
2008

1984

1949

2006

2000

2006

2017

1948

2004

2001

2013

1952

2011

2007

2016

1999

2018

2023

2009

1977



At the age of 11, Li was plucked from a poor Chinese village by Madame Mao's cultural delegates and taken to Beijing to study ballet. In 1979, during a cultural exchange to Texas, he falls in love with an American woman. Two years later, he managed to defect and went on to perform as a principal dancer for the Houston Ballet and as a principal artist with the Australian Ballet.