Li Cunxin

The sixth of seven sons in a poor Qingdao household, Li Cunxin was eleven when cultural officials pulled him out of a village classroom for the Beijing Dance Academy. Seven years later he graduated top of his class and went to Texas on a scholarship arranged by Ben Stevenson of Houston Ballet. In April 1981 he decided not to go home. Chinese officials held him inside the consulate in Houston for twenty one hours, his marriage to the American dancer Elizabeth Mackey complicating any removal, and the standoff ended only after intervention reaching vice president George H. W. Bush. He danced sixteen years with Houston Ballet, married the Australian ballerina Mary McKendry in 1987, and moved to Melbourne in 1995 as a principal with The Australian Ballet, studying for a stockbroking diploma and putting in mornings at ANZ Securities before rehearsal. He took up licensed advice only after he stopped dancing in 1999, running the Asian desk at Bell Potter Securities. Mao's Last Dancer, his 2003 memoir, became a Bruce Beresford film in 2009. He ran Queensland Ballet from 2012 to 2023, when heart trouble ended the job.