Review - Mao's Last Dancer by Li Cunxin

Title: Mao's Last Dancer

Author: Li Cunxin

Year: 2009

ISBN: 978-0-425-24030-4 

Mao's Last Dancer was actually first written in 2003 by Li Cunxin (pronounced as Schwin Sing), former principal dancer of Houston Ballet and the Australian Ballet. Li has retired from dancing to be a full-time stock broker in 1999. This book is an autobiography in which Li has chronicled his life as a ballet student chosen by Mao Zedong's communist regime to study in Beijing Dance Academy at the tender age of 11.

Li Cunxin was born into bitter poverty in a rural village in the province of Qingdao, China into a family of six brothers and parents who were peasants at the height of Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution. Li is the sixth son in the family. There was hardly food to go around, let alone money in Li's family then. He remembered in many ways than one how he had fervently wished he could help to alleviate the extreme poverty his family had to endure.

One day when Li was 11, a group of officers from Madame Mao's Beijing Dance Academy came to his village school to select a small group of students to be auditioned for the Academy. Li was one of the students selected for this audition. He then spent seven years studying ballet in Beijing Dance Academy, during which it was a period when Li had to fight against extreme feeling of loneliness and homesickness.

Being a ballet student of Beijing Dance Academy gave Li access to some privilleges many people did not have as well the opportunity to make it in life during Mao's Cultural Revolution. Being a very filial son to his parents, he worked very hard to achieve his aim to be a successful ballet dancer. However, this only happened when he defected to the United States, while dancing for Houston Ballet, helmed by Ben Stevenson OBE then, in April 1981. Li's defection only created more anxiety and problems not only to himself but also to his friends in the United States especially in Houston, and his family he had left back in China. 

Li Cunxin perservered during the times of adversity after defecting to the United States and this proved to be a worthwhile sacrifice as he became one of the best male dancer the ballet world has come to known. Li's story is a remarkable story describing the determination, perseverance and triumph of the human spirit in face of adversities in life. This inspiring story has been made into a movie in 2009 and has since been reviewed favourably by many critics and has won numerous international film awards.

Li Cunxin has won my affection for him through this remarkable story. I never got to see him dance in person but through his book, I could actually picture him into being in my mind's eye the wonderful and great ballet dancer he had been. I have the first edition of this book and have read and re-read it countless of times until its pages were about to be detached from its cover. That showed how much I LOVE Li's story. I have even bought this new edition as there were new chapters added to the story. 

To cap the feathers Li already has on his hat, he was awarded Shepherd Centre's 2009 Australian Father of the Year Award and has also been honoured a Doctorate for his contribution to Arts and Literature by the Australian Catholic University.  Li Cunxin lives with his wife, Mary McKendry and their three children, Sophie, Thomas and Bridie in Melbourne, Australia.  

I would give many thumbs-up for Mao's Last Dancer. This book has touched me in such a profound way that no words could describe the emotions I experienced after reading and re-reading it countless of times. It is a story worth sharing for many years to come for Li has journeyed very far to come to the life he is enjoying today, after experiencing some of the most emotionally and psychologically horrendous moments in his life one could only imagine. His story is a shining example of nothing is impossible if you dare to dream and go the distance to achieve what you want and desire to be in life.