Mao’s Last Dancer

Also known as O Último Dançarino de Mao, El último bailarín de Mao, L'últim ballarí de Mao, 末代舞者

“Before you can fly, you have to be free.”

At the age of 11, Li was plucked from a poor Chinese village by Madame Mao's cultural delegates and taken to Beijing to study ballet. In 1979, during a cultural exchange to Texas, he falls in love with an American woman. Two years later, he managed to defect and went on to perform as a principal dancer for the Houston Ballet and as a principal artist with the Australian Ballet.