Mao's Last Dancer

by Li Cunxin

  It was around this time, when reading Western ballet books was no longer a crime, that I asked Teacher Xiao if he had been the person who had left that ballet book under my mat in the third year.

  “Did you like it?” He smiled enthusiastically.

  “Thank you.” I nodded and I meant it from the bottom of my heart.

  16

  CHANGE

  Late 1978. Just months away from graduation. On a Saturday night in the biggest dance studio on the fourth floor our teachers organized a party, and all the senior students were invited.

  It was no ordinary party. It was a waltz party. There were colorful clothes, long dresses, people there I’d never met before, even a few officials from the Ministry of Culture. And there was a strange round silver thing that looked like a land mine, a ball turning slowly from the ceiling and spinning out hundreds of different colors and shapes from the lights. It was wonderful! We were totally entranced. Dancers led their partners elegantly across the floor. Teacher Xiao was the star, and many ladies were immediately taken with his style.

  After watching the dancing for a while I gathered enough courage to ask a teacher to show me how to waltz. She explained the basic foot movements, and that male dancers should lead, but it was impossible to avoid stepping on her feet! I kept treading on her toes and apologizing profusely.

  I might have been hopeless in my first waltz, but I enjoyed it enormously. It was the first time I had heard such beautiful, romantic music. This never would have been possible under Madame Mao’s directorship, I thought. Under Madame Mao any kind of waltz would have been considered a corrupt influence and would have been banned along with every other form of Western filth. But now things were different. Such freedom was refreshing, unique.

  Other things changed too. We began to watch more and more foreign films. We would find any possible way to get into the heavily guarded theaters where these “colored films” were shown. Fake theater tickets were made. Wigs and mustaches were stolen from the costume shops of the academy. Once we got into the theater we would find every possible way of staying there for the next screening. We would hide behind the window curtains, behind the doors, behind the screen on the stage, even in the toilets. Anything to get to see those films. Years of isolation from Western culture and suppressed sexual freedom had found their outlet.

  One day the Bandit meticulously glued the torn halves of some used theater tickets together. We whitened our hair and slipped into the theater with our fake tickets without being detected. The place was packed with people, crammed to both sides, and it was dingy and dark. The Bandit and I sneaked to the center and sat in the aisle. We didn’t have rehearsal until three, plenty of time to finish the movie and get back. But neither of us had a watch. “Lujun,” I whispered. “How will we know when it’s time to go?”

  “Don’t worry, I have an internal clock,” he said confidently.

  I was going to say more, but the movie had started. It was an American movie about a love triangle. The translated Chinese title was Hurt Too Much to Say Good-bye. Two inept translators, a man and a woman, provided mediocre translation over a pair of microphones, but they often forgot to translate and we, the frustrated audience, were left to guess for ourselves most of the time.

  I couldn’t believe the colorful clothes the women wore in these movies. So different from how Chinese women dressed. I did wonder if the high-heeled shoes were comfortable, though. They looked just as bad as the pointe shoes.

  Some of the actresses were breathtakingly beautiful, but they all looked so much alike. It was in this movie that I witnessed a kiss for the very first time. My heart raced, my blood boiled when I saw that kiss. I wondered what it would be like—really kissing someone.

  The Bandit’s internal clock didn’t work. By the time the movie had finished we were late for our rehearsal, and we ran as fast as we could back to the academy and quickly changed our clothes.

  As we approached the studio I heard Teacher Xiao’s voice. My heart immediately sank. Teacher Xiao was the last person I wanted to offend.

  Teacher Xiao turned and looked at us and, without changing his expression, went on coaching the other students. I was embarrassed beyond description. I glanced furiously at the Bandit: I wanted to pull his internal clock out and smash it to pieces.

  “Cunxin, come to my office after your next break,” Teacher Xiao said at the end of the rehearsal.

