When acclaimed Australian director Bruce Beresford (Breaker Morant, Driving Miss Daisy) set out to bring the story of China’s most famous ballet dancer to the screen he had a difficult call to make – who would play the inimitable Li Cunxin: an actor or a dancer?
Adapted by Academy-Award nominated screenwriter Jan Sardie (Shine, The Notebook) from Cunxin’s best-selling autobiography, Mao’s Last Dancer wasn’t written as a few limp plot points to peg some grande jetés on. The drama of Cunxin’s journey hinges on the stark disparity between his impoverished childhood and the slavish apprenticeship he served at Madame Mao’s Beijing Dance Academy; and the freedom and riches he found on some of the world’s most prestigious ballet stages in the West.
Beresford was aware that he needed to cast someone who could execute the drama of Cunxin’s story as expertly as his arabesques. “When I first read the script was I thought we’d never find anyone to play Li,” said Beresford about the casting process. “Because obviously we had to have a first class ballet dancer – indeed, not just first class, but superlatively good. He had to be young and handsome and he had to be able to act a very complicated role in two languages, Mandarin and English. And I thought ‘Does such a person exist?’”
They do indeed exist, and in Beresford’s case, they came in triplicate. Chi Cao (from the Birmingham Royal Ballet) plays the adult Cunxin; The Australian Ballet’s own Chengwu Guo plays the teenaged dancer, and Huang Wen Bin, a gymnast from China, was cast as the child. Other Australian dancers were poached for the film as well. Camilla Vergotis (former AB senior artist, now with Hong Kong Ballet) plays the former Australian Ballet Principal Mary McKendry (Cunxin’s wife), while Australian Ballet Principal Artist Madeleine Eastoe and ballet superstar Steven Heathcote took on key roles.
With Beresford directing his charges’ acting performances, the dance routines were left to the superlative talents of Graeme Murphy to choreograph. Formerly Artistic Director of the Sydney Dance Company, Murphy has created several works for the Australian Ballet (Swan Lake, Firebird, The Nutcracker) and his choreographic chops are on splendid display in this film. From the gruelling routines Cunxin endured in Beijing to the awe-inspiring solos he danced at the Houston Ballet, between Murphy’s steps and Beresford’s vision, the ballet gives some serious wow-factor on screen.
Mao’s Last Dancer opens nationally on October 1
By Ghita Loebenstein. Ghita is a freelance writer whose work has appeared in the likes of The Age, The Sydney Morning Herald, Frankie, The Big Issue and Inside Film. She hung up her ballet shoes at age 18 and has been trying to get out of the corner ever since.
It’s wonderful film…bring a box of tissues and allow your spirits to soar with this moving and beautiful adaptation of Li Cunxin’s book “Mao’s Last Dancer!”