Network variety show ＂debut! Dunhuang： A Traditional Cultural Gift for Young Audiences

Iqiyi’s online variety show "debut! Dunhuang, composed of young actors and bloggers, leads the audience into the real historical and cultural field and tells the long-standing historical story of Dunhuang in a youthful voice, which makes the long-standing cultural heritage vivid, amiable and respectable, successfully narrows the distance between young audiences and traditional culture, and also provides new creative ideas for the popular spread of excellent traditional culture.

Author: Cui Yifei

SETTING: Supervision Center of State Administration of Radio and Television

In 2019, General Secretary of the Supreme Leader mentioned in his speech at the Dunhuang Research Institute that "Dunhuang culture shows the cultural self-confidence of the Chinese nation" and "tell the story of Dunhuang well and spread the voice of China". Recently, the cultural network variety show "debut" broadcast on the line of iQiyi! Dunhuang is such a program that tells the story of Dunhuang to the audience at home and abroad and spreads the excellent traditional Chinese culture. It shows the audience the splendid historical and cultural heritage of the local area from manners, customs, costumes, music and other aspects.

The program skillfully uses the combination of documentary images and reality shows to spread interesting historical knowledge and present a variety of cultural landscapes with a young voice and entertaining expression, which is helpful to stimulate young audiences’ sense of identity with excellent traditional culture and root cultural self-confidence in their hearts.

After the broadcast of the program, it aroused widespread concern and recognition from netizens. As of now,# Here we go! Dunhuang # # staged the Dunhuang Desert Concert #Weibo and other related topics have been read more than 800 million times, and Douban scored 8.0 points. The program was also spread overseas through overseas audio-visual platforms such as iQiyi International Edition and YouTube, and was praised by many overseas audiences.

Show Dunhuang’s colorful history and culture with heart and affection

Visiting cultural relics and historical sites, inviting experts to explain, and inserting interesting popular science animation, as a variety show, "debut! Dunhuang gives consideration to both entertainment and academic rigor, and presents a colorful cultural feast for the audience. The program displays the historical and cultural beauty of Dunhuang from ten aspects, such as manners and customs, costumes, music, dance and entertainment. Although there is no lack of entertainment-oriented gags in the reality show, the traditional culture of the show is not a mere formality, and the digital images cited are informative and authoritative. The experts invited are all first-line Dunhuang scholars, and each episode is full of knowledge points.

For the purpose of cultural relics protection, the program was not shot directly in the cave, but was replaced by digital scanning data, and animation special effects were used to try to restore the gorgeous colors of the murals thousands of years ago and reproduce the life scenes of the characters in the paintings. These not only open a window for ordinary audiences to understand Dunhuang, but also convey the creator’s deep respect and tenderness for history.

For example, the sixth program introduced the wedding customs of Dunhuang in the Tang Dynasty in detail, not only popularized the ancient etiquette such as "taking a feast", "tying a knot" and "marrying a husband" to the audience with digital images of murals and two-dimensional animation of paper-cutting style, but also completely restored a grand Dunhuang wedding in the Tang Dynasty by guests in the form of plot deduction. The wedding finely restored the makeup of ancient costumes, and held such links as "paying homage to the church", "laying geese across the saddle" and "getting married in the same prison" with relevant subtitles.

Actors’ lines are all from the records of a wedding in the historical data "Dunhuang Collection of Changes". Among them, the singing and rhetoric of bridesmaids and groomsmen are elegant and humorous, with a hint of politeness, which creates a strong sense of ceremony and an open and inclusive cultural atmosphere, presenting a rigorous and vivid folk drama in the Tang Dynasty. These elaborate designs not only show the profound cultural accumulation of Dunhuang, but also reflect the creator’s hard work.

At the same time, the program is not limited to the display of traditional culture, but also pays attention to its modern transformation and practical significance. For example, the third program specially came to Dunhuang Middle School to shoot the original Dunhuang dance version of inter-class exercises, which showed the shocking scene of its uniformity and beautiful posture, and also showed the vivid examples of traditional culture inheritance in the contemporary era. For another example, after restoring a solemn Dunhuang wedding in the Tang Dynasty, the sixth program conveyed the enlightenment of ancient weddings to modern people with the mouth of guests: "The sense of ritual is to emphasize the importance of marriage to one’s life" and "Cherish emotions and respect life to be endless", which is memorable.

Young expression injects youthful vitality into the popularization of history and culture.

It is similar to the TV variety of cultural experience that has been popular in recent years, such as "The New Forbidden City" and "Meeting the Temple of Heaven". Dunhuang also allows guests to come to the real historical and cultural field, lead the audience to understand the traditional culture through the live experience reality show, and give the audience a strong sense of substitution with their live reaction. The difference is that "debut! The expression of Dunhuang is more youthful. Except Wang Han, the leader, the other three main guests are young actors or bloggers born after 1995. Their curiosity and shock when they meet with cultural relics and historical sites can arouse the resonance of the audience born after 1995 and 00. Among them, the participation of Li Haoyuan, a online celebrity history blogger who graduated from the National People’s Congress, broke the stereotype of the guests who were completely ignorant of historical knowledge, and his knowledgeable performance enhanced the cultural content of the reality show, and also set up a highly educated and "educated" youth "idol" for the young audience.

Not only that, the variety elements such as animation special effects and flower characters are organically integrated with history and culture in the program, which also injects youthful vitality into the popular spread of excellent traditional culture. The use of animation special effects makes the still figures on the murals "move", which not only restores the movements of the people in the paintings, such as dancing, playing pipa and beating cymbals, but also simulates the original patterns and colors of their costumes, which makes the murals that were originally difficult to distinguish instantly vivid and more likely to stimulate young audiences’ interest in traditional culture.

The use of flower characters also makes the program more in line with the aesthetic taste of young people. For example, the pictures drawn by imitating Dunhuang costume patterns for guests are accompanied by online catchwords such as "0% similarity", and the domestic geese that have been "requisitioned" as wedding gifts are accompanied by anthropomorphic subtitles such as "aggressive", which makes the voice of the program more humorous and effectively narrows the distance between the audience and traditional culture.

In addition, after the program was broadcast on overseas video platforms such as iQiyi Taiwan Province Station, iQiyi International Edition and YouTube, it was also recognized by overseas audiences and became an excellent case of international communication of China traditional culture. Some YouTube users commented: "Always finished watching. It’s a great show! Love the editing of this show and scenes of Dunhuang. (After reading it, it was wonderful! I like the editing of the program and the scenery of Dunhuang. ）”“Great show! Love scenes and culture of Dunhuang. Looking forward to EP2. (Wonderful program! I like the scenery and culture of Dunhuang. Looking forward to the second season. ）”

"debut! Dunhuang is a cultural variety show for the public and an excellent program for the younger generation. With the youthful voice that the post-90s generation loved, it showed the young audience the colorful features and timeless charm of Dunhuang culture. It was a traditional cultural gift for young people and also provided a new idea for the popularization of excellent traditional culture.

Editor | Bao Nan Yuan Xindi Ning Yahong