  I spent the whole of the next rehearsal thinking about what I should say to Teacher Xiao. If I told him the truth he would be thoroughly disappointed with my lack of discipline. I still hadn’t decided what to say when I knocked on his office door.

  Teacher Xiao got straight to the point. “Why were you late?”

  “I went to a movie,” I stuttered. I had to tell him the truth.

  “I had a feeling you had gone to a movie, but although you have told me the truth it doesn’t take any of my disappointment away.”

  “I’m sorry, Teacher Xiao. I thought I would be able to make it back in time for the rehearsal but I didn’t realize it was so late. I promise it won’t happen again.”

  He looked at me intently for a few moments. “Cunxin, this wouldn’t have surprised me if it had been any other student. But I am extremely surprised and disappointed that it was you! I don’t question your dedication, but I do question your judgment. I don’t care if you watch a hundred movies in your spare time, but classes and rehearsals are your learning opportunities.”

  I nodded. I knew I was unquestionably in the wrong.

  Then in a different tone Teacher Xiao asked, “What was the movie?”

  “A colored film.”

  “What’s the name?” he asked.

  “Something like Hurt Too Much to Say Good-bye,” I replied and lowered my head.

  “Any scenes without clothes?” he asked seriously.

  “No, only kisses,” I replied.

  “Okay, off you go.” He shook his head as he spoke, but I could see a subtle smile. I was glad I was honest with him. I could never have lied to him. Not to Teacher Xiao.

  “Colored” movies weren’t the only distraction in those last few months. I was besotted with a girl from Shanghai called Her Junfang as well. We would often pass secret adoring looks to each other and when she acknowledged my gaze my heart would race at a thousand miles an hour.

  One night we secretly met in a dark studio. I could sense her unease. I felt my face burning. The air seemed so thick that I found it hard to breathe. We would be expelled if the teachers discovered us.

  “How was your holiday?” I whispered.

  “Fine, how was yours?”

  “Good. I brought you some sorghum sweets,” I replied.

  “Thank you, I like them. I brought you some Shanghai cakes.”

  We edged closer to each other. Suddenly we heard the door of Zhang Shu’s office open and we froze. My heart was suspended in the air.

  To our great relief his footsteps went in the opposite direction. We only had a few minutes to get away, so we nervously exchanged our gifts and quickly tiptoed out of the studio.

  When I finally sat on the edge of my bed in the dark with Her Junfang’s gift in my hands, my heart was still pitching like a rough sea. I hated myself for being such a coward, for not holding her when I had the chance. I couldn’t believe that I had forgotten all the passionate words I had rehearsed in my mind before our meeting. And we never had the opportunity to get close to each other again.

  About the same time the Bandit confided in me about his own passionate love for a classmate of his, Zhou Xiaoying. But in his efforts to pursue her he had somehow paid more attention to her girlfriend instead, and she had fallen for him. We tried to guess each girl’s feelings, but after more than an hour of heated debate we got nowhere.

  “I think a face-to-face talk would be better. That way she can see and feel your emotions and sincerity,” I said.

  “She would never agree to meet with me alone! She’s too shy!” He shook his head hop
elessly. “I love her with all my heart. My love for her is the purest thing on earth. I wish I could cut open my heart to show her how sincere and pure it is!”

  I had no idea the Bandit loved Zhou Xiaoying that much.

  “Can you speak to her for me?” he asked suddenly.

  “Are you crazy?”

  “Please, I beg you! If I lose her I will kill myself!” he said.

  I saw tears in his eyes. “Okay, I will speak to her,” I heard myself saying.

  But by the next day the Bandit had changed his mind. “She will think that I am gutless having you represent me. And your political career would be in trouble if anyone found out. No, I can’t let this happen,” he said. Instead he’d decided to write a blood letter.

  A couple of days later he rushed up to me, and I immediately noticed one of his fingers wrapped in a white bandage. “You did write her a blood letter, didn’t you?” I asked.

