The Australian Ballet company recently announced the nominees for the Telstra Ballet Dancer Awards.
Among the six nominees for the prestigious People's Choice category is a man who was told early in his career that he didn't have the "correct" body attributes to be considered a top ballet dancer.
His name is Yichuan Wang.
The Chinese-born dancer tells SBS Mandarin that he is on a mission to follow in the footsteps of Australian ballet icons Guo Chengwu and Li Cunxin.
Cunxin is the man behind the 2003 autobiography, that was made into the 2009 motion picture film Mao’s Last Dancer.
Like Cunxin, Wang perfected his craft at the renowned Beijing Dance Academy, an establishment that his parents continue to teach at.
Wang Yichuan Source: The Australian Ballet/ Helen Chen
Yet despite his lineage in ballet, he hardly gave it a second thought during his childhood. In fact, he didn't even think about learning how to dance.
It was when he reached the age of 11, as he was trying to get into a better secondary school, that he began to learn ballet for extra talent scores to compete with other students.
Given the intense competition related to education access in China, losing just one point could be the difference between success and failure.
This was the cruel reality that Wang faced.
When he actually began learning ballet, he was overwhelmed by the pessimistic opinions from people around him, who believed that his physical traits did not meet the default selection criteria for the Beijing Dance Academy.
So, what is this famously strict selection criteria?
Wang says: “The length of the legs should be 12 centimetres longer than that of the upper body."
“The open arm length should be 5-6 centimetres over the height,” he added.
Even after so many years, he still remembers how his father repeatedly affirmed the body measurements of a good ballerina.
Wang did not let these “disadvantages” overshadow his passion for ballet. He learnt from the history of ballet that the expressiveness of the dancers themselves was much more important than body measurements.
Despite the doubters, Wang was admitted into the academy where he spent six years.
"The top ballet masters, like Rudolf Nureyev, had no better physical conditions than me," he says.
"Yet I can still feel the emotional impact they bring to the audience, even though the TV screen.”
He moved to Melbourne in 2016 to train at the Australian Ballet School and joined the company in 2017.
Soon, to his surprise, he found that the strict criteria that had troubled him in China was not a concern among ballet practitioners in Australia, who he says have more of a focus on the dancer’s appeal on-stage.
Wang Yichuan Source: The Australian Ballet
At the same time, compared to the studies at the Beijing Dance Academy, there is more enjoyment associated with learning ballet in Australia, he says.
Wang says in Australian rehearsals dancers perform a routine once, and some of them would start panting.
“In China, when we rehearse, usually we practise for six rounds straight.”
This pleasant atmosphere made him feel very fortunate. What’s even more fortunate, was that in the Australian Ballet, he received the guidance of Guo Chengwu, a Chinese dancer who was also trained at the Beijing Dance Academy.
Chengwu, one of Wang’s idols, is today a principal dancer and one of the biggest stars within the Australian ballet scene. Wang hopes to follow in Chengwu’s footsteps - it seems he is doing exactly that.
Wang now performs alongside Chengwu and counts him as a close friend and mentor.
Wang's ascension is part of a wave of Chinese ballet dancers rising to international prominence. Apart from timeless repetition and hard work, one main reason for the rise of the art among Chinese people is the accessibility to the outer world, which was not the case for Li Cunxin.
Cunxin was once a famous name in the Chinese ballet world, whose autobiography Mao's Last Dancer was made into a feature film.
Li Cunxin, known as Mao's last dancer Source: AAP
When he visited the Houston Ballet in the United States in 1981, he decided to stay in the country.
His escape also led to a diplomatic storm. Decades on, as a Chinese dancer in a new era, Wang says he admires the courage of his predecessors.
"As far as I know, there are only a few people in the ballet industry who have done such a thing," he says.
"They are very courageous and admirable. Like Mikhail Baryshnikov, who escaped the Soviet Union and went to the United States, and Rudolf Nureyev to France.
"He (Li Cunxin) is the highest realm in the eyes of the colleagues from Beijing Dance Acadamy.
"He not only has many achievements as an actor but also led the Queensland Ballet to a new height."
After fleeing from China and successfully relocating to the US, Cunxin came to Australia in 1995 to join the Australian National Ballet.
Li Cunxin visits Cinderella Ballet School in Beijing. Source: Katrina Yu / SBS News
He was given the Australian of the Year Award in Queensland. He began working as a stockbroker but later returned to ballet in July 2012, and is now the artistic director of the Queensland Ballet.
Li Cunxin once said: "The Nutcracker is very special in my heart because this is the first ballet show I performed in the West."
Wang often plays this classic repertoire with the Australian Ballet. Even though as a newcomer he can only play a small role like the mouse, he is still excited.
"We express the same emotion through the stage from our body," he says
"I’m running around on the stage, and I’m very happy."
Wang says his strongest desire is to please his father, who is a teacher at his former academy.
Wang Yichuan Source: Wang Yichuan
He says everything he does today is for his dad because he believes he would never have reached this point in his career if not for his father, who dedicated his time and money to support his son.
"Hopefully I’ll really make him proud one day, with my dance. We all have to face thousands of people in an audience. But for me, there’s always a special audience in the depth of my heart, and someone who is watching me, inspiring me, love me and he is my dearest father," he says.
The winner of the Telstra Ballet Dancer Award will be selected by a panel of judges from Telstra and The Australian Ballet and announced at the Opening Night performance of The Nutcracker at the Sydney Opera House on November 30.
Wang Yichuan Source: Wang Yichuan
