Li Cunxin, ‘Mao’s Last Dancer,’ to step away from ballet due to ‘serious health concerns’

By Hilary Whiteman, CNN

Brisbane, Australia (CNN) — Li Cunxin, who found international fame for his remarkable rise from rural China to become one of the world’s leading ballet dancers, has announced his retirement as the artistic director of Queensland Ballet due to health issues.

Now 62, Li is perhaps better known as “Mao’s Last Dancer,” after documenting his journey from poverty under China’s former leader Chairman Mao Zedong to his controversial defection to the United States in a best-selling memoir and film of the same name.

Li later moved to Australia with his former dancer partner, now wife, Mary Li, where they became a powerful creative force at Queensland Ballet, one of the country’s premier ballet companies.

In a statement Tuesday, the company said the couple would retire at the end of this season, after the ensemble’s final performance of “The Nutcracker.”

Li had been “troubled by serious health concerns since 2022,” the statement said, and Mary Li had her own “health battles in recent years.”

Queensland Ballet director Brett Clark paid tribute to them both in his statement, particularly Li who had led the company’s artistic direction for 11 years.

“When I think about what Li Cunxin has achieved in life, for his family in China, for his family around the world, for ballet, for Queensland, for Queensland Ballet, it is nothing short of sensational,” Clark said.

“Where words elude us, actions might save us. Over the next few months, we plan to celebrate Li and acknowledge his sensational contribution,” he added.

In the same statement, Li described the role at Queensland Ballet as one of his most rewarding and suggested that he “wouldn’t be far away.”

“There is still so much I still want to achieve with the team, but I need to take some space to recover and spend time with family,” he said. “This journey has enriched my life beyond measure and offered me so much fulfillment and joy,” he added.

From rural China to the world stage

Born in 1961, Li was just 11 years old when officials arrived at his remote village in Qingdao, in the north eastern province of Shandong, on the orders of Jiang Qing, Mao’s wife, to find boys who may make exceptional dancers.

Madame Mao wanted to revive the Beijing Dance Academy and successful recruits would travel to the Chinese capital for rigorous training.

Li’s selection, based on his flexibility and physique, set him on a course far different from his six brothers, who struggled as farm laborers during Mao’s Cultural Revolution, a period of immense hardship that followed mass famine.

Li’s life took another turn in 1979, when he was chosen to go to Texas in the United States on a three-month scholarship. Once exposed to Western life, he married an American woman and refused to leave.

With Chinese authorities demanding his return, Li was forcibly held inside the Chinese Consulate in Houston, until US and Chinese authorities negotiated his release on the condition that he would never be allowed to return to China. Years later, he was granted permission to visit his village to see his family.

Li’s second marriage in 1987 was to Australian ballerina Mary McKendry, now Li, and they moved to Australia with their children where he danced before retiring from ballet to work as a stockbroker.

Li was tempted back to the stage by the role at Queensland Ballet, which has doubled in size under his stewardship to 48 dancers, performing some of the world’s most challenging repertoires.

Mary Li also works at the company as Ballet Mistress and Principal Repetiteur, and will also be retiring at the end of this season, the statement said.

In his statement, Clark said: “We are thankful that they are putting their health at the center of this joint decision. We wish Mary well in her recovery and look forward to seeing her back in our studios as a guest repetiteur next year and for years to come.”

A global search for Li’s successor at Queensland Ballet will begin soon, the statement said.

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