Remembering a dance queen

Dancers from the National Ballet of China perform Giselle, adapted by Dai Ailian, which was staged at Beijing's Tianqiao Theater last week to commemorate Dai. Photos provided to China Daily

The 'mother of Chinese dance', Dai Ailian was remembered at Beijing's Tianqiao Theater last week with a gala staged by the National Ballet of China and the Beijing Dance Academy. Chen Nan reports.

Dai Ailian (1916-2006), the Trinidad-born Chinese ballerina who devoted her life to Chinese dance and was dubbed the "mother of Chinese dance", was remembered at Beijing's Tianqiao Theater last week with a gala staged by the National Ballet of China and the Beijing Dance Academy.

Six classic dance pieces choreographed or adapted by Dai were staged. They included The Lotus, one of Dai's signature works choreographed in the 1950s; Giselle, in which Dai helped young dancers of the National Ballet of China rehearse when she was 89; and Don Quixote, which was jointly adapted by Dai and Rudolf Nureyev (1938-93), who was then the director of the Paris Opera Ballet, and was invited by Dai to help guide the rehearsal of the NBC in 1985.

"Though it has been 10 years since her death, we still feel her presence in our rehearsal room," says Feng Ying, the president of the NBC.

Feng, who was trained by Dai, was speaking at a memorial forum held at the Great Hall of the People on Thursday.

Dai was named its principal when the Beijing Dance Academy was set up in 1954.

According to Feng, Dai then brought in a number of top international dancers, such as Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn, to teach in China and tried her best to promote Chinese dancers to the world.