Chinese mainland actress Li Xiaolu (the youngest Best Actress winner of the Golden Horse) recently wrote on her blog on the 14th about her meeting with Li Yue, the ballerina who performed at the Beijing 2008 Paralympic Games opening ceremony in September.
Watch Li Yue’s performance at the Paralympics Opening. The other dancers are deaf and the guy is Lu Meng, a famous ballet dancer in China.
The Paralympics opening was not directed by Zhang Yimou, but Zhang Jigang, a lieutenant general in the PLA, who was the one that created the beautiful Thousand Hand Guanyin. He’s so serious-sounding in interviews, I suppose because of military training, but he is truly gifted with making beautiful things . For a complete list of some of his works, go to his wikipedia page.
The Paralympics didn’t have the grandness and scale of the Olympics opening, probably because of the fact that the athletes enter first and then take up most of the stadium space, but I feel like they took an extraordinary amount of care in designing and choosing the performances, more so even than the Olympics and it was beautiful to watch and I’m ashamed that America never broadcasts it.
I think everyone who saw Li Yue perform ballet (her dream) so shortly after recovering from the Sichuan earthquake was moved, including celebrities like Li Xiaolu and Ma Li, another famous disabled ballerina who has vowed to teach Li Yue ballet. There was in general such a collective sense of goodwill and wanting to give and support others that was touching to see during the aftermath of the quake and I’m glad that I don’t see it waning very much even now.
From CRIEnglish:
“Li was invited to attend the Rayli Sunshine Fund Media Conference on Dec. 12, by Rayli magazine, a famous publication that highlights fashion and celebrities at metropolis.
Her elegant wheelchair performance was one of the most memorable scenes of the opening ceremony. Li was among the first bevy of children under the fund relief program.
As a promising ballet student, Li lost her left leg in the disastrous May 12 earthquake. She was the only survivor of her class after her school collapsed.”
He was really good, but I feel like her performing so shortly after Sichuan was a lot harder…he’s been doing it for ages. His voice was lovely though.
I think my favorite performance at the Paralympics was the one with the blind singer. He was so good.
sichuanese pride!!!!
Thanks for commenting. I was beginning to think people had hearts made of stone or something. Either that or they had already seen it, maybe? This was soooo moving.
the video was gorgeous