  “I did!” he replied with excitement. “I think it will show my heart and passion better. It’s all up to fate now.”

  But Zhou Xiaoying never replied to that blood letter. Both Zhou Xiaoying and her friend threw hateful looks at the Bandit whenever they met, as though he had betrayed both of them. He was devastated. I knew how much he loved her, but there was nothing I could do to help. He continued to pursue her for several more years, to no avail.

  By now, with the exception of the Sundays I spent with the Chongs, I used almost every spare moment to practice. My diaries were full of notes about dancing, which I wrote after every practice class. I learned more in that one year than in the previous six years combined.

  Around the time when we were preparing for our graduation the London Festival Ballet came to perform in China, one of the first professional companies allowed to perform under Deng Xiaoping’s “open-door policy.” They came to perform with us at our academy theater and everyone talked about the “big-nosed people,” the foreigners.

  I had such problems trying to distinguish one big-nosed person from another. They all looked alike, whether they were in the movies or in dance videotapes or there in person. I had to remember what clothes they wore to differentiate them. If they suddenly changed costume between scenes I would be totally lost. And they seemed to speak so fast, without any commas or stops. One of the foreigners who came was an eighteen-year-old dancer called Mary McKendry, and she watched me dance the “Three Little Boys Dance.”

  The Festival Ballet performed Giselle, and two mixed programs, including Harald Lander’s famed Etude. I loved Giselle, and by now we didn’t have to analyze its political content. I wished I could watch this kind of dancing every day: it was astonishingly expansive, and the big-nosed dancers’ artistic interpretations and discipline quickly gained our respect. Etude too was one of the most technically challenging ballets I had seen—I longed to perform it, to learn more about Western culture, to work with these great choreographers.

  Our graduation exam preparations went on for over three months, and everyone worked very hard. Our final average grades would determine which dance company we’d get into. The Central Ballet of China would select only the top graduates. Others would be sent to cities far away or to provincial song-and-dance troupes.

  A month before our final exam Teacher Xiao came to me and said, “Some teachers say I have allowed you to do too many solos in your exam. Most students will do one or two, only one student is doing three. I think six might be too much for you. I don’t want to burn you out,” he said.

  “No, I want to do all six!”

  “Are you sure? Because once I hand my submission to Zhang Shu it will be very hard to change.”

  “Yes, I’m sure I can do it,” I replied confidently.

  He thought for a moment. “All right, but just remember, try to find the secret of doing every step as easily and effortlessly as possible. That is what dancing is all about.”

  To prepare six solos for my graduation exam was difficult, but I thought of what Teacher Xiao had said and I went into every detail of every step, trying to taste the pulp of the mango. Each solo required a different technical and artistic approach. The first was from one of Madame Mao’s model ballets, The White-Haired Girl, and I was to dance with an imaginary grenade in my hand, ducking enemy bullets with fast, crisp movements. I worked hard on my two political solos, but my real passion and love was for the Western classical solos. In those, however, I had such problems with a double tour en l’air and to achieve good height as well as complete the two turns down to kneeling position in the flash of an eye was an enormous challenge. My right knee was grazed and bleeding from constant landings, and often I would pull splinters from my skin. I also developed painful shinsplints from trying to perfect the double cabriole in Giselle. Images of Baryshnikov, Nureyev and Vasiliev continually inspired me. But with this double cabriole all my previous approaches failed. I wasn’t even tasting the skin of the mango. You have to work smarter, you have to get to the delicious pulp, I kept telling myself.

  A few days before the exam I made the breakthrough. I had to dramatically change my weight distribution in the air and bend my body backwards as far as my flexibility allowed. When I finally got it right the feeling was sensational.

  In the end I did perform all six of my solos, and I enjoyed every step I danced. After seven years at the academy I even mastered eight consecutive pirouettes, occasionally ten. And now here I was, one among the last generation of Mao’s dancers about to graduate.

