Mao's Last Dancer // A Q. and A. With Li Cunxin

Full article here // Excerpt below

By Julie Bloom

When Mikhail Baryshnikov defected from the Soviet Union in 1974, it was a major news event, drawing world attention to both the ballet dancer and ballet. But he was hardly the only dancer to defect from a Communist country and take up residence in the West in that era. Li Cunxin (pronounced Lee TZWUN-sheen) left his home in rural China and his way of life to pursue ballet in the United States, a journey chronicled in “Mao’s Last Dancer,” a new movie by Bruce Beresford.

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