Mao’s Last Dancer

Overview

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.

Details

Cast

Amanda Schull

Elizabeth Mackey

Chi Cao

Li Cunxin - adult

Chengwu Guo

Li Cunxin - teenage

Wen Bin Huang

Li Cunxin - boy

Joan Chen

Niang

Bruce Greenwood

Ben Stevenson

Kyle MacLachlan

Charles Foster

Jack Thompson

US Federal Judge

Camilla Vergotis

Mary McKendry

Madeleine Eastoe

Lori

Steven Heathcote

Bobby Cordner

Aden Young

Dilworth

Wang Shuangbao

Barbara Bush

Herself (archive footage) (uncredited)

George H. W. Bush

Himself (archive footage) (uncredited)

Mao Zedong

Himself (archive footage) (uncredited)

Bruce Greenwood

Kip Gamblin

David

George Ellis

Houston Ballet Conductor