Dai Ailian

Dai Ailian (May 10, 1916 – February 9, 2006) was a Chinese dancer and an important figure in the modern history of dance in China.

She was born in 1916 into an overseas Chinese family living in Trinidad.

Her years as a dance teacher and educator helped China build a generation of dancers, choreographers, and educators.

She is known in China as the "Mother of Chinese Modern Dance" for her contributions to the field of dance in China, including her early articulation of three core commitments that shaped dance in China during the second half of the twentieth century.

Dai Ailian was born in Couva, Trinidad to a third-generation Chinese family, whose origins were in Xinhui, Guangdong Province.

Born Eileen Isaac, she never knew her family's Chinese surname, as her paternal grandfather was given the surname Isaac upon his arrival in Trinidad.

She used the name Eileen Isaac until her move to England, when her teacher Anton Dolin asked her for her Chinese surname.

Her mother selected the surname Dai, after her father's nickname Ah Dai.

Influenced by her mother, who loved music, she liked to dance from a young age.

She began studying ballet in Trinidad from the age of 7.

1930s London was a hub for major ballet talent and she also studied with Marie Rambert and Margaret Craske, the foremost discipline of Enrico Cecchetti.

Inspired by German expressionist modern dancers, she joined the classes of Lesley Burrows-Goossens, one of the few modern dancers teaching in London at the time.

She went on to study modern dance at Jooss Modern Dance School on full scholarship after it relocated to London.

There she learned the theory and techniques developed by Rudolf von Laban including Labanotation, which she was later enthusiastic in spreading in China.

In London Dai saw Indian dancer Uday Shankar as well as Japanese, and Javanese dances, but no Chinese dances, which inspired her to want to create Chinese dances.

In 1931 at the age of 15, Dai moved to London to further her study of ballet under former Ballets Russes dancer Anton Dolin where she danced alongside Alicia Markova.

In this period, she choreographed a number of works, including a solo dance called Yang Guifei's Dance Before the Emperor that she created in 1936 based on her interpretation of the famous concubine, a historical character that Dai learned about at the British Museum Library.

In 1937 Dai had a very small role as a Chinese Dancer in The Wife of General Ling.

This film is the only recording of Dai's dancing from her time in London.

In 1937, Dai performed in benefit concerts in London organized by the China Campaign Committee to raise funds for the Hong Kong-based China Defense League, which was headed by Soong Ching-ling, wife of Sun Yat-sen.

She spoke no Chinese when she left London for China at the end of 1939.

After reading the book Red Star Over China by Edgar Snow during the Japanese invasion of China, she travelled to Hong Kong with the help of Soong in 1940.

While in Hong Kong, she premiered her work East River in January 1941 in one of the concerts to raise funds for the war effort against the Japanese invasion.

After Hong Kong was attacked by Japan, she traveled to mainland China, where she participated in charity concerts and studied Chinese folk dances and operas.

She created pieces based on folk traditions such as The Drum of the Yao People and The Old Piggybacking the Young.

This was in line with her theorizing that dance should be rooted in local performance forms.

Apart from creating, choreographing, performing dance pieces, she also taught dance all over China.

After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Dai was at the center of the push to create new dance institutions.

In 1949 she was named deputy director of the Central Song and Dance Ensemble, and in 1954 she became the principal of the new Beijing Dance Academy.

She also served as director and adviser to the Central Ballet of China, and was the vice-chairman of the Chinese Dancers' Association.

This period also saw the broadening of Dai's artistic path.

In the early 1950s, she became involved in the first ballet to be created in China: Dove of Peace, and was its leading performer in the piece.

She created dances with strong national flavor based on her studies of Chinese traditional dances, such as the Lotus Flower Dance, Flying Apsaras, Longing for Home, The Mute Carries the Cripple, Tibetan Spring, Anhui Folk Dance, and For Sale, which became her trademark works.

Two dances in particular, Dance of Lotus Flowers (based on a Shaanxi folk dance) and Flying Apsaras (inspired by the Dunhuang murals), received acclaim both at home and abroad, and were awarded the gold prize at the World Youth Festival.

During the Cultural Revolution (1966–1976), performances of classical dances as well as some folk dances were not allowed in China.

After China opened back up to the world in the 1980s, Dai again became influential in Chinese dance circles and was active in the international dance communities.

She introduced renowned dancers such as Rudolf Nureyev and Margot Fonteyn to teach in China, and she also promoted Chinese dancers around the world.

Starting in the 1980s, she led Chinese dance troupes to international dance competitions, worked as a judge in many international events, and attended various international dance forums.

These two dances were designated classics of 20th-century Chinese dance by authoritative dance organizations in the 1990s.

In 1982, she was appointed vice-chairman of the International Dance Council, an organization within UNESCO, and attended its council meetings in Paris every year until her death on February 9, 2006.