Some people live such extraordinary lives that a single autobiography simply won’t suffice. Li Cunxin has now written two. The renowned ballet dancer and former artistic director of Queensland Ballet had hoped he was finished writing his story after the phenomenal international success of his 2003 memoir, Mao’s Last Dancer. But life had other plans. “Actually, I had signed a contract with Penguin Random House for a follow-up,” Cunxin says, from his home in Brisbane. “It was going to be about the lives of my brothers and friends in China,…
Tag: Dance
Detained Chinese immigrants carved their anguish into a wall a century ago. Those words inspired a ballet
One sunny March day on Angel Island, a hilly landmass in the middle of the San Francisco Bay, a dancer with a 40-ft braid attached to her head glided across a narrow concrete walkway. The audience sat on chairs in front of a long wooden building: a former detention center where – from 1910 to 1940 – half a million people, the majority Chinese, were held for months, even years, in prison-like conditions. Sometimes called “the Ellis Island of the west”, Angel Island’s immigration station is the unlikely setting, and…
Shanghai’s ‘voguing’ dancers step lightly to avoid official gaze – in pictures
Voguing is a dance style characterised by staccato hand motions and angular arm and body postures punctuated by brief pauses. Popularised in 1990 by a hit Madonna song and the documentary Paris is Burning, the trend has drawn adherents in China too, with Shanghai’s first such event organised five years ago The Guardian
Li Cunxin retiring from Queensland Ballet due to ‘serious health concerns’
Li Cunxin, the renowned ballet dancer and author of bestselling memoir Mao’s Last Dancer, is retiring as the artistic director of Queensland Ballet due to ill health. On Tuesday, the Queensland Ballet confirmed the 62-year-old had been diagnosed with a heart condition and “has been troubled by serious health concerns since 2022”. He recently experienced “complications” and is retiring in order to recuperate. Li’s wife and fellow dancer Mary is being treated for cancer, and will also retire at the end of 2023 from her roles as ballet mistress and…