by Li Cunxin
Inside front jacket: Li’s mother and her seven sons. Courtesy Li Cunxin.
Inside back jacket: Li’s family today: Mary, Sophie, Tom and Bridie. Photograph by Julian Smibert, courtesy Li Cunxin.
Photographic insert:
“My classmates,” “The New Village,” “Proudly wearing Mao’s army uniform,” “My beloved niang,” “My first lonely day in Beijing,” “The Beijing Dance Academy” (photo by Sarah Darling), “Hai Luo Sha” and “Rehearsing Hai Luo Sha,” all courtesy Li Cunxin.
“First contact with the West” and “On the steps of the Vaganova Ballet School,” photographs by Ben Stevenson, courtesy Li Cunxin.
“Defection,” photograph courtesy Charles Foster, Houston.
“Sleeping Beauty” photograph © Jim Caldwell.
“With Barbara Bush,” courtesy George Bush Presidential Library.
“Applying my makeup,” photograph by Leticia London, www.leticialondon.com.
“Rite of Spring ” photograph © Jim Caldwell.
“The Esmeralda pas de deux,” photograph by Branco Gaica, courtesy Australian Ballet.
“My beloved family,” photograph by Chris Beck, courtesy Melbourne Age.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
LI CUNXIN was born in 1961, in the New Village, Li Commune, near the city of Qingdao on the coast of northeast China. The sixth of seven sons in a poor rural family, Li’s peasant life in Chairman Mao’s communist China changed dramatically when, at the age of eleven, he was chosen by Madame Mao’s cultural advisers to become a student at the Beijing Dance Academy. After summer school in America, for which he was one of only two students chosen, he defected to the West and became a principal dancer for the Houston Ballet.
Li went on to become one of the best male dancers in the world. He is now a senior manager in a major stockbroking firm and lives in Melbourne, Australia, with his wife, Mary, and their three children, Sophie, Tom and Bridie.
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