Talent on tap

SHANGHAI: At 55, Chen Xiaoxia, team leader of Silver-Hair Art Troupe, believes that tap dancing has rejuvenated her life. "I have confidence that I can lead my team members to find more joy in the rhythm of tap dance. Listening to the rhythm of tap dance will make a lot of people happier," Chen says.

Chen and the rest of her team all belong to the same retiree association of the Shanghai Workers' Union. The-20-plus-member troupe, whose ages range from 50 to 70 years old, has won numerous awards.

"At the age of 33, I almost died of serious illness. Once on a bus, a primary school girl gave her seat to me and called me 'granny'. I was shocked, " she says.

When Chen is teaching her students who are mostly young white-collars, however, the viewers might mistake Chen as a young girl at the first sight of her slender silhouette.

Chen once suffered from endocrinopathy which caused her right eye to bulge out. The worst outcome would be blindness and then death. Luckily, Chen managed to survive with hormone medicine.

Her slim figure was gone and she pined away. "Then, I came to realize that I must exercise to keep myself healthy and regain slenderness."

Chen first learned Latin dancing.

"I chose dancing as the best way of exercise, because dancing is a dream I have cherished ever since I was a little girl," Chen says.

Chen, as a teenager, had planned to be a professional dancer, but her father, a senior engineer, did not want her to be a performer at all.

When she was sent to a remote village in Heilongjiang Province in 1968 under the country's campaign of reeducating the youth in the countryside during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), her mother gave her a special gift - a pair of ballet shoes, which Chen had clung to for years.

The shoes changed Chen's life.

When Chen was in that remote village, she became known as the girl with a pair of ballet shoes.

"They mistook me for a ballerina, and when the local officials came to the village to pick up some girls to join in a local artistic group, I was chosen," Chen says.

Chen had little dance technique when she entered the group, so she practiced very hard, and got up at 4 am every day.

Chen then did folk dance for the next 6 years, after which the group disbanded.

Chen became a local primary school teacher, teaching children music and dance. In 1978, she managed to return to Shanghai by substituting her mother for the post at a textile factory as an accountant.

"All the experience prepared me for being a dance teacher," sighs Chen.

In 1998, Chen started to learn dance from professional teachers. She began with Latin dances and later found tap dance more appealing.

"Tap dance is not only dance, but also music. It is a kind of percussion music. Latin has many set rules, but tap dance offers you more freedom. I love improvisation, so I switched to tap dance," she says.

When Chen was still an intermediate student, her talent was noticed by her teachers and classmates.

Her teacher recommended Chen to teach fledging tap dance students.

The Silver-Hair Art Troupe began recruiting members in 2004. Chen stood out from thousands of retirees and she became a member of the troupe.

Chen's teachers include many famous dancers in Shanghai, such as Shi Zhongqin, Deng Qiuxia and Wang Yuan.

"I should thank my teachers, classmates and students. They prompted me to learn more and to learn better. Then I can teach the students better," she says.

One of her tap dance classmates, Chen Jiefang, a retired engineer in his late 70s, always discusses tap dance techniques with Chen.

"Even when Chen was diagnosed with cancer, he did not give up his tap dance studies. He translated a lot of English material on tap dance," says Chen.

After a year of treatment, Chen recovered and he is still dancing.

With Chen's support, Chen Xiaoxia is learning more tap dance theory "so I can teach my young students some English terms of tap dance".

(China Daily 09/19/2007 page20)