Li Cunxin, the renowned ballet dancer and author of bestselling memoir Mao’s Last Dancer, is retiring as the artistic director of Queensland Ballet due to ill health.
On Tuesday, the Queensland Ballet confirmed the 62-year-old had been diagnosed with a heart condition and “has been troubled by serious health concerns since 2022”. He recently experienced “complications” and is retiring in order to recuperate.
Li’s wife and fellow dancer Mary is being treated for cancer, and will also retire at the end of 2023 from her roles as ballet mistress and principal repetiteur.
Staff and company dancers at Queensland Ballet, where Li has been artistic director for 11 years, were informed of the news on Tuesday morning.
“I need to take some space to recover and spend time with family,” Li said in a statement.
He said he was “tremendously proud” of the company, adding, “This journey has enriched my life beyond measure and offered me so much fulfilment and joy. From the moments of success to the periods of challenge and uncertainty that have dared me to dream fearlessly, it has been an incredible opportunity to each day make a difference to the arts in Queensland and the nation, and I’ll miss it all terribly.”
The chairman of Queensland Ballet’s board, Brett Clark, congratulated Li on “his selfless, generous and visionary service”.
“When I think about what Li Cunxin has achieved in life, for his family in China, for his family around the world, for ballet, for Queensland, for Queensland Ballet, it is nothing short of sensational,” he said, adding that the company would celebrate Li’s career in the coming months, before his retirement at the end of the 2023 season.
Born into poverty as the sixth of seven brothers in rural Shandong, China, Li was selected by Chinese officials to attend the Beijing Dance Academy at the age of 11. Training 16 hours-a-day for seven years, Li emerged as a standout dancer and was one of two selected to study at the Houston Ballet. He defected to the west in 1981, which led to him being briefly incarcerated in the Chinese consulate in Houston. After a 21-hour standoff and an intervention by the then US-vice president, George Bush, Li was approved to stay in the US and his Chinese citizenship was revoked.
He remained with the Houston Ballet for 16 years, before meeting Australian ballerina Mary McKendry, now Li, in London. They married in 1987 and moved to Melbourne in 1995. Li became a principal dancer with the Australian Ballet until he retired from dancing in 1999, at the age of 38.
His 2003 memoir, Mao’s Last Dancer, became a huge hit and made him a celebrity. The book was adapted into a film in 2009. He was named Australian father of the year in 2009 and had a spider named after him in 2016.
After a period working as a stockbroker, he became artistic director of the Queensland Ballet in 2012. After an 18-year break, he returned to the stage to dance in a one-off performance of The Nutcracker with Queensland Ballet, in which he danced with Mary.
Friends and admirers of Li paid tribute to him on Tuesday. Britain’s Royal Ballet director, Kevin O’Hare, said he had “long admired Li”, who has “been a powerfully positive advocate for ballet in Australia and a dynamic force for dance worldwide”, while the Australian Ballet artistic director, David Hallberg, said Li had “made Queensland Ballet a company that Australians have great pride in”.
In a joint statement, film director Baz Luhrmann and his production designer and wife, Catherine Martin, paid tribute to Li and Mary “as creative compatriots and friends”.
“Li has always had one eye on tradition and the other very much on the future. Though personal reasons have compelled him to prioritise his health at this time, I know he’ll continue keep a keen eye on helping the next generation of ballet in Australia to flourish with the same global vivacity that has been the hallmark of his tenure,” they said.
