39 Stage Mistake
It is still the familiar stage, the familiar judges' panel, and the familiar noisy backstage.
Pei Zijin's group finally chose the only pure English song for their stage performance. At this time, everyone backstage was wearing black and red uniforms. Yan Fan had a strand of fiery red hair highlighted on his head, and he was memorizing the lyrics alone in the midst of all the noise.
God damn! He was recommended to the university! He even danced in his high school English class!
With two weeks to prepare for the performance, Yan Fan of course memorized the lyrics on the first day. But after the vocal lesson, Pei Zijin's expression was indescribable. During study time, he was pulled aside and started to go over the pronunciation from the beginning.
Yan Fan: ...gritting my teeth but memorizing it by rote.
In order to sing this song well, he marked the pronunciation points that Pei Zijin told him to pay attention to on the lyrics book, including where to connect, where to emphasize, and where to use plosives.
Avery draped the long cape on the shoulders of his stage costume over his arms, sat on the ground next to Yan Fan, leaned against his calves, and recalled the dance moves in small movements while helping Yan Fan correct him when he had trouble with some words.
Su Chen touched up her makeup and came over again, sitting next to Avery and dancing the last familiar moves of the power-saving version with him. Her curly hair was sprinkled with red glitter, making it sparkle.
In the end, it developed into seven people twisting around together, and even the power level was kept quite consistent.
After getting familiar with it once, Pei Zijin stopped him, "Okay, save your energy, we have to go on stage and perform in a while."
"The third group is ready!"
"Come on, come on, come on." Pei Zijin put his hands at the bottom, with his palms facing up in his pure black leather half-finger gloves, and then stacked his seven hands one on top of another, "We——"
"Point to the first place!"
After the host finished his announcement, the stage lights dimmed, and seven people quickly ran onto the stage, found their own spots, and stood with their backs to the audience and their heads bowed.
The string music in the background gradually became louder. On the screen, flames ignited from under everyone's feet and gradually spread across the entire stage. The spotlight suddenly became brighter and hit Su Chen, who was in the lead.
He turned around as he entered the first sentence, the scarlet flame pattern at the end of his eyes blazing brightly, his eyes as sharp as a knife, but he sang softly, his breath so rich that it hardly sounded like something that should appear on an idol's stage. The headset captured every perfect note and transmitted it to the speakers that spread throughout the audience:
“Legends never die, When the world is calling you, Can you hear them screaming out your name?”*
He turned his head and spun around, each movement was precisely framed, his arms closed and opened again, as if he was the king of the battlefield, with the blood and fire of the whole world following behind him.
“Legends never die, They be a part of you, Every time you bleed for reaching greatness”*
Yan Fan turned around for the second time, his deep red earrings reflecting a sharp edge, his voice was as cold as ice, and his wave was incredibly smooth. During the interlude, he raised his eyebrows and curled his lips with a playful smile, as if a devil had set foot in the only country he dominated.
"Relentless you survive——"*
Pei Zijin turned around, and the accompaniment suddenly became heavier, but the sound track mixed with the human voice could only be suppressed steadily by him. Every step in his patent leather boots wrapped to his knees could step into people's hearts, and his walk was like a black hole that grabbed all attention.
In his deliberately prolonged ending, the drum beats blended in strongly, setting off a huge wave of frenzy. In an instant, the seven people's formation turned over. Avery moved to the center position, with a bit of beautiful Italian florid English. He had broad shoulders and a narrow waist, deep features and eyes like stars. His movements were wide and wide, and he kicked and kicked to break through the door to the new world:
“They never lose hope when everything’s cold and the fighting’s near，It’s deep in their bones， they’ll run into smoke when the fire is fierce”*
Jiang Tong grabbed his cloak from behind and danced with him with a sneer. From his movements to his soul, it was like a mirror resonance. He shouted wantonly, his thumb stroked across his neck, and the red rose tattoo on the back of his hand bloomed. Only on the stage could one see such an arrogant side of him.
“But you'll never see the price it costs the scars collected all their lives，When everything's lost， they pick up their hearts and avenge defeat (It's a pity that there are scars everywhere, and there is no river to bury the bones. God has taken away all things, so he uses this body as an enemy)”*
Su Chen and Pei Zijin's voices alternated and provided steady harmony underneath, making their singing more passionate and full.
"Legends never die——"*
The warrior-like young men sang in unison, and the music swept from the stage to the horizon like a wave. On the stage, they were divided into two groups and fought each other. They fought in the ruins until dawn, and fell down together at the dawn.
The grand stage performance ended amid cheers, and the trainees got up from the ground and gathered in a row in front of the stage. The audience and fans shouted their names, and even the backstage could hear the sound clearly.
