Maos last dancer what is it about

Li at a corporate speaking engagement. Li and his Chinese partner, Guo, being coached by teacher Zhang. In a dramatic defection, Li was subsequently locked up in the Chinese Consulate in Houston. This created a standoff between the Chinese and the American governments. His defection was the headline story in America. Twenty-one hours later, Li walked out of the Chinese Consulate as a free man. He then danced with the Houston Ballet for sixteen years and became one of the best dancers in the world.

He guest performed around the world with some of the best ballet companies and won two silver and a bronze medal at three International Ballet Competitions. While dancing in London, he fell in love with an Australian born ballerina with a major ballet company in England, Mary McKendry.

They married in , and in moved to Melbourne with their two children where Li became a principal dancer with the Australian Ballet. At age 35, Li started to plan his next career after dancing. He enrolled in accounting and financial courses. In he began his study at the Australian Securities Institute by correspondence with a view to becoming a stockbroker.

For his final two years with the Australian Ballet, he rose at 5am to start ballet training, then racing to the stock exchange by 8am to work as a stockbroker until noon.

Li became a successful investment adviser and senior manager at one of the biggest stockbroking firms in Australia. It was number one in the non-fiction category and won the Book of the Year Award in Australia, the Christopher Award in America and it was short-list for the National Biography Award among other prestigious literary awards.

One day he would be a friend to a president and first lady, movie stars and the most influential people in America. One day he would become a star: Mao's last dancer, and the darling of the West. Li Cunxin. 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 a 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 and The Australian Ballet. Li went on to become one of the best male dancers in the world.

He then made a career transition to finance and was a senior manager in a major stockbroking firm in Australia. He lived with his wife, Mary, and their three children, Sophie, Tom and Bridie, in Melbourne for over seventeen years until his appointment as the Artistic Director of Queensland Ballet in In , Li was named an Officer of the Order of Australia AO in the Queen's Birthday honours for distinguished service to the performing arts, particularly to ballet, as a dancer and artistic director.

Li's autobiography, Mao's Last Dancer , has received numerous accolades including the Australian Book of the Year Award and has been published around the world. Mao's Last Dancer was adapted into a blockbuster feature film of the same name by director Bruce Beresford.

Search books and authors. Buy from…. View all retailers. Meanwhile he secretly dates and falls in love with the dancer Elizabeth Mackey. He is forbidden to return to China and has no news of his parents and family. Meanwhile, his marriage with Liz ends and he misses his parents. But five years later, he has a great surprise during a performance.

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