Mao's Last Dancer Movie - In Cinemas March 4

Chi Cao

2010-04-20T05:55:10Z

Chi Cao is Principal Dancer with the Birmingham Royal Ballet. Born in China, Chi trained at the Beijing Dance Academy and the Royal Ballet School, London. He joined Birmingham Royal Ballet in 1995 and progressed quickly throughout the ranks of the Company to be promoted to Principal in 2002. Chi is a virtuoso classical dancer, and often leads the Company in the classical repertory. His superb technique won him the gold medal in 1998 at Varna, the ‘Granddaddy’ of all ballet competitions.

With his frequent partner, Nao Sakuma, Chi has also represented the Company at a number of prestigious occasions, dancing at the NATO Gala in Birmingham (2000) and Birmingham’s Gala to celebrate HRH Queen Elizabeth’s Golden Jubilee (2002).

Chengwu Guo

2010-04-20T05:54:03Z

Chengwu Guo trained at the Beijing Dance Academy. A prize winner at the 2006 Prix de Lausanne, he won a scholarship to study with the Australian Ballet. Now a member of the Australian Ballet company, he has been identified as one of the company’s most promising young performers.

Huang Wen Bin

2010-04-20T05:53:01Z

Huang Wen Bin, from Beijing, is an aspiring gymnast and was discovered by Mao’s Last Dancer’s Chinese casting director at his gymnastics school. This is his first acting role.

Joan Chen

2010-04-20T05:52:05Z

In a life that shares resemblances with Li Cunxin, whose autobiography inspired the film MAO’S LAST DANCER, Joan Chen was discovered on the school rifle range by Mao Zedong’s wife Jiang Qing, as she excelled at marksmanship, and was selected to study acting. She trained at the Shanghai Film Academy and then studied at the Shanghai Institute of Foreign Languages before moving to the United States to further her studies in 1981.

Joan’s role in The Little Flower, directed by veteran Chinese director Jin Xie, won her China’s Best Actress Award. After moving to the US, she was cast by Dino De Laurentiis in Tai-Pan and went on to performances in Bernardo Bertolucci’s The Last Emperor and David Lynch’s cult TV series Twin Peaks. Joan’s career has continued to straddle China and the United States and she is feted in both countries, as well as in Australia, where she won an AFI Award for Best Lead Actress in Home Song Stories. Joan also received an Asian Film Award nomination for the role and won the Asian Film Award for Best Supporting Actress for the Chinese film The Sun Also Rises. Her many other films include Ang Lee’s Lust, Caution, Clara Law’s Temptation of a Monk, Oliver Stone’s Heaven & Earth and Stanley Kwan’s Red Rose, White Rose.

Joan is also a noted director. Xiu Xiu: The Sent Down Girl was adapted from the novella Heavenly Bath by her friend Yan Geling and she also directed Autumn in New York.

Wang Shuang Bao

2010-04-20T05:51:04Z

Wang Shuang Bao is one of China’s foremost actors. He came to international attention in the 2002 film Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress and later in Blind Shaft, for which he won the Best Actor Award at the Bangkok Film Festival.

Bruce Greenwood

2010-04-20T05:50:00Z

Bruce Greenwood’s illustrious career has seen him work with some of the finest directors working in contemporary cinema including Bruce Beresford (Double Jeopardy), Todd Haynes (I’m Not There), Bennett Miller (Capote), Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter) and Deepa Mehta (The Republic of Love). Bruce has featured in many other high profile films including The World’s Fastest Indian, Being Julia, I, Robot, Thirteen Days and Star Trek and in the television series St. Elsewhere and Nowhere Man.

Amanda Schull

2010-04-20T05:48:58Z

Amanda Schull was discovered while an apprentice with the San Francisco Ballet and cast in the leading role in the hugely successful dance film Centre Stage, about a group of tight-knit dance students as they try to make a name for themselves in the fiercely competitive world of professional dancing. She has also appeared in the recent film Women on Top. Amanda was raised in Hawaii, where she studied ballet with John Landovsky of the Hawaiian State Ballet, later performing with the company. After her apprenticeship with the San Francisco Ballet, Amanda became a fully-fledged company member in 1999.

Kyle Maclachlan

2010-04-20T05:48:01Z

Kyle MacLachlan won a Globe Globe Award and was nominated for two Emmy Awards for his remarkable performance as Special Agent Dale Cooper in David Lynch’s cult TV series Twin Peaks. Kyle is one of America’s most recognisable actors, with high profile roles in Desperate Housewives as Orson Hodge and in Sex and the City as Trey McDougal. Kyle’s many film roles include in David Lynch’s Blue Velvet and in Oliver Stone’s biopic The Doors. Kyle was directed by Bruce Beresford in the 1993 film Rich in Love.

Jack Thompson

2010-04-20T05:47:06Z

Jack Thompson is an Australian screen legend. His prolific acting career includes roles in such classic films as The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith, The Man From Snowy River and Breaker Morant for which he won the Cannes Film Festival Best Supporting Actor and AFI Best Actor awards. His body of work has also earned him the Critics Circle of Australia - Life Time Achievement Award and Cinema Owners Association of Australia Award for Outstanding Contribution to Australian Film Entertainment. Jack’s career has spanned the Pacific with leading roles in both Australian and American films including The Sum of Us, Oyster Farmer, Last Dance, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, The Assassination of Richard Nixon, The Good German and Leatherheads. Jack also features in Baz Luhrmann’s Australia.