The cheers and applause were louder and lasted longer than those in the previous stages, but the trainees knew that this might not be their best performance, but it was just that their group was the most popular and they had the advantage in song selection.
English songs are difficult to understand in China, so this group simply focused on the performance on the group stage. Every detail was clearly presented to the audience, which made it easier to stir emotions.
However, they looked at Yuan Xiao nervously. Their general producer did not smile after watching their performance. Instead, he whispered a few words to Teacher Gu.
Yuan Xiao was indeed dissatisfied.
It’s not that this form of performance is bad. In fact, the stage choreography of this group has the flavor of a boy band. Even the final performance is presented in the form of dance, rather than turning a boy band stage into a musical.
It's just too messy.
There is no doubt about the strength of their group, but Yuan Xiao's judging standards will only be higher. No progress means regression. As she expected, these people completed the stage together, and they wanted to integrate everyone's ideas into this stage, but it was too much.
Yuan Xiao was not polite when giving his evaluation. There were too many elements and it was hard to find the main point. It was a large group of seven people and they changed the performance form four times in three and a half minutes of the stage. The parts were too fragmented and in the middle part, everyone wanted to speak a sentence, as urgent as a relay.
She could imagine what the broadcast version would be like, with seven people coming and going in front of the camera like butterflies, which would only make the audience dizzy. Apart from the fact that the stage was very explosive and exciting, there would not be any deep impression left.
Like a group performance.
It's still because of lack of experience, she sighed. No matter what art form it is, the offline and online expressions are always different. This problem is not only the problem of the trainees. It was not right for the entire behind-the-scenes team not to notice and propose adjustments during the rehearsal. However, it is not too late to expose it now, and they can correct it later.
Gu Yuchen saw that the trainees all looked strange, so he quickly took the microphone, affirmed their singing and dancing skills, and let them go off the stage after a few words of comfort. As for the problems raised by Yuan Xiao, they did exist objectively. He, as the stage director, could not say that he had no responsibility for not considering them in advance.
"My problem." He admitted his mistake to Yuan Xiao in a low voice, "If I had asked them to remove the movement in the middle when I watched it before, the viewing experience would have been much better."
Yuan Xiao also held the microphone and answered him: "I also realized it after watching the whole performance. In fact, we can make a suite of two or three songs in a similar format. If the length is extended, it won't seem so rushed and chaotic."
She paused and sighed, "It's quite difficult to accomplish this. If you judge it just by the degree of completion, it's also very good." However, Gu Yuchen had already comforted her, so there was no need for her to say this.
"Okay, I'll explain in detail how to do subtraction in the creative class later." Gu Yuchen nodded, took out his cell phone and made a note on the memo.
-
Pei Zijin was still confused until he returned to the backstage. Yan Fan noticed that something was wrong with him, raised his hand and hugged the captain's shoulder, whispering: "Don't think about it, go change your clothes for the next show first."
Su Chen and his group, who didn't have a stage for the time being, also came over, but Pei Zijin broke away from them, took a deep breath, and his voice trembled as he tried to control it: "I'm going to... go to the bathroom, I'll be right back."
He rushed into the cubicle before he dared to raise his hand to wipe the tears that had flowed down his nose.
It's not that Pei Zijin's psychological endurance is not good, it's just that he can't accept the huge gap between expectations and reality. Originally, all of them had high hopes for this stage, were very confident, poured their hearts and souls into it, and felt that this stage was perfect and unsurpassed...
However, the former general manager said that they made a mistake from the very beginning when they decided to do so.
He has to admit that he is the captain and that was his mistake in decision making.
There will be a collaborative stage soon, Pei Zijin said to himself: Three minutes, you only have three minutes to adjust your mood.
If the group stage performance is not good, the remaining two stages will have to be doubled to make up for it.
He didn't dare cry and smudge his eye makeup, so he could only carefully wipe away the tears from the corners of his eyes with a tissue. When he got ready and walked out of the bathroom, he found a row of people squatting at the door.
Pei Zijin was at a loss whether to laugh or cry. He rubbed Su Chen's curly hair, whose eyes were also red, and said, "I'm fine. I'll go prepare for the next stage with Yan Fan first, and then review it in the evening."
"That's right." Avery stepped forward and gave him a big, super tight hug, and then one by one, the seven of them hugged each other in a big group at the bathroom door. "There's an old Chinese saying, 'Every failure makes you wiser.' We've failed this time, and we'll learn a lot from it!"
"Come on, Brother Pei and Brother Yan!"
【Author’s words】
The next chapter will continue writing about the Four Public Stages.
*Quoted from the League of Legends theme song "Legends Never Die"
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