Dance of destiny

World-class dancer, bestselling author, stockbroker, motivational speaker and Australian Father of the Year Li Cunxin talks to MARGARET AGNEW about his extraordinary life, which is the basis of a new film.

On first impressions, Li Cunxin doesn't seem like a person driven by an iron will to succeed. He appears to be such a relaxed, gentle man, which may be because of how elegantly he holds himself - the legacy of decades of rigorous ballet training.

But under that smiling countenance is the unstoppable determination that has seen him defy his impoverished beginnings and driven him to accomplish the highest accolades in several very different fields.

Whichever way you look at it, Li's life is extraordinary.

His bestselling autobiography and now film, Mao's Last Dancer, tells of his impoverished childhood in rural China before having to leave home aged 11 when he undertook a rigorous seven-year training regime at the Beijing Dance Academy. He graduated as one of communist China's best dancers and was one of the first cultural exchange students allowed to study in the United States. However, while defecting to the US in 1981, he was locked up in the Chinese Consulate in Houston, causing a political standoff between Washington and Beijing before he was released as a free man.

Li was principal dancer with the Houston Ballet for 16 years and performed around the world, working and falling in love with Australian-born prima ballerina Mary McKendry. They married in 1987 and moved to Melbourne in 1995 where Li juggled his career as the Australian ballet's principal dancer with studying to become a stockbroker. They have three children.

Li is now a successful stockbroker and motivational speaker with a bestselling autobiography, children's book and now a feature film about his life. As if that weren't enough, Li was named Australian Father of the Year last year.

Having spent two hours watching the handsome young Chinese-born, English-based professional ballet dancer Chi Cao play Li in the film version of Mao's Last Dancer, it's a bit of a surprise to meet the real man. He takes this sudden resurgence in fame in his gracefully poised stride.

It must be quite surreal seeing aspects of your life portrayed on the big screen.

"Yeah, it was. Especially the first time, it was quite self-confronting. Now I've seen it quite a few times I really enjoy the film itself. Anyone would be proud to have their life portrayed in such a beautifully made film. It's beautifully done and it's sensitively done, I think."

What Li is most pleased about is the fact that his life is portrayed with sensitivity and integrity. "So, it's not cheap. They didn't try to sensationalise the political side of things."

The handling of the defection scenes was his main concern. "They actually, sort of underplayed it. They portrayed the human side of the Chinese people [at the consular office]. They could have been [portrayed as] very bad."

Li assisted with the screenwriting and was involved in the crucial casting process. "I helped them find two of the three leads."

Casting the lead was the trickiest. To play Li, the ideal person had to be Chinese, able to act, dance like Li and speak English and Mandarin fluently, as well as be rather good-looking. "Bruce [Beresford, the director] said to me: 'Li, we won't have a movie unless we find this person'."

The young man they found couldn't have been more perfect for the role. "Chi Cao was the son of two of my teachers from the Beijing Dance Academy, so that's an incredible connection. I didn't know if he could act, because acting on stage [in a ballet] is very different to acting in front of a camera. So he [Beresford] said: 'Look, I think I can teach him how to act'. He was very confident." Li says that he and Chi Cao, who left China for England when he was 17, have similar life experiences.

You forget how young Li was when he was ripped from his poor but loving family to learn ballet.

Li says that was the hardest thing. "Because the family circle is so tight. When I left at 11, I missed my mother a lot so for the first three years, whenever I thought of her, I just wanted to cry. And also for the first few years, I hated ballet. So that added even more misery to my daily life. It was almost like a disease. I couldn't wait for the sun to go down so I could go back to bed and hang on to my mother's quilt to give me comfort. But once I fell in love with dance, that's when I gradually realised ballet's fun, that changed everything and I missed her less and less. The most dreadful part was the separation from them after I defected, when I realised I may never see them again."

So, after all that Li has been through in his life, is he a believer in destiny?

"I feel I'm the master of my own fate, but along the way I did get some rare opportunities, fateful opportunities, like the teacher's tap on the shoulder to the gentleman from Beijing. 'What about that one?' - that was a fateful moment. But then, after that it's really up to how I grab hold of that opportunity to travel as far as I could because I could easily have squandered that opportunity. Quite a few of my classmates had better physicalities than I did but, you know, I was the best. I didn't have the most physical talent but I worked harder."

Where did that drive come from?

"My parents were very hard workers. They worked and they struggled and that had to give me that insight. They really passed on that work ethic. I was always a very self-driven person. As long as I enjoyed what I was doing, I was like a bull - nothing was going to stop me. I was going to knock down walls, I was going to do it, travel as far as I could. And so the minute I fell in love with ballet, I was like a crazed person. I practised and practised and practised."

His two daughters, Sophie, 20, and Bridie, 12, study ballet, but seem unlikely to emulate their parents.

"They're pretty good dancers, but I don't think Sophie wants to follow in our footsteps. Sophie's at uni and wants to be an architect. Bridie's still too young to decide. She may decide one day to quit. And my son [Tom, aged 17] wants nothing to do with dance. A typical Aussie lad, into sports, but he's very into music. He sings beautifully so he has that artistic side."

So does Li think he could have said goodbye to his own children at age 11 and sent them off into the unknown like his parents did?

"Ooh, it was hard. I still remember at 16, when Sophie got offered a scholarship at Houston, a wonderful school in Houston, and my wife was really hesitating - 'gosh, she's too young' and all that. At first I thought, 'how can we let her go?' She was the one who was born deaf. She has two cochlear implants, so that disability really makes you hesitate, but I thought, no, she has to go, provided she wants to go. We have to support her.

"I just look at my life. Where would that get me if at age 11 my mother said don't go. If she had said one word, I would not have gone. But she realised there was no future back there so why would she hold her son back?"

His father died last year, but Li's mother is still living in the same village but in a more comfortable house that Li and Mary bought her. Li brought his parents to visit Australia twice.

Mary, who is famous in her own right as a former professional ballerina, has taken Li's increasing renown in her stride. "She's a very down-to-earth woman and that's what I love about her. She's so devoted to the family and the children and me. She basically gives me incredible freedom to achieve."

Before they first saw Mao's Last Dancer on the big screen, Mary was worried about whether the film would stick to the facts. "She was worried we'd have to live with something we weren't happy with for the rest of our lives - 'what will the children feel about their mother and father being portrayed in very personal ways?' But afterwards she was relieved. She said: 'No, this is beautiful'.

"As far as fame goes, we still carry on and live the same life. We refuse to be changed in any way. We protect our children from media and we want them to have as normal life as we can and we still go on family holidays. We still socialise with the same group of friends. So I don't really think it has changed very much. [Although] it makes my life a lot busier."

Thankfully, his three kids liked the film, too. "After the first screening they had their thumbs up towards me so that was great. They are harsh critics. They'd tell me to my face if they didn't like it," Li says, laughing.

So what do you have to do to win Australian Father Of The Year?

"I didn't do anything! Somebody nominated me. I believe the chairman of ABC nominated me."

Sophie texted him from college when the news of the award broke to tell him: "Dad, we already knew you're the best father".

Li says: "That meant more to me than the actual award. When your kids think you're a good dad, that's something special."

Is there anything else he'd like to do?

"I'm so happy with the journey I've travelled. The two things I would like to do is continue to improve myself to be a better father to my children and a better husband to my wife - those are the two endless goals that endless improvement needs to be made on."

Right, so the Man of the Year award should be along any second now . . .

* Mao's Last Dancer is now screening in New Zealand cinemas. Film review in The Weekend Press's 48 Hours section tomorrow.

- © Fairfax NZ News