We were all Mao's faithful children, and we all wholeheartedly agreed with our political head, but I couldn't help quietly admiring Albrecht's brilliant dancing. The dancer was Vladimir Vasiliev from the Bolshoi and the images of his dancing left me gasping for air.
During the Cultural Revolution almost every new creation in art was a joint project. Many new works had to have a Communist Party leader as one of the main creators or it would never get off the ground. There would normally be more than one choreographer, set designer, lighting designer and composer for any Chinese ballet and the final product always looked as if the various parts didn't quite fit together. Individualism was firmly discouraged. The Red Detachment of Women, which we'd performed for Madame Mao, was one of these ballets and it took eight years to complete. But once I'd seen the beautiful Giselle I began to doubt The Red Detachment of Women was quite so artistically brilliant.
It was during our busy end-of-year exam preparation time, in January 1976, that the Premier of China Zhou Enlai died. Several long remembrance and reflection sessions were organised at the academy to commemorate Zhou's great contributions to China. I was surprised to see so many of my teachers sobbing.
Right after Zhou's death, Deng Xiaoping was arrested. Mao appointed Hua Guofeng to succeed Zhou Enlai but it soon became clear that Hua Guofeng was an ineffective leader. He was a follower, a puppet of Mao and the Gang of Four. The Gang of Four immediately organised a "Denounce Deng Xiaoping" campaign. He was labelled an old rightist whose motive was to corrupt the communist system and eventually overthrow it. Some of his speeches were published and I learnt one of Deng Xiaoping's most famous sayings: Bu guan shi bai mao hai shi hei mao, zhuo dao lao shu jiu shi hao mao. "It doesn't matter whether the cat is white or black, it's a good cat as long as it catches mice." But many people only half-heartedly participated in the "denounce Deng Xiaoping" campaign. In fact, it almost backfired. Rumours began circulating about Madame Mao's male concubines. She was frequently accompanied by a handsome retired dancer, or a retired opera singer, a movie actor or a ping-pong champion. People started to notice. I could sense a huge tide of resentment developing against the Gang of Four.
Around the same time we started to rehearse another model ballet and this time I was chosen to be the main character. The ballet was called The Children of the Meadow, a Lei Feng type of story about the new generation of children under Mao and their devotion to his cause. Some dancers from the Central Ballet of China came to teach us the steps and I was awe-struck by the dancers' technical abilities. Even the "little bouncing ball" himself was there, a dancer from the Central Ballet of China known for his incredibly fast turns and jumps. He was such an inspiration-I vowed to reach his standard one day too.
We rehearsed one act of this ballet for several months and then performed it initially in our academy theatre. I received some encouraging comments about my performance-my biggest fan was one of the chefs from our canteen! I had no idea about different aspects of performing and no stage fear at all. But this changed quickly when, a week later, we were bussed to an industrial city near Beijing called Tangjing to perform for the public. During the opening night performance my brain went completely blank. I couldn't think. I didn't know what I was doing on stage. I couldn't even remember what happened afterwards. All I could remember was that I had forgotten the steps. My partner looked at me and I realised I was just standing on stage doing absolutely nothing. That was my first stage fright, at age fourteen, and I would never forget it.
After that performance the head of our ballet department Zhang Shu spearheaded an important project which we began in 1976. We were to create a full-length ballet, our academy's first such project, and everyone was excited about the auditions. The story was about a teenage brother and sister whose parents were captured by the Guomindang army and hanged on an old symbolic tree called Hai Luo Sha. The ballet was named after the tree. After the parents' death the two brave young children were separated and joined different factions of the Red Army. At the end of the ballet they came back with Mao's armies, reunited, and killed the murderers of their parents.
I was overwhelmed and utterly surprised to be chosen as first cast for the lead role. All of a sudden I was the envy of the entire academy. The pressure was immense but the opportunity for me to dance in a new creation was beyond my wildest dreams.
The choreography took over six months. We rehearsed every afternoon. Day in and day out we repeated many new steps and sweated over many movements, only to find out it wasn't what the choreographers had in mind. I changed three to four soaking wet T-shirts every day. My legs started to cramp. Out of compassion one of the choreographers brought me cups of warm sugared water to replenish my lost energy. Sugar was such a rarity in China -an immense treat.
There was no doubt this role was technically very demanding. I worked hard but different choreographers had choreographed different sections of the ballet and I had to listen to three different people's instructions at once! It was so confusing. The ballet underwent changes right up to the last minute and on the opening night, in front of thousands of eyes, my nerves turned my muscles numb. My whole body trembled. My legs felt weak. I was exhausted even before the curtain went up. On my grand entrance I was supposed to perform this explosive series of giant leaps but my legs felt like noodles dangling in the air. The second half of the ballet went better but the difficult dancing parts were mostly in the first half and, naturally, the person who played Chairman Mao received most of the applause.
I was disappointed with myself beyond description. I had let the whole academy down. I had let Chairman Mao and Madame Mao down. I went to all three choreographers and apologised. I went to Zhang Shu the next day and asked him what I could do for my nerves. "Experience, only experience will help you," he said.
The end of this year was the first and only time that we went to see the army stationed outside Beijing: there were several elite divisions and about ten of us were assigned a soldier each as our mentor to accompany and instruct us every day. Their daily schedule was strict and we had to keep up with them. At five o'clock we were dressed, washed and outside in line on the parade ground within five minutes. Our Beijing Dance Academy 's strict schedule meant that we had met that kind of efficiency before, but still, waking up at five was hard. We jogged and practised our morning routine before breakfast and practised our dancing on any flat surface we could find. Then we joined some of the soldiers' training activities for the rest of the day. We learnt how to walk, turn, stop and run the military way. We even learnt how to fall and crawl under imaginary tanks and enemy gunfire. Many of us had bruises all over after those first few days. We learnt how to hold guns too-important for our political ballets, we were told. We spent days at target practice and my eyes became so tired, but again I thought of the bow-shooter that Teacher Xiao had told me about and I was determined to practise hard.
Grenade throwing was one activity I wasn't good at, no matter how hard I tried. We practised with fake grenades at first but after a few days my shoulder joints were swollen with nagging pain. On the day we were scheduled to throw the real grenades we first had to throw a fake one so our throw could be measured. I pumped myself up with courage. I imagined a group of enemies standing in front of me. This was a life and death situation. I gathered all my strength and threw the fake grenade out with all my might.