Bridging the Gaps: mixed reality performance of Chinese Opera in rural and urban Shanghai

“弥合差距”汇集了一批经过甄选的中英专家，他们具有互补的技能，探索混合现实表演在弥合上海农村和城市社区以及发展各自创意经济方面的潜力。所谓“混合现实表演”，我们指的是使用常见的和新颖的技术，将观众体验中的“真实”和“虚拟”世界融合在一起，通过这种方式，材料、数字对象和演员可以实时互动。这种表演可以是固定的或定位的，并在一个或多个地点进行。这个拟议中的项目将重点关注中国戏曲这种传统上与农村社区有关的流行文化形式的创新表演，作为建立新的中英研究-产业合作伙伴关系和长期发展项目的案例研究。自1992年以来，上海被中国中央政府确定为引领经济发展的“龙头城市”，但城乡社区及其各自的创意实践和经济之间的脱节仍然存在，阻碍了CCI的发展。上海的城乡分化就是这些挑战的例证。上海分为浦东和浦西：浦西原由欠发达的农村组成；后者占据了由前英国、法国和其他外国租界建造的富裕的经济和文化区。以上海戏剧艺术中心为代表的上海年轻中产阶级的象征——从20世纪初开始，西方引进的现代戏剧就在上海浦西建立起来了。而中国戏曲作为一种流行文化形式，主要涉及农村社区和城市中的农民工，社会和文化资本较低，难以与城市的年轻观众接触。到2016年，中国已成为世界第二大经济体。中国戏曲已经与旅游业融合在一起，以促进区域经济发展和全球软实力的植入。2017年，上海浦东川沙村投资1亿英镑建设了一个戏曲村，其中包括一个数字技术戏曲博物馆。一年前，世界上最新的迪士尼乐园度假村就在这个村庄开业。与此同时，所有五家上海歌剧院（昆剧、京剧、全女越剧、胡剧、淮剧）的办公室都位于浦西原法租界，但没有公共表演空间，它们得到了越来越多的政府补贴，用于制作和新建剧院建筑群。然而，浦东的歌剧村和浦西的歌剧院都在努力吸引年轻的城市观众和游客。上海戏剧艺术中心位于浦西的五个上海歌剧院群中，是北京以外中国最大的现代戏剧剧院，从未与任何一家歌剧院合作过。在上海，城乡、现代和传统之间的差距可能是微妙的，但却是彻底的。在2019年（2月至7月）AHRC奖中英创意产业合作伙伴发展“弥合差距”下，中英研究和产业合作伙伴进行了合作，探索了合作的主题、方法和成果，并产生了一系列产出，包括纪录片和上海艺术评论特别版。在第一阶段合作伙伴关系发展成果的基础上，该计划将预先选定的中英科研产业合作伙伴聚集在一起，通过财政投资/实物捐助，共同推进合作。

Bridging the Gaps brings together a cluster of pre-selected UK-China experts with complementary skills to explore the potential of mixed reality performance in bridging Shanghai's rural and urban communities and developing respective creative economies. By "mixed reality performance" we mean performance that uses common and novel technologies to merge "real" and "virtual" worlds in the audience's experience and through which material, digital objects and actors interact in real time. Such performances may be fixed or locative and take place across one or multiple sites. This proposed project will focus on new and innovative performances of Chinese Opera, a form of popular culture traditionally relating to rural communities, as a case study to establish new China-UK research-industry partnerships and projects for long term development. Xi Jinpings' Presidency of China has, from 2014, placed increasing emphasis on balancing rural-urban social economic development and positioned traditional Chinese art forms, including Chinese opera, as the anchor of China's creative and cultural industries (CCI). Since 1992, Shanghai has been identified by the Chinese Central Government as the 'Head of the Dragon' to lead economic development, yet disconnections between rural and urban communities and their respective creative practices and economies persist and have held CCI developments back. Shanghai's rural-urban divisions exemplify these challenges. Shanghai is separated into Pudong and Puxi: the former originally comprising of underdeveloped rural countryside; the latter occupying affluent economic and cultural quarters built by former British, French and other foreign concessions. Whilst Western imported modern drama has been established since the early 20th century in Shanghai Puxi, as the symbol of Shanghai's young middle class - represented by Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre - Chinese opera, a form of popular culture, predominantly relating to rural communities and rural migrant workers in urban cities, carries low social and cultural capital and struggles to engage with the young urban audience.By 2016, China emerged as the second largest economy in the world. Chinese opera has been fused with tourism for regional economic development and global soft power insertion, exemplified in 2017 by the £100 million investment in building an opera village, which includes a digital technology opera museum, at Shanghai Pudong Chuansha village, the very same village where the world's latest Disneyland Resort was opened a year earlier. Meanwhile, all five Shanghai Opera Houses (Kun Opera, Beijing Opera, All-female Yue Opera, Hu Opera, Huai Opera), whose offices are situated in Puxi's former French concession area but have no public performance space, receive increasing government subsidies for productions and new theatre complexes. However, both the Opera Village in Pudong and Opera Houses in Puxi continue to struggle to engage the young urban audience and attract visitors. Shanghai Dramatic Arts Centre, which locates amongst the cluster of five Shanghai opera houses in Puxi and is China's largest modern drama theatre outside Beijing, has never collaborated with any of the opera houses. The gaps in Shanghai between urban-rural, modern-tradition may be subtle, but thorough. The UK-China research-industry partners have worked together under the 2019 (February - July) AHRC award UK-China Creative Industries Partnership Development "Bridging the Gaps", in which collaborative themes, methods and outcomes have been explored and a number of outputs, including a documentary film and special edition of Shanghai Arts Review, have been generated. Building on the achievements of the first stage partnership development, this proposal brings together a team of pre-selected UK-China research-industry partners with shared vision and commitment, through financial investment/in-kind contribution, to advance the collaboration.