Mao's Last Dancer - Li Cunxin [52]
He frowned. “What are you talking about, Cunxin?”
I didn’t want to say that Teacher Xiao had told me about his possible dismissal. “I heard rumors from some students that Teacher Xiao may no longer be teaching us.”
Zhang Shu smiled gently. “Don’t worry, no decisions have been made at this point.”
“Teacher Xiao is everything to me! He made me like ballet! He showed me how beautiful it is. I’ll be lost without him!” I tried hard to control my tears.
“All right, I will take your feelings into consideration.”
I left Zhang Shu without knowing if my words would make any difference at all. But as the months went by, Teacher Xiao remained as our ballet teacher.
During that year, Teacher Xiao again worked us hard on our pirouettes and I finally overcame my difficulties. I felt good about myself—now I could always complete three consecutive pirouettes. Then, after class one day, Teacher Xiao said, “Cunxin, I want to see you do five pirouettes from now on. No more three pirouettes!”
I thought I hadn’t heard him properly. “Teacher Xiao, you mean four pirouettes.”
“No, I mean five,” he replied, challenging me. “Don’t think, just do it. I would like to see you do ten pirouettes one day.”
My mouth dropped open. “He must be kidding,” I thought. I only just felt comfortable doing three pirouettes without fear of falling. Ten pirouettes was completely crazy.
“Cunxin,” he said, “to be the best, first you have to dare to try! I don’t want you to be the best in your class. I want you to be the best in the world.”
Teacher Xiao’s words echoed in my ears for days. He was talking about a standard of dancing far, far above me. How could a fourteen-year-old peasant boy think about being the best in the world? But Teacher Xiao’s challenge was like a seed implanted in my mind. From that day onward I had an aim and a vision.
That year, our academy was chosen to participate in an important public performance for Madame Mao. We were to dance an excerpt from China’s most famous ballet, The Red Detachment of Women, all about Chairman Mao’s army and its bravery, with the dancers doing leaps and turns with guns and flags and grenades. I loved it.
Everyone was vying for a part. The role of the hero, Chang Qing, a captain of the Red Army, was given to the Bandit. I was among five boys chosen to play the peasant boy, and eventually I was selected to be understudy to a slightly older boy. I was just so happy to be one of the final two.
Chen Lueng, my first ballet teacher, was the rehearsal master for this performance. One day he switched me and the older boy around and I became the first cast. Both of us were shocked. The Bandit was happy for me but I saw the disappointment in the other boy’s eyes. I felt terrible. I had taken something precious away from him. I went to Chen Lueng after the rehearsal and told him that I would be happy to remain as understudy.
“Cunxin,” he said, “you are better than him and deserve to be seen. If I didn’t do what I felt was best for our art form then I would have failed as a teacher. You should stop dancing now if you don’t want to be the best.”
Deep inside I knew Chen Lueng was right. I knew ballet was an art form based on honesty. The audience could see a good dancer from miles away. I went to the other boy and told him I was very sorry for taking his place.
That was my first career break. Teachers started to notice me more. That ballet didn’t just give me a rare opportunity to perform in front of Madame Mao: it also gave me confidence.
This was also the year I started to do better in other classes, especially Chinese. Our teacher Shu Wen, taught us with passion.
One day in his class we were studying a fable that was half a page long. It took Shu Wen a whole week to help us unravel the meaning of the story. It was about a young farmer who had wasted his precious planting season because he’d waited and waited for a blind rabbit to run into a tree and kill itself after another had done so on the edge of his land.