“Where do I begin?” laughs Li Cunxin as he tallies up the physical toll of a life in ballet and what must feel like accumulated years spent poised and en pointe. Toes, ankles, knees, back. Elbows from lifting whole other humans. Walking alongside the Brisbane river in the blinding brightness of a Queensland spring lunchtime, Li knows as he approaches his mid-60s all these physical grizzles are to be expected, sad but true.
More so after a lifetime of pushing his body to its extreme limits as a dancer. But as far as health concerns go, his heart was the shock.
In June it was announced that Li, who rose to extraordinary fame with his 2003 autobiography Mao’s Last Dancer, would be leaving his successful 11-year tenure as the artistic director of the Queensland Ballet due to health concerns.
The first sign of trouble came when he was giving a motivational talk and, next thing, he’s lying on the ground, “totally out”. There were more fainting episodes – somewhat surprising for a man for whom physical balance and control reigns supreme: “That’s a foreign feeling altogether. I mean, I wake up, and I’m looking at the sky thinking, why am I here?”
After more dramatic episodes, it was discovered that Li had fluid around the heart that required surgery and ongoing treatment. Following his wife Mary’s cancer diagnosis and treatment, it was time for an enforced reckoning with retirement. For someone who has been working nonstop since the age of 11 – when four Beijing officials visited his family’s village in rural China and plucked him out of extreme poverty to dance in Madame Mao’s ballet – it’s a confronting prospect.
“Because I have never really been idle, I’m never not doing anything … it’s a bit of a scary thought and I think probably my wife is also a little bit scared.”
But then, the possibility of life beyond work holds a kind of wonder – cooking, swimming, travelling, the prospect of a summer of cricket.
“The other day Mary and I just went for a walk in the neighbourhood. We went to get coffee, we went to the newsagent, we went to the flower shop, and then we walked down and did a bit of shopping at Coles … it was just beautifully leisurely, with no pressure.”
That the commonplace act of walking around the neighbourhood and going to the supermarket is to be treasured says a lot, and is thoroughly in keeping with Li’s pinch-me gratitude for the life he has. Even after “a horrendous year” of health challenges for the couple, an uncertain future, and ongoing medical tests and treatment, he’s determined to face it with positivity and optimism. A childhood spent in abject, life-threatening poverty will do that. When you and your friends have raided a rat’s nest to find food, when you have slept on dirt, had no running water and no shoes in a Chinese winter, perspective is easy.
“Even with all the heartaches and with, you know, heartbreaking moments in my life … it all made me appreciate life, appreciate opportunities, appreciate what I have even more. Yes. It has shaped me as a person. So if I wanted to change any element of that, then I would not be the person I am. So I’m really grateful.”
Many people know this story: it is known by the legions of people who read his memoir, since made available as a picture book, a young adult reader that is still taught in schools, and also made into a film directed by Bruce Beresford.
It’s a classic inspirational plotline: child born into extreme poverty in rural Shandong in the early 1960s is chosen by Mao’s authorities to go to Beijing to train in body-and-mind-breaking conditions to become a world famous ballet dancer. While dancing on a cultural exchange with the Houston Ballet in the US in 1979, he makes a decision to defect. Then banished from his homeland, he must forsake his beloved family for his freedom. He won’t see them for six years, and he will be heartbroken by grief. Ultimately he moves to Australia after falling in love with fellow ballet dancer Mary McKendry, and the rest … is publishing history. His book is in its 57th reprint.
As we walk from shade pool to shade pool under Brisbane’s expansive figs, he is humbly sure to share credit for the success of his book with his editor and publisher, and perhaps, he says, retirement will give him an opportunity to write another. He is also careful to share the credit for the growth of the regional ballet company which, under his direction, has blossomed into financial success and global renown.
Consequently Brisbane loves Li – later on the day he walks with Guardian Australia he will receive the keys to the city and hundreds of people will raise their glasses to him and his achievements – and he loves it right back. He’s come from China via the US and Melbourne, and it’s definitely home, the one he and Mary choose.
Our walk ends at a special place for him – an expansive outdoor terrace, high up on the magnificent new Queensland Ballet building, taking in the city skyline and wider suburban vista. He was honoured with naming rights, and so he called it the Kite Deck, which evokes the fervour of his childhood dreams.
“As a child one of my favourite things to do was to fly kites, and I would always send secret wishes up through the wind.”
In Mao’s China of the 1960s and early 70s, the wishes would often be about escaping poverty, seeing his parents happy, but mainly “that none of us would die of starvation”.
And if he had a kite here right now, to launch into the beautiful Brisbane blue, what would his wish be?
He has two, actually, and in a way their ordinariness signpost the extraordinary arc of this man’s life: “I wish for Mary’s and my health. And I wish for our ballet to reach new heights.”
