Artistic Heights | Ruxianguli: keeping the trust, advancing the high-quality development of acrobatic art in Shenzhen
Ruxianguli
President, Shenzhen Acrobats Association
As one of the members of the Guangdong delegation, I was greatly honoured to attend the 11th National Congress of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and the 10th National Congress of the China Writers Association in Beijing, and to hear General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speech in person. The General Secretary's speech was sincere and heartfelt, earnest and unhurried — an approachable, open-hearted talk with representatives of the literary and art world that felt very close to us. It answered the eager hopes of the great body of arts workers and pointed out the way forward for the flourishing of socialist literature and art.
The five hopes put forward by General Secretary Xi Jinping are fundamental requirements for us arts workers, and they further point out the direction and the path on the standpoint of literature and art, its relation to the times and to the people, subject matter, education through aesthetics, and cultivating one's own conduct and virtue. The Shenzhen Acrobats Association will carry out the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speech in concrete action.
First, making Shenzhen acrobatics stronger and bigger. In recent years Shenzhen acrobatics has gone from following to keeping pace to leading, developing fast and with remarkable results. Guangdong is a major province for acrobatics, and a strong one. Our confidence comes from Shenzhen acrobatics producing fine work and winning major prizes again and again. In these few years, "Dream of the Fan" and "Secret Realm," created under our organization, won the "Golden Chrysanthemum Award," the highest honour in Chinese acrobatics and magic, at the 10th and 11th editions respectively; the magic work "Time Travel" won the championship at the FISM World Championship of Magic; and in 2021 the municipal acrobats association won the China Acrobats Association's annual "Outstanding Achievement" award for the third year running, the only municipal association in the country to be commended by the China Acrobats Association.
Building a platform for acrobatic art worthy of a world-class bay area, and building peaks of world acrobatics, magic, comedy and circus art, is a responsibility that acrobatic and magic workers in the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area cannot shirk. The Shenzhen International Magic Festival and the Greater Bay Area Acrobatic Art Week are becoming the world's top platforms for display, exchange and competition in acrobatics, magic and comedy. Both events hold to the approach of "government-led, association-run, market-operated, art for the people," gathering the best, enriching the cultural life of the public and promoting the growth of the cultural industry; they have become a bright calling card for Shenzhen's cultural exchange with the outside world.
Next, we will take "producing fine works, holding major competitions, cultivating newcomers and building a rich atmosphere" as our core tasks. Standing at the height of making Shenzhen a pioneering model in literature and art, we will keep raising our capacity to organize and mobilize, innovate in our working methods, and unite and lead Shenzhen's acrobatic, magic, comedy and circus workers in making Shenzhen acrobatics bigger and stronger still, contributing more to the flourishing of Shenzhen's arts.
Second, focusing on creating influential fine works of acrobatics. In his important speech General Secretary Xi Jinping stressed: "I hope the great body of arts workers will tell China's story well with feeling and with effort, and present to the world a China that is credible, lovable and respectable." This sets new goals and new requirements for how we carry out cultural exchange abroad and tell China's story well.
Today Shenzhen acrobatics holds an important place on China's acrobatic map. That place rests first on renowned masters and second on fine and powerful works. On fine works, we plan next to create and present a major acrobatic drama built mainly on acrobatics and magic, blending other art forms and using multimedia technology and other means of expression, to show fully the great achievements of Shenzhen's reform and opening up and the moving story of the shared roots of Shenzhen and Hong Kong, and so to present a city full of charm, vitality, drive and creativity. General Secretary Xi Jinping said, "Culture shapes people and binds hearts together; art reaches the heart and speaks more easily to the world." Acrobatic art has a unique advantage in cultural exchange abroad and in telling China's story well. Once we pursued the path from "the national" to "the universal" — from traditional Chinese acrobatics and magic to developing acrobatics with the eyes and ideas of the world. Now we return from "the universal" to "the national" — telling China's story in the language of modern acrobatics and magic.
Third, city and district working together to support and drive high-quality development of acrobatic companies. In the reform of arts troupes, the municipal acrobats association is at the forefront nationally: its six professional acrobatics and magic companies are all private bodies, highly creative and full of vitality, and are leading companies in the country's acrobatics and magic sector. In recent years the municipal Party committee's publicity department and the municipal federation of literary and art circles have made repeated studies of Shenzhen's acrobatic companies, looked at reform plans, explored ways to deepen them, and established the Shenzhen Acrobatic Troupe, creating the country's first example of a privately run, publicly supported acrobatic company. I suggest implementing the relevant reform plan as soon as possible, so as to build the Shenzhen Acrobatic Troupe into a well-known acrobatic company of the first rank domestically and with a degree of international influence, a base for the inheritance of acrobatics and a key company representing southern-school acrobatic and magic art, laying a solid foundation for steadily advancing the integrated development of acrobatics in the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area.
From now on we will keep studying the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speech, hold to the original aspiration of Communist Party members, continue to inherit and carry forward the Party's fine traditions and style, answer the Party's call and act on a Party member's responsibility; we will work hard, fulfil our duties and take the initiative, consciously merge our own artistic lives into the cause of the Party and the people, keep in step with the times and put the people at the centre, keep strengthening our legs, eyes, minds and pens, reflect the Party's great practice and great spirit in a deeply realist spirit, dig out subject matter, promote the creation of fine works, raise the creativity of acrobatic art, open new paths of acrobatic expression, give full play to the aesthetic function and social value of acrobatic art, explore the building of a new system of discourse for acrobatic art, create fine and powerful works worthy of the people and of the Chinese nation, drive the high-quality development of acrobatic art, and make an even more active contribution to achieving the second centenary goal and the "Chinese Dream" of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.