On February 9, 2006, dancer Ailian Dai died of illness. According to her requirements before her death, a unique funeral was held, and in the farewell room, 20 veteran artists of the National Song and Dance Troupe played national instruments next to her body and danced a dance she created, bidding farewell to the 90-year-old legendary woman.
Known as the "Mother of New Chinese Dance", Dai Ailian, her frontier music and dance, is the foundation of Contemporary Chinese dance, she pioneered China's dance education, cultivated countless modern dancers for China, and was elected Vice President of unesco's International Dance Council.
In the reception hall of the Royal Academy of Dance, there are portraits of four outstanding female dancers from all over the world, one of which is Dai Ailian.
74 years ago, when she first came to England to study art, she was ridiculed for her height and skin color, and she said goodbye to her first love, Willie Sokopo, who she loved all her life.
It wasn't until she was 78 that she returned to her first love and spent her last time with him...
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" >1, Dai Ailian, who was ridiculed for her height and did not accept defeat, learned dance skills diligently, and her first love Willie had a heart</h1>
Dai Ailian's ancestral home is Xinhui, Guangdong, and her ancestors crossed into the South China Sea to an island country called Trinidad in the West Indies, and Dai Ailian is already the fourth generation of overseas Chinese.
She entered ballet school at the age of 12 and was accompanied by her mother to London, England at the age of 14, where she studied classical ballet at the ballet studio of the famous dancer Anton Dowling and the M. Lambert Ballet School.
The left one wears Eileen
In 1930, chinese people studying ballet in Britain were still rare, and because she was petite, dark-skinned, and her facial features were not stunning, the teachers did not look up to her, and some people asserted that her height was not suitable for learning ballet.
It is precisely because of the strange vision suffered in the United Kingdom that Dai Ailian, who has never set foot in Chinese territory, began to identify with her Chinese identity, she went to the British Museum, read "Chinese History", saw the exhibition of ancient Chinese art, and began a journey to find roots, trying to integrate China's national cultural characteristics into the dance.
In 1932, after graduating with honors from ballet school, she immersed herself in modern dance, which was still a new thing, and unfortunately, in 1936, her father suddenly went bankrupt, leaving her to work to survive, and the 20-year-old Dai Ailian earned her tuition by cleaning and running dragon sets in movies.
In the summer of 1939, she received a scholarship to the Us-Ryder School of Dance at Dutington Manor under the tutelage of Rudolf Laban, the father of modern dance theory.
At The Dutington Estate, she met the Austrian sculptor Willie Sokopo who had been dreaming of since then, and in the summer, Willie Sokopo, who was invited to visit the Tinton Manor, wanted to find a model to make a sculpture, he chose Elleine Dai, who had a beautiful oriental beauty, and the poor sculptor put a cushion on the floor of the studio, where Dai Eileen lived, while working as a model for him, he also cooked and sewed clothes for him.
Willie worked hard, gentle and friendly, during the break, the two walked and chatted in the forest, felt verbal speculation with each other, encountered a place with water on the road, Willie picked up Ailian and did not let her step on the water, but as she walked, Willie suddenly talked about his French fiancée Simon, who was in a hazy relationship, and Dai Ailian knew that she and he met too late.
Although she had only been with Willie for two weeks, Dai Ailian was already deeply involved in his feelings.
But she also understands that Willie will not change her promise to marry Simon, she is deeply distressed, bent on forgetting Willy, and has not succeeded in her life.
< h1 class= "pgc-h-arrow-right" >2, married to Ye Qianyu for ten years, has always wanted to talk about the past with Willie, but Ye Qianyu never listened</h1>
After Willie's sculpture was completed, the lovelorn Dai Ailian left England, and during the War of Resistance, she was invited by Song Qingling to participate in the "Defend china Alliance" fundraising performance, and Song Qingling entrusted the painter Ye Qianyu to take care of Dai Ailian, who would not say Chinese.
Ye Qianyu and Dai Ailian
Dai Ailian saw Ye Qianyu's sketches, thought that his talent was not under Willy, deeply admired, and saw that he was handsome, or the head of China Today magazine, a progressive person, she thought, "Ye Qianyu has so many advantages, I will definitely fall in love with him!" If I can really fall in love with him, I can forget everything in the past. ”
Ye Qianyu had just been married to the female painter Liang Baibo at this time, and was also in a gap period of feelings, so the relationship between the two quickly became closer, and after the fundraising ended, in Song Qingling's office, Song Qingling was married, and Dai Ailian and Ye Qianyu, who had known each other for only nine days, held a wedding.
Ye Qianyu's English letter to Dai Ailian depicts various costumes
In Dai Ailian's heart, in order to make herself forget the pain of lost love through new love, you must let Ye Qianyu know her past affairs completely, but Ye Qianyu is nine years older than her, and her emotional history is much richer than her, and she does not value these things, whenever Dai Ailian mentions the matter of Willy, Ye Qianyu is reluctant to listen, thinking that it is her personal past private affair.
