Mao's Last Dancer (film)
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Mao's Last Dancer (film)
''Mao's Last Dancer'' is a 2009 Australian film based on professional dancer Li Cunxin's 2003 memoir of the same name. Li Cunxin is portrayed by Birmingham Royal Ballet Principal Dancer Chi Cao (), Australian Ballet dancer Chengwu Guo () and Huang Wen Bin. The film also stars Bruce Greenwood, Kyle MacLachlan, Joan Chen and Amanda Schull. The film premiered on 13 September 2009, at the Toronto International Film Festival. General release in Australia and New Zealand began on 1 October 2009. It began screening in the United States on 33 screens in August 2010. Plot In the era of Mao's Cultural Revolution (in the 60s/70s), 11-year-old Chinese boy Li Cunxin resides in a rural village commune in Shandong Province, destined to labour in the fields. As often occurred in those times, government officials fanning out across the nation seeking young candidates for centralized training arrive at this school. At first bypassed but selected after a plea by his teacher during the schoo ...
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Bruce Beresford
Bruce Beresford (; born 16 August 1940) is an Australian film director who has made more than 30 feature films over a 50-year career, both locally and internationally in the United States. Beresford's notable films he has directed include ''Breaker Morant'' (1980), ''Tender Mercies'' (1983), ''Crimes of the Heart'' (1986) and the multiple Academy Award winning ''Driving Miss Daisy'' (1989). Biography Early life Beresford was born in Paddington, New South Wales, the son of Lona (née Warr) and Leslie Beresford, who sold electrical goods. He grew up in the then outer-western suburb of Toongabbie, and went to The King's School, Parramatta. He made several short films in his teens including ''The Hunter'' (1959).Stated in a 2007 interview on Radio National in Australia (oLate Night Live Sydney University He completed a Bachelor of Arts majoring in English at the University of Sydney, where he graduated in 1964. While at university he made the short film ''The Devil to Pay'' (196 ...
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Li Cunxin
Li Cunxin (born 26 January 1961) is a Chinese-Australian former ballet dancer turned stockbroker. He is currently the artistic director of the Queensland Ballet in Brisbane, Australia.Queensland Ballet (2012)Li Cunxin returns to the stage as Queensland Ballet's new Artistic Director. Retrieved 1 October 2012. Early life Li was the sixth of seven brothers, born into poverty in the Li Commune near the city of Qingdao in the Shandong province of the People's Republic of China. He often had to support his extremely poor family. Li's early life coincided with Mao Zedong's rule over the new Communist nation. Li had a strong desire to serve China's Communist Party. He was quite politically devout, eventually joining in the CCP's Youth League. At the age of eleven, he was chosen by Madame Mao's cultural advisors to attend the Beijing Dance Academy, where students had to undergo 16-hour-a-day training. He attended the Academy for seven years. The regime in Beijing Dance was harsh, s ...
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AACTA Award For Best Original Music Score
The Australian Film Institute Award for Best Original Music Score is an award in the annual Australian Film Institute Awards The Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts Awards, known as the AACTA Awards, are presented annually by the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA). The awards recognise excellence in the film and television industry, .... Previous winners See also * ReferencesAfi.org.au – AFI Award Winners {{Australian Film Institute Awards M Film awards for best score ...
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Aden Young
Aden Young (born 30 November 1971) is a Canadian-Australian actor. He is best known for his portrayal of Daniel Holden in the SundanceTV drama ''Rectify'', for which he was twice nominated for the Critics' Choice Television Award for Best Actor in a Drama Series. He has appeared in American, Canadian and Australian productions. Early life Young was born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. His father Chip Young, an American born in Missouri, was a well-known CBC broadcaster and children's book author, as well as composer of Canadian classic 'Honky The Christmas Goose', while his mother is a nurse from Newcastle, Australia. His family left Toronto for Australia in 1981. Young attended Galston High and Australian Theatre For Young People as a teenager. Career As an actor Young was cast in his first role, as a young Frenchman in Bruce Beresford's acclaimed religious epic '' Black Robe'' (1991) on his 18th birthday. International acclaim followed and Young was dubbed "the next Marlon Bran ...
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Jack Thompson (actor)
Jack Thompson, AM (born John Hadley Pain; 31 August 1940) is an Australian actor and a major figure of Australian cinema, particularly Australian New Wave. He was educated at University of Queensland, before embarking on his acting career. In 2002, he was made an honorary member of the Australian Cinematographers Society (ACS). He is best known as a lead actor in several acclaimed Australian films, including such classics as '' The Club'' (1980), '' Sunday Too Far Away'' (1975), ''The Man from Snowy River'' (1982) and ''Petersen'' (1974). He won Cannes and AFI acting awards for the latter film. He was the recipient of a Living Legend Award at the 2005 Inside Film Awards. Early life Born John Hadley Pain in Manly, a suburb of Sydney, Thompson was three years old when his mother died, leaving his father, a merchant seaman, unable to care for him and his brother, David. He was sent to "LakeHouse orphanage" in Narrabeen by his aunt and subsequently adopted by the poet and ABC ...
