Pirouette to success
Rural children benefit from ballet program run by renowned teacher
‘Rather than Knights of the Round Table holding their swords, we are knights without swords, looking at the future direction for our national culture,” Guan Yu said, sucking in his waist with a glint of firmness in his eyes.
He and his wife Zhang Ping are the “knights” cited by the renowned ballet teacher, who was stylishly dressed in a smart black T-shirt.
Zhang, a well-known choreographer, is the founder of the Colorful Cloud project. The initiative aims to teach students in the rural areas of Southwest China’s Yunnan province to dance and, hopefully, to improve their life chances through the medium.
Since the nonprofit project was launched in 2016, it has given 62 children in Naduo, a village in Yanshan county, and nearby areas the chance to study at arts-based schools in Kunming, the provincial capital.
Last year, the couple established an art institution in Naduo to help continue nurturing local talent and also to provide job opportunities for students from the village who have already graduated but have returned to train their younger peers.
Though he is still employed by the prestigious Beijing Dance Academy, Guan — who has directed performances at events such as the closing ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and a number of G20 summits — will soon leave his comfortable lifestyle in the capital and visit the village again to teach the children.
Having worked with China’s best dancers, Guan and Zhang have diverted their attention to the “Paddy field hidden in the mountain”, which is what “Naduo” means in the language of the local Yi ethnic group.
My wife and I are like skinny horses chasing our quarries again and again. At first, there was only the two of us, but we are more like a wolf pack now.”
Ambitious outlook
The 50-something couple was inspired by El Sistema, a voluntary music education program in Venezuela in which musicians provide free classical music education to promote the artistic development of impoverished children and help them avoid drug abuse and crime.
The program has enabled some young people born in the slums to become world-class musicians.
“If those Venezuelan musicians can do it, we can also work it out. They started with music; we try to promote dancing, painting and music,” Guan said.
Zhang was born in Yanshan. She used her dancing skills to leave the village and join the academy in Beijing, where she met Guan. In 2016, they began conducting field research in Naduo, administered by Yanshan.
Naduo used to be one of China’s most impoverished villages, which meant a large number of residents moved away to find work.
Back then, it had a registered population of 347, but many people had gone out to look for jobs, leaving only seniors and children behind.
“The children faced the absence of parents and their love,” Guan said.
They also had to shoulder the burden of laborious farm work for their grandparents. Before they could do their homework at night, they had to harvest hogweed on the mountains and tend corn and peppers.
Though many of the children said they felt they had been born with the talent to perform Yi folk dances, they had never understood that their traditional culture was deeply embedded in folk art.
Likewise, they found it difficult to grasp the necessity of learning ballet moves in a poverty-stricken village.
In response, Zhang convinced the first batch of children and their families that they could go far outside the village, even as far as Beijing, if they persevered with the dance lessons. In addition, the skills they learned might even bring them a good income someday. In January 2017, the couple volunteered to take 12 children to the capital, where they visited universities and attended cultural training courses.
In Tian’anmen Square, the children removed their down coats and performed the string dance — a popular Yi folk spectacle — to the sound of music played on traditional instruments.
During their three-day visit, the children always wore their beautiful, handmade ethnic costumes, complete with embroidered jackets and headdresses, and Guan asked friends in different fields to give them a warm welcome.
“I hope the children will realize that as long as they wear their traditional costume, perform Yi dances and sing their songs, they will always be respected and treated well,” he said.
The project hasn’t stopped at dance classes, though. The children also study music and art with professional piano and painting teachers, who help them feel the power and spirit of the creative life.
“Their first brushstrokes and first touch of the piano keys were taught by serious artists,” Guan said.
During the summer and winter vacations, the couple always visited Naduo. Guan and some villagers cut down thick bamboo trees, removed the leaves, cleaned the trunks and hung them from branches for use as ballet practice barres.
Now, using the terraces as a stage and the sun as a spotlight, and accompanied by the sound of copper bells, the children stand on tiptoe and dance lightly in the bamboo forests and rice paddies.
The “art hall”, a green military tent set up in the village, is often full of children attending lectures and lessons provided by the project.
Separate lives, single aim
In 2019, Zhang decided to quit her job in Beijing and returned to her hometown to undertake long-term teaching and oversee the project.
Since then, she and Guan have lived separately, only reuniting in the village during vacations.
The Naduo Voluntary Center for Public Welfare has also been built in the village, allowing volunteers from different backgrounds across China to gather and help the children by teaching them art, history and foreign languages.
Since the project was launched in 2016, the couple has covered all the costs by themselves or through individual donations, leaving them free from reliance on administrative or government support.
Guan said they feel they are emulating the deeds of Don Quixote, the proud, idealistic hero in the eponymous Spanish novel.
“My wife and I are like skinny horses chasing our quarries again and again. At first, there was only the two of us, but we are more like a wolf pack now,” Guan said.
There are 30 people in the core group, but during peak periods, nearly 400 volunteers participate in the project, including university students and teachers, actors, directors and journalists.
“Every time we found it hard to carry on with our limited budget, friends and strangers offered to help,” Guan said.
He has planted two blue jacaranda trees, a species with attractive, long-lasting violet-colored flowers, at the village entrance.
“The trees represent Zhang and I taking root in the village. We will die in the next few decades, but our vision for this culture and rural art education will be inherited by the next generation and will last for 100 years, along with the trees,” he said.
Guan Yu, renowned ballet teacher, who helped initiate the Colorful Cloud project