This disappointed Dai Ailian, who wrote in her autobiography: "In the 10 years of living with Ye Qianyu, I always felt that he did not understand me. Although he loved me very much, I didn't fall in love with him as deeply as I had originally thought. ”
Ye Qianyu's 1980 work "Flying Sky"
Ye Qianyu believes that the action can better represent his love, after marrying Dai Ailian, he has been following her everywhere to do miscellaneous work, as a translator, cooking, but also accompanied her to the ethnic minority areas to collect styles, study and learn dances from all over the world, painted a lot of ethnic minority women's costume paintings for her reference, used Dunhuang murals and Buddhist painting techniques to paint a large number of Indian dances, and even later became famous for Indian dance paintings, so that Dai Ailian successfully created "Flying Sky" showing tang Dynasty Dunhuang paintings, thus becoming famous in one fell swoop.
Dai Ailian Duo Dance "Flying"
But Dai Ailian longs for the intimacy of her heart, and she hopes to be able to talk to Ye Qianyu without words, which Ye Qianyu, who is not good at words, cannot do.
In 1950, Dai Ailian returned to Beijing from Xinjiang with a dance troupe and filed for divorce from Ye Qianyu, who turned out to be in love with her dance partner Ding Ning in the dance "Peace Dove". Ye Qianyu's daughter Ye Mingming, who was as close as a mother and daughter to her, asked her why she wanted to divorce her father, and Dai Ailian said regretfully: "Because we have not been able to communicate for ten years." ”
In her autobiography, she said: "At work, Ye Qianyu has helped me a lot. Yet our hearts couldn't be very tight, and until the end, he didn't really understand what was going on in my heart. I waited patiently for 10 years and was ultimately disappointed and decided to file for divorce. ”
In 1951, Dai Ailian divorced Ye Qianyu.
In 1954, she founded the Beijing Dance School, which cultivated a large number of dancers and won several international awards for her modern dance with great national characteristics. With her efforts, people found that the original Chinese dance was so beautiful and moving.
Mongolian dancer Modgema said that Dai Ailian is the biggest "intangible asset" of Chinese dance, and she let everyone know what is Chinese dance art, what is artistic imagination and innovation.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" returned to the first love after 3 or 55 years >, and walked through an unforgettable twilight time, leaving no regrets in life</h1>
In 1956, Dai Ailian married Ding Ning, a dancer much younger than her.
She thinks that the two are peers, cooperate seamlessly at work, and will be happy in life, but soon after marriage, she regretted it, and Ding Ning's character and personality made her feel difficult to accept.
During the Cultural Revolution, Dai Ailian was sent to the farm to feed the pigs with the hands of the dancers to sweep the floor, and Ding Ning left her at this time and took all her property.
Dai Ailian was so steadfast about this, only occasionally she talked about dancing, talked about the fruitless love of her youth, she wanted to know what happened to Willie, who had lost news for many years, and wrote to Trinidad and England to ask friends to help her contact Willy, in 1978, a Scottish friend helped her find Willie, and the friend said that in Willie's studio, she saw a picture of Willie's head that Willie had sculpted for Dai Lian decades ago, and the original had been sent to the halls of the Royal Academy of Dance.
It turned out that he had always kept her in the depths of his heart.
Married twice, divorced twice, Ailian Dai has never forgotten the shadow in the Darlington Manor, in 1979, she went to the British Darlington Manor to participate in the centenary birthday meeting to commemorate the birth of the mentor Laban, at the meeting met Willy, and was also hosted by Willie's wife Simon at home, Willie was very excited, wearing a white suit to Dai Anlian's residence, looking as dashing as before 40 years ago, they sat in the garden behind the house and talked about the 40 years after the separation, Dai Ailian looked into Willie's eyes, Finally, the words in my heart came out: "For many years, I have never been able to forget you!" ”
Willie and Dalen
Since then, Dai Ailian has traveled to the United Kingdom many times to reunite with the Willie family, she removed her ovaries many years ago because of surgical errors, and she has not been able to have her own children in her life, so she regards Ye Qianyu's daughter Ye Mingming and Willie's son Michelle as her own, accepts them as dry daughters and dry sons, as mother and son, and Simon has also become friends, accumulating affection for many years, at this time it has become inseparable from each other's affection.
She often accompanied Willie to watch sculpture exhibitions, walk together, and have endless words with him, which was very pleasant.
In 1993, when she went to London again, Simon died, in 1994, Willie suffered a mild stroke while living alone, unable to take care of herself, Michelle found a nanny and housekeeper for her father, he did not agree, he asked Ailian: "Can you stay with me?" ”
Dai Ailian nodded tearfully, and from then on she openly spent time with Willie as a life partner and took care of his life, until 1995, when she personally closed her eyes for her young lover, Michelle said heartily: "You are as good as an angel!" You have a beginning and an end. ”
Behind Willie, Ye Mingming tried to persuade Dai Ailian to remarry Ye Qianyu, but Dai Ailian refused. Since then, on her desk are pictures of Willie and a replica of the statue, accompanying her day and night.
Although she was not loyal enough to the marriage, she was loyal to her heart and loyal to her love.
Lovesickness for 55 years, but only a year of time together, perhaps because of the long years of long thoughts, twilight years of each other, so that this relationship is particularly precious, supporting Dai Ailian's inner world, until the last moment.