Li Cunxin was born in 1961, in the New Village, Li Commune, near
the city of Qingdao on the coast of north-east China. 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 Housten Ballet.
Li went on to become one of the best male dancers in the world.
He is now a senior manager in a major stockbroking firm and
lives in Melbourne, Australia, with his wife and their
children.
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