When She Stops Being Dramatic

Chapter 269: Chapter 108: Top Female of the 1960s Cultural Troupe (47)

Once she had a plan, she eagerly went to the post office and called Zhang Family Village directly.

When the people from the village arrived, she issued a series of threats and instructions, telling them they had to take Xia Zhaoyun away no matter what. The Song Family, she added, would provide a two-hundred-yuan subsidy out of consideration for their eighteen-year relationship.

The other party could only nod in delight. Getting a beautiful young woman for free, plus a huge sum of money? Who wouldn’t be thrilled?

If the Song mother hadn’t repeatedly stressed the timing, they would have shown up immediately.

The dance Xia Zhaoyun choreographed had won first place. Without her even having to bring it up, Mr. Xue had her and Teacher Su choreograph together, respectively training the girls from Group One and Group Three.

”Zhaoyun, do you feel I’m being unfair to you?” Mr. Xue asked with a smile after laying out the arrangements.

Xia Zhaoyun shook her head. ”Not at all. I see it as a sign of trust from you and Teacher Su, as well as a test of my abilities. I’ll work hard on the choreography and strive to perform on the Cultural Palace stage!”

Teacher Su patted her shoulder, pleased. ”I’ve always felt that you were exceptionally intelligent, just as you are beautiful. It’s just that your focus was scattered, and you weren’t applying yourself in the right areas, letting your wonderful talent go to waste.”

”But now look—the moment you focused all your energy on your work with our troupe, you achieved remarkable results. If you keep this up, getting into the Central Political Department is only a matter of time.”

”Anyway, there are still two months until the official selection. You can work on the choreography for now. If it doesn’t turn out well, you can come back to being my lead dancer. How does that sound?”

Xia Zhaoyun nodded gratefully. ”Thank you, Teacher Su.”

She requested the materials from previous Autumn Arts Festivals from Mr. Xue.

The troupe took this event very seriously, keeping detailed records every year. These included the themes, music selections, innovative aspects of the dances, audience reactions, and more. They even used a camera to photograph each routine, movement by movement, creating an invaluable reference library.

Xia Zhaoyun reviewed the materials three or four times. She couldn’t help but marvel at how Xiahua was full of hidden talent. Even with her memories of the future, she had to admit that every festival featured two or three performances that were absolutely stunning.

The girls of Group Three were scrambling to catch up on their fundamentals, but they were barely managing to keep from falling behind. Even with two months, it was impossible for all of them to transform from average dancers into top-tier performers.

If they wanted to stand out, they needed to do what they did in the last showcase: find a concept novel enough to capture the audience’s gaze and touch their hearts. Only then could they mask the routine’s lack of technical difficulty and conceal the girls’ various weaknesses.

Since it was an autumn performance, she needed to evoke the joy of harvest for the leaders.

’The physical expression of dance can be vivid and expressive,’ she thought, ’but it can also be too abstract for people to grasp. In that case...’

She suddenly thought of a way to combine two art forms!

Xia Zhaoyun’s eyes lit up. This time, she didn’t start with the choreography. Instead, after informing Mr. Xue, she went to the propaganda department to get supplies for traditional Chinese painting. She returned to an empty conference room at the troupe headquarters and began to paint.

The current political climate was quite tense, but ever since the leaders had traded their military uniforms for civilian clothes, they had begun to focus more on personal wellness and hobbies.

These hobbies had to be elegant enough to suit their status, yet not so involved as to cause a major fuss. As a result, calligraphy and painting had become fashionable.

Her idea was to use the traditional painting style of Xiahua, passed down for generations. The girls, leaping and twirling in their socks, would use their movements to paint a picture of a bountiful persimmon tree. Curled up beneath it would be an orange cat, along with the words: Shishu Ruyi!

She had to admit, thanks to the information explosion of the future, a certain popular video app was filled with masters teaching painting to the masses. By replaying their tutorials, a painting full of profound meaning, vivid imagery, and delightful charm could leap right off the page.

Xia Zhaoyun was, after all, a reincarnated Ghost Cultivator, so her grasp of precision and detail was excellent. Relying on her formidable memory, she actually managed to perfectly reproduce the image she had in her mind.

She painted the picture again and again, gradually transforming the artistic process into a dance for the girls. Their feet would act as wolf-hair brushes, leaping and twirling freely across a silk canvas spread over the stage.

Xia Zhaoyun blended classical and modern dance to highlight the performers’ delicate grace. The dance would also express a societal transformation, embodying the beauty of the new era and conveying her own well-wishes...

Bit by bit, she ingeniously wove together the essence of dance and traditional painting. The choreography alone took a full, grueling week of work. She thought about it even while she ate, tackling one challenge after another until they were all solved.

During this time, Huo Tianhao, unable to bear being apart from her, came to visit twice. However, all they could do was take a simple stroll, bring the child to a movie, and share a meal before reluctantly parting ways again.

Every time he looked at her with those puppy-dog eyes, so incongruous with his tall and imposing frame, Xia Zhaoyun’s sense of responsibility swelled.