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Penne Hackforth-Jones
Penne Hackforth-Jones (5 August 194917 May 2013) was an American-born Australian actress and biographer. Early life Penelope Beatrix Hackforth-Jones was born in August 1949 in Greenwich, Connecticut, to Paul and Susan Felicity (née Gullett) Hackforth-Jones and was a granddaughter of Sir Henry Gullett and niece of Jo Gullett, both Australian politicians. She lived with her family in England before relocating to Australia in 1964. After completing her secondary education at St Catherine's School, Toorak in 1966 she attended the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney until graduating in 1968. Career In 1969, Hackforth-Jones made her first credited on-screen appearance in the Australian television series ''Riptide''. She later appeared in such Australian television series as '' Bellbird'', ''Butterfly Island'', '' Homicide'', ''Matlock Police'', ''Division 4'', ''Cop Shop'', ''Tandarra'', '' Cash and Company'', ''Young Ramsay'', '' Punishment'', '' Bellamy'', '' A Country ...
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Charles Foster (attorney)
Charles C. Foster is an American immigration attorney and chairman of the Houston-based law firm Foster LLP. Foster has earned top awards from organizations including Chambers and Partners, Texas Monthly magazine, and the American Immigration Law Foundation. He also serves as the Honorary Consul General of the Kingdom of Thailand in Houston and has received four Royal decorations from His Majesty, King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand. In addition to his work as an attorney, Foster's past activities include a membership on the Bush-Cheney Presidential Transition Committee for the Department of Justice in 2001, a position as a Senior Immigration Policy Advisor for the George W. Bush presidential campaigns in both 2000 and 2004, and an immigration policy advisory role in Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. His political contributions also include testimonies before the U.S. House and Senate subcommittees on immigration. Foster is best known for his role in helping ballet pe ...
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The Rite Of Spring
''The Rite of Spring''. Full name: ''The Rite of Spring: Pictures from Pagan Russia in Two Parts'' (french: Le Sacre du printemps: tableaux de la Russie païenne en deux parties) (french: Le Sacre du printemps, link=no) is a ballet and orchestral concert work by the Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1913 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company; the original choreography was by Vaslav Nijinsky with stage designs and costumes by Nicholas Roerich. When first performed at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées on 29 May 1913, the avant-garde nature of the music and choreography List of classical music concerts with an unruly audience response, caused a sensation. Many have called the first-night reaction a "riot" or "near-riot", though this wording did not come about until reviews of later performances in 1924, over a decade later. Although designed as a work for the stage, with specific passages accompanying characters and action, the music achieved ...
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Houston Ballet
Houston Ballet, operated by Houston Ballet Foundation, is a professional ballet company based in Houston, Texas. The company, consisting of 59 dancers, produces over 85 performances per year. History Tatiana Semenova (1955–1967) Houston developed its style for professional ballet beginning in the 1930s, with Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo. For eleven years, Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo spent a week during the Christmas season in Houston performing for Houston audiences. From this exposure grew a desire among patrons for a resident dance company. In the spring of 1955, Tatiana Semenova, a former dancer with Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo, was invited to start a ballet school in Houston. Semenova accepted, and a state charter was obtained to establish a Houston Foundation for Ballet on July 26, 1955. Under Semenova's direction, the Foundation trained young dancers in ballet technique and reached out to under-served students. It established a scholarship program with the Neighborhood ...
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Ben Stevenson (dancer)
Ben Stevenson OBE (born 4 April 1936), is a former ballet dancer with Britain's Royal Ballet and English National Ballet, co-director of National Ballet of Washington, D.C. (1971–1974), artistic director of Chicago Ballet (1974-1975), artistic director of Houston Ballet (1976–2003), and current artistic director of Texas Ballet Theater (2003–present). Early life A native of Portsmouth, England, Stevenson received his dance training at the Arts Educational School in London. Upon his graduation, he was awarded the prestigious Adeline Genée Gold Medal, the highest award give to a dancer by the Royal Academy of Dancing. Career At the age of 18, Stevenson was invited to join the Sadler's Wells Royal Ballet by Dame Ninette de Valois. A few years later, Anton Dolin invited him to dance with the London Festival Ballet, where, as a principal dancer, he performed leading roles in all the classics. After choreographing ''Cinderella'' in 1970 for the National Ballet of Washington, D. ...
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Cultural Revolution
The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goal was to preserve Chinese communism by purging remnants of capitalist and traditional elements from Chinese society. The Revolution marked the effective commanding return of Mao –who was still the Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)– to the centre of power, after a period of self-abstention and ceding to less radical leadership in the aftermath of the Mao-led Great Leap Forward debacle and the Great Chinese Famine (1959–1961). The Revolution failed to achieve its main goals. Launching the movement in May 1966 with the help of the Cultural Revolution Group, Mao charged that bourgeois elements had infiltrated the government and society with the aim of restoring capitalism. Mao called on young people to "bombard the headqu ...
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Reuters
Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was established in London in 1851 by the German-born Paul Reuter. It was acquired by the Thomson Corporation of Canada in 2008 and now makes up the media division of Thomson Reuters. History 19th century Paul Reuter worked at a book-publishing firm in Berlin and was involved in distributing radical pamphlets at the beginning of the Revolutions in 1848. These publications brought much attention to Reuter, who in 1850 developed a prototype news service in Aachen using homing pigeons and electric telegraphy from 1851 on, in order to transmit messages between Brussels and Aachen, in what today is Aachen's Reuters House. Reuter moved to London in 1851 and established a news wire agency at the London Royal Exchange. Headquartered in London, Reuter' ...
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