  For our graduation performance our academy wanted to revive Swan Lake for the first time since the Cultural Revolution. It was a difficult task—all the records on Western ballets, including Swan Lake, had been destroyed during the Cultural Revolution. It was one thing to put together just one solo from a ballet like Giselle but quite another to reproduce a full-length ballet. Teachers had to recollect details from past performances of many years ago, but miraculously this collaboration worked and resulted in the complete ballet being produced. I was thrilled to be chosen as third cast for Prince Siegfried. I concentrated on nothing but my rehearsals. I worked on my weaknesses and focused on my goals and, by the time the teacher in charge of the rehearsals finally decided who was to dance the leading role on the opening night, I had been chosen as first cast.

  As I rehearsed my role as Siegfried I asked my friend Liu Fengtian what he thought of my portrayal of the prince. He said my dancing was good, but I didn’t look Western enough. I looked like a peasant boy pretending to be a prince. I knew what he said was true. Deep down I knew I had no idea how I should portray him. I had no problem with the dance steps, but I knew nothing of European royalty. Even my teachers didn’t know how a prince would carry himself. We knew only about our comrades and our political causes, but what a prince represented was in direct conflict with the values of communism.

  In desperation I watched a few old Russian films so I could study a prince’s walk, the way he held his arms and hands and how he looked at people. I even permed my straight hair (the costume department took care of that) so I could make myself look and feel more like a prince. But how could a Chinese peasant boy understand a Western prince’s arrogance, his passion and his love? Our culture had always taught us to hide our emotions.

  I danced that opening night of Swan Lake at the Beijing Exhibition Hall. The performance went well. But I couldn’t get rid of the peasant prince image, and I was not satisfied. My aim was to eventually be as good a prince as even the Western dancers. But I knew that would have to come from within. I knew that only experience and maturity would determine whether I could be that handsome prince and not just a poor peasant boy acting out a role.

  Then, soon after that performance, an event occurred that would change my life forever.

  Officials from the Ministry of Culture informed us that a fine choreographer and brilliant teacher, the artistic director of the Houston Ballet, was to teach two master classes at our academy. He was part of the first cultural delegation from America ever to visit communist China. The
choreographer’s name was Ben Stevenson.

  17

  ON THE WAY TO THE WEST

  Twenty students, including me, were selected to attend Ben Stevenson’s classes. Ben seemed to enjoy teaching at our academy, and I was exhilarated with his approach. Compared to our restrictive training, his seemed so much easier and freer. He approached dance mainly from the artistic aspect, emphasizing relaxation and fluidity of movement rather than strict technique. I found him fascinating and inspiring, and my body felt good while I performed in his classes.

  After the second class, Ben offered our academy two scholarships for his annual summer school at the Houston Ballet Academy in Texas. It was incredible, unbelievable news! The chance to leave China, to see the West! Nobody believed that this could be true. But Ben was told that he couldn’t choose the students himself. The academy would nominate who would go: we would have to wait and see.

  Ben gave the invitation letter to the academy officials in March, and he expected the students to be in Houston by July.

  Then the two students were chosen. One was a boy called Zhang Weiqiang. The other was me.

  We were ecstatic. So was the whole school. It was too impossible to be true! How could I be going to America? How could I?

  The academy officials thought it would be difficult for us to obtain our passports and visas that quickly, so they didn’t pursue the matter seriously until they received a phone call from the Ministry of Culture a few weeks later. None of them knew then that Ben Stevenson had powerful friends in America. One was George Bush, who had just finished serving as the first U.S. envoy to China after President Richard Nixon’s visit in 1972. And his wife, Barbara Bush, was a trustee of the Houston Ballet. Both were serious balletomanes and both were well respected by the Chinese government. George Bush had formed a good relationship with Deng Xiaoping: his political connections would no doubt ensure the acceptance of this scholarship invitation. And it did. Zhang Weiqiang and I were granted permission from the Ministry of Culture to go to Houston very quickly indeed.