Camilla Vergotis

2010-04-20T05:46:12Z

Camilla Vergotis attended The Australian Ballet School graduating with honours in 1998. After joining The Australian Ballet, Camilla performed a variety of Principal roles, including Symphony in C, Serenade in Suite en Blanc, Lise in La Fille Mal Gardée, Constance in The Three Musketeers, Ros in The Sentimental Bloke, and Princess Florine in The Sleeping Beauty as a guest artist for The Dancers Company. Her most memorable soloist roles include Canary Fairy and Air Fairy in Stanton Welch’s The Sleeping Beauty; the peasant pas de deux in The Flower Festival in Genzano, the Young Duchess and Cygnet in Graeme Murphy’s Swan Lake, Lucille in Raymonda, the Apache pas de deux in Tivoli, as well as roles in Divergence, Rites, La Bayadére, lead cupid in Molto Vivace, Bomb Squad, In the Upper Room and Paquita. Camilla is currently a soloist with the Hong Kong Ballet.

Madeleine Eastoe

2010-04-20T05:45:15Z

A graduate of The Australian Ballet School, Madeleine Eastoe joined the company in 1997 and danced many lead roles before being promoted to Principal Artist following her debut as Giselle in 2006. Madeleine has particularly enjoyed working one-on-one with choreographer Stephen Baynes to create the lead role in 2007’s Constant Variants, and dancing with guest artists such as Angel Corella in La Fille Mal Gardée and Cédric Ygnace in Giselle. Her career highlight so far, however, was dancing Odette on the opening night of Graeme Murphy’s Swan Lake in London, a role she reprised on the company’s 2007 Japan tour. Madeleine has also toured internationally with The Australian Ballet to China, Singapore, New Zealand and the US.

Steven Heathcote

2010-04-20T05:44:21Z

Steven Heathcote danced with the Australian Ballet for 25 years, a record 20 of them as a Principal Artist. Accepted into the Australian Ballet in 1983, Steven was promoted to soloist in 1985 and principal in 1987. His guest appearances overseas have been with a variety of companies including the Kirov Ballet in 1989 and American Ballet Theatre in 1991 and 1993, as well as Birmingham Royal Ballet, Ballet Nacional de Cuba, The Royal Danish Ballet, Kiev Ballet and Latvian National Ballet. He has had many roles created for him including leading parts in works by Australian choreographers such as Stephen Baynes (1914, Beyond Bach, Unspoken Dialogues), Graeme Murphy (Nutcracker, Swan Lake), Stephen Page (Alchemy, Totem), Natalie Weir (Mirror, Mirror) and Stanton Welch (Madame Butterfly, Corroboree and Cinderella).

Steven is the recipient of three Helpmann Awards and two Mo Awards. In 1991 he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia for his services to dance.

Aden Young

2010-04-20T05:43:23Z

Aden Young shot to international prominence in his first major film role, starring in Bruce Beresford’s acclaimed Black Robe. Aden’s subsequent film roles have included Bruce Beresford’s Paradise Road and River Street, for which he received an AFI Award nomination. Additional credits include Broken Highway, Love in Limbo, Metal Skin, Serenades and the US features Cousin Bette and Under Heaven. Aden’s television roles include After the Deluge, The Starter Wife and Two Twisted.

Bruce Beresford

2010-04-20T05:39:57Z

Bruce Beresford is one of Australia’s most celebrated film directors. He was nominated for an Oscar® in 1980 for the script of Breaker Morant and in 1982 for directing Tender Mercies. His film Driving Miss Daisy was awarded four Oscars®, including the Award for Best Picture, in 1989.

Bruce Beresford’s early Australian films include Don’s Party, The Getting of Wisdom, The Club and Puberty Blues as well as the internationally acclaimed Breaker Morant .

Bruce’s many other film credits include Crimes of the Heart, Black Robe, Mister Johnson, Double Jeopardy and Paradise Road and he has been awarded three Australian Film Institute Awards and been nominated for several others.

Bruce has also directed several operas and recently published a memoir, Josh Hartnett Definitely Wants to do This…True Stories from a Life in the Screen Trade.

Jane Scott

2010-04-20T05:39:03Z

Jane Scott is one of Australia’s most respected producers. She produced the Academy Award-winning Shine, starring Geoffrey Rush and Noah Taylor and was nominated for the Darryl F Zanuck Theatrical Motion Picture Producer of the Year Award (1996) by the Producers Guild of America. Jane produced Love’s Brother, a collaboration with the screenwriter of both Shine and Mao’s Last Dancer, Jan Sardi. Jane also produced the acclaimed feature Head On, directed by Anna Kokkinos, and Crocodile Dundee II. Earlier in her career, Jane worked on some of Australia’s highest profile films including Strictly Ballroom, Crocodile Dundee, My Brilliant Career and Storm Boy.