On October 28th, the 10th Liaoning University Student Drama Festival, jointly hosted by the Provincial Federation of Literary and Art Circles, the Provincial Department of Education, and the Provincial Youth League Committee, was held in the auditorium of SIT library at Shenyang Institute of Technology. Tian Jianfeng, Vice Chairman of the Provincial Federation of Literary and Art Circles and Chairman of the Provincial Dramatists Association, Zheng Yongwei, Member of the Theoretical Review Committee of the China Dramatists Association and Vice Chairman of the Provincial Dramatists Association, Yu Wei, Vice Chairman of the Provincial Dramatists Association, Chairman of the Dalian Dramatists Association, and Leader of the Dalian Drama Troupe, Li Ming, First Class Screenwriter of the Provincial Culture and Arts Research Institute, Shao Yinghua, Associate Professor and First Class Actor of the Pingju Art Research Center of Shenyang University, and Liu Zhenguo, Secretary General of the Provincial Dramatists Association, served as judges for the competition. Hu Xiaomei, Secretary of the School Party Committee, and Zhou Yongchang, Deputy Secretary of the School Party Committee and Vice President, attended the event. SIT teacher representatives and over a thousand student representatives from the class of 2025 watched the performance together.

The core play of this special exhibition, ‘Light Shines for Thousands of Years’, is the first original play on the theme of the Anti Japanese United Front rehearsed by the School of Arts and Media of SIT. This drama is not only a stage practice for the school to interpret red culture, but also a truth-seeking exploration for the performance discipline to focus on ideological and political guidance, and to assist universities in Liaoning in achieving the fundamental task of cultivating morality and talents. The drama, with its deep exploration of the historical background of the struggle and resistance of the people in Northeast China, as well as its exquisite artistic expression and strong stage tension, has become an important carrier for inheriting the red gene and has been successfully selected for this year’s College Student Drama Festival.

The creative research team always adheres to the principle of “respecting history and striving for excellence”, from researching historical materials of the Anti Japanese United Front, shaping character prototypes, to script plot arrangement and stage rhythm control, repeatedly refining and polishing every aspect. The core creator, Professor Li Zhimin, takes “restoring historical truth and conveying the red spirit” as the creative core, and deeply participates in the entire process of the play from script polishing to stage presentation. In the drama, the patriotic sentiments of the Anti Japanese United Front soldiers are portrayed through delicate lines and full emotions, while the rhythm design is balanced to avoid the dullness of historical themes, allowing for innovative expression of red stories on the basis of traditional drama and accurately triggering emotional resonance among young students.

The film ‘Lighting for Thousands of Years’ is not only a high-quality stage art work, but also creates a vivid immersive ideological and political class through stage art. In ideological and political education, the drama breaks the traditional framework of “classroom teaching” and constructs a three-dimensional ideological and political education model of “watching drama+discussion+practice”. The ideological and political teacher combines the plot of the play to analyze the historical background and revolutionary spirit of the Northeast Anti Japanese United Front in the classroom, guiding students to deeply think about how the spirit of the Anti Japanese United Front reflects the responsibility of contemporary youth, truly realizing the resonance between red culture and ideological and political education, and allowing the educational goal of cultivating virtue and educating people to take root in artistic infection.

In the future, the college will use “The Light Shines for Thousands of Years” as a link to give new vitality to the spirit of the Anti Japanese United Front on a high-level stage, fully demonstrating SIT’s exploratory spirit in red education, artistic research and innovation, as well as the characteristic path of innovative cultivation of applied talents to universities throughout the province.

Translated by Basic Courses Department