosted China's highest-level magic event — the China Golden Chrysanthemum Award National Magic Competition — three times, in 2000, 2015 and 2018; in 2005 the headquarters of the Asian Magic Association was successfully established at Happy Valley Shenzhen; and in 2014 China's first national-level magic culture and creative industry base was set up at Happy Valley Shenzhen. The "Happy Valley Shenzhen International Magic Festival", held for 19 consecutive editions, has itself won such distinctions as the "Best Magic Festival · Merlin Award" from the International Magicians Society (IMS), the "Award for Outstanding Contribution to the Promotion and Popularisation of Magic" from the Fédération Internationale des Sociétés Magiques (FISM), and a place among the "Top Ten Festivals of International Influence" at the China Brand Festival Awards. In 2018 the Happy Valley International Magic Festival was formally written into the Shenzhen Cultural Innovation and Development 2020 Implementation Plan and onto the city's cultural menu, becoming a shining international cultural calling card for Shenzhen.

At the same time, a series of outstanding magic acts organised and directed by Ruxianguli have taken the stage at national and world-class magic events and won award after award: Xiuse (Beauty in Bloom), performed by the magician Liu Bei, won the overall stage championship at the 2007 Asian Magic Competition, the Silver Award at the 2011 Asian Magic Championship and the 9th Guangdong Lu Xun Literature and Art Award in 2012; Magic Radiance — Dream Shadows, performed by the magicians Zuli and Aihemai, won the Gold Award at the 2nd Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao–Taiwan Magic Competition hosted by the Department of Arts of the Ministry of Culture; and Forest Fantasy, performed by Hu Linglong and An Na, received first-class funding (Gold Award) from the China National Arts Fund at the "Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao–Taiwan" Magic Exchange Showcase.

Thanks to more than twenty years of unremitting effort and wholehearted dedication by successive groups of Happy Valley people, of whom Ruxianguli is representative, Happy Valley Shenzhen's performing-arts products have borne rich fruit, performing talent has emerged in a steady stream, and the park's influence in the industry has risen rapidly, making it a fertile ground for development that draws the attention of the magic and arts industries nationwide and worldwide.

From Putting Down Roots in Shenzhen to Going Out to the World

The Art of Magic Carries a Love of Home and Country

As a veteran Party member of 25 years' standing, Ruxianguli has stayed true to her original aspiration and kept her mission firmly in mind, always maintaining the advanced qualities of a Communist Party member working in the arts at the grassroots and acting as a role model. She has put into practice the Party's fundamental principle that culture and art must take root in and serve the grassroots: for years she has taken culture to the countryside in remote areas, going into streets, campuses and enterprises, teaching at the grassroots, mentoring students, organising competitions, building bases and spreading the art of magic. Through varied cultural and artistic forms she has actively promoted the spirit of the Party's 19th National Congress, encouraged contact, exchange and integration among all ethnic groups, and contributed to forging a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation.

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As a well-known artist holding professional posts in provincial, municipal and national industry associations, Ruxianguli has actively responded to the country's call for the Belt and Road Initiative, taking part every year in "Belt and Road" culture-first activities and travelling abroad to perform many times. Her footsteps have reached more than 60 countries and regions across five continents. Sparing no effort, she has carried Chinese culture to other countries, presented China, told China's story well and deepened cultural exchange between nations, so that the countries along the Belt and Road may come to know China — the China of forty years of reform and opening-up, and a China striving for national rejuvenation and for the realisation of the Chinese Dream.

Whenever colleagues ask her, "You have worked hard for so many years and won plenty of honours — why do you still push yourself so hard?", she always answers modestly: "To let foreign friends come to know the culture of my motherland and to know Happy Valley through me — that is my mission as a daughter of China, as a member of the Communist Party of China, as an arts worker and as an OCT person. OCT is the place where my life bloomed a second time, and Shenzhen is the place where I stay true to my original aspiration and keep my mission in mind."