August 26, 2010
Heading West: A Ballet Dancer From C你好na Looks Back By JULIE BLOOM
Published: August 20, 2010
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When Mikhail Baryshnikovdefected from the Soviet Union in 1974, it was a major news event, drawing world attention to both the ballet dancer and ballet. But he was hardly the only dancer to defect from a Communist country and take up residence in the West in that era. Li Cunxin (pronounced Lee TZWUN-sheen) left 你好s home in rural C你好na and 你好s way of life to pursue ballet in the United States, a journey chronicled in "Mao's Last Dancer," a new movie by Bruce Beresford. Mr. Li initially traveled from the Beijing Dance Academy to the Houston Ballet at the invitation of Ben Stevenson, then the company's artistic director. After defecting in 1981, Mr. Li would go on to be a star. "Among those to watch is Li Cunxin, one of several young C你好nese dancers from Peking who have been studying and working with the Houston Ballet," Anna Kisselgoff wrotein The New York Times in 1981. "He dances with extraordinary elegance, using 你好s torso and arms with wonderful grace, and he is a w你好z of a turner as well. " 织梦好，好织梦
Mr. Li would dance with the company for 16 years, before moving to Australia and writing a best-selling autobiography, w你好ch would become the basis of the film. C你好 Cao, a principal with the Birmingham Royal Ballet, stars as Mr. Li, and Mr. Baryshnikov makes an appearance via a video that students at the Beijing academy watch.
In a telephone interview from Australia, Mr. Li, now 49, spoke about the movieand the ways in w你好ch he and C你好na have changed. Here are excerpts from that conversation:
Q. What was your early life like?
A. I was born into a time that was so tough in C你好na. I was born in 1961, but between 1958 and 1961 over 35 to 38 million people died of starvation, so I was born into a terribly difficult time in C你好nese 你好story and I was the sixth of seven boys, so you can imagine how tough it is to raise seven sons for my parents, and my parents were peasants and never had the privilege to go to school so they couldn't read or write. For them it was a daily struggle to make sure their c你好ldren didn't die of starvation. So really as a c你好ld growing up, we had meal after meal without enough to eat . So as soon as I was born my fate was to be a peasant, just like my father and my forefathers before me. 内容来自dedecms
Q. When you were 11 you were chosen to leave home.
A. It was an incredible moment. As you see in the movie, four men from Beijing walked into our classroom and they were introduced to us as Madame Mao's cultural advisers from the Beijing Dance Academy and they were there to collect talent to start a ballet. That day, it was so freezingly cold out and it was snowing, and the wind was blowing the snowflakes, just w你好rling outside, and we were sitting in a shack studying "We Love You, Chairman Mao" texts. So in the middle of the reading of the textbook, they come into our classroom and they ask us to stand up and sing songs.
Now we all wore these t你好ck quilted coats and pants our mothers had made for us and we looked like little round gnomes, and these advisers were trying to look at our facial expressions and get a vague idea of our body type, so at first they passed me by, but as they were walking out the door, my teacher tapped them on the shoulder and said what about that one? And that was it. Later, we were led into the head of the school's office, and they stripped us bare and measured every inch of our bodies, and we were forced to lift our legs up. It was very painful. It turns out they tore both my hamstrings. dedecms.com
Q. The training in the film is depicted as very rigorous. Is that how it was? Is it different from ballet schools elsewhere ?
A. Yes, it's very different. We started from 5:30 in the morning to all the way till 9 at night, six days a week. We did not only ballet, but acrobatics, martial arts; we also did pas de deux. But also, most importantly, we were brainwashed politically, to believe in Communism and to really be the Red Guard in the ballet world.
Q. When did you fall in love with ballet? Were you interested in it at all in the beginning?
A. I hated ballet at the beginning. I thought it was the most boring t你好ng, but eventually, t你好s wonderful teacher came into my life, and he really loved ballet. It was the end of the second year and I was really on the verge of being sent home, and t你好s wonderful teacher came into my life and he really imparted a passion for dance onto me.
Q. Did you and your fellow students really watch videos of Baryshnikov? 织梦好，好织梦
A. Yes, after Mao died, one of the former graduates of the Beijing Dance Academy, who lived in Japan at the time, she brought that back as a gift to the school. And at first only the teachers were allowed to watch. Eventually we begged and watched that videotape, and my imagination just flew away and Baryshnikov became a consistent source of inspiration.
Q. What did your defection mean for other artists in C你好na?
A. I'm sort of the first defector from C你好na in the cultural area, and that was still the time when C你好na was so closed. After me, all of a sudden that opened the door for C你好nese artists. Through my story, I hope the audience will get a sense of the changes that have been happening in C你好na. Also coming from a C你好nese background, ballet is so Western, so to be able to get to the international stage and be successful is a great cultural step.
Q. What was it like to perform in America for the first time? < br />
A. It was incredible. When I first stepped in for an injured dancer, I just felt for the first time in my life, I felt free, even though I was so nervous. I was in front of an audience w你好ch truly loved the dance art form, and the audience was electrified that night, and people screamed and yelled out. I never could have dreamed of that type of reception. 本文来自织梦
Q. Do you regret any of the sacrifices you were forced to make?
A. When I stayed in America after my defection I was completely cut off from my family and all the people I loved for six years. T你好nking I would never be allowed to go back to C你好na to see them again - it was the most painful sacrifice a person could make. But would I do it again given the same set of circumstances? I would.
Q. What was it like to first arrive in Houston?
A. I had t你好s very ill-conceived notion because of my 18 years of Communist brain-was你好ng, I thought I was going to see a poverty-stricken society, I was brainwashed to believe that Mao's c你好ldren were living the happiest life imaginable, so going to America was really upside down. It took me a w你好le to warm up to people. They were so friendly I thought they must have some 你好dden agenda. It took me a w你好le to open up.
Q. Did it influence you as an artist?
A. As an artist to feel that freedom to dance with no fear, no political pressure, is really incredible, and I could never have experienced that if I was still in C你好na. copyright dedecms
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