Dance Like Everybody's Watching

By staff reporter LI WUZHOU

SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD Li Mengchu is just like any normal student at Shanghai Nanyang Model High School, but she has witnessed the Shanghai Expo from its inception. Eight years ago, she was sent to Paris to attend China’s bid to host the 2010 World Expo as a dancer in the CWI (China Welfare Institute) Children’s Palace.

Li Mengchu receiving a Coming up Taller Award from then First Lady Laura Bush at the White House in Washington, D.C. in 2008.

A Successful Bid

On June 27, 2002, Li Mengchu, only eight years old at the time, took off for Paris with her friends in the Little Companion Art Troupe, accompanied by their coaches. They were scheduled to give a performance for the VIPs of the Bureau International of Expositions (BIE) who had a big say in who would win the bid.

Two days later, 28 children including Li Mengchu performed in the Champs Elysées Theatre. In the audience sat the wife of former French President Georges Pompidou, former Prime Minister Pierre Messmer, the BIE President Noghes, Chinese Ambassador to France Wu Jianmin, Mayor of Shanghai, Deputy Mayor of Paris, and delegates from other bidding countries.

Their number was called Chinoiserie, divided into six parts, each a special dance of a Chinese ethnic group. The show was broadcast live on several big television networks and received thunderous applause in the theater.

An embassy employee told Li Mengchu and her friends backstage that the honored guests had high praise for them and their performance made for an unforgettable evening. “You know, my friends and I were still low with jet lag and hadn’t acclimatized to Paris yet; some had even come down with a high fever,” she recalled. “But we felt refreshed stepping out onto the stage. We smiled from the heart – we love smiling.”

“I really hope my country will win the bid,” Li wrote in her diary. “If it comes true, I will be 16 years old when the Expo is held. I can still dance for the Expo then.”

On Stage in the Expo Park

Her dream came true on August 8, 2010. At the invitation of the Hawaii government, Li and her companions from the Little Companion Art Troupe performed a Hawaiian dance on the outdoor stage of the U.S.A. Pavilion.

The excited Li spent the whole summer practicing the hula, a unique and totally different technique from those used in Chinese dance. Accompanied by several guitarists, Li and her friends dominated the stage from 1 pm straight through to 4:30 pm in blistering temperatures reaching 38℃, but people’s enthusiasm was hotter still. “So many people gathered around the stage, cheering us from beginning to end,” Li still beams when recounting their show in the Expo Park. “I wanted to give our best to the audience.”

Before the opening of the Expo, Li Mengchu gave more than a dozen performances every year. Dancing was her way to promote the Expo and draw attention to it.

The dancer was only four years old when she started lessons. A dozen years of hard practice has made her a veteran at a tender age: she performed for the 2001 APEC Shanghai meeting, the 2002 conference of the Asian Development Bank, the Shanghai 2007 Special Olympics, and the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games. She also graced the stage in the U.S., France, Australia, Malaysia, Japan, Singapore, and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, among others. In 2008 she accepted, on behalf of the CWI Children’s Palace, a Coming Up Taller Award in Washington, D.C.

However, the dancer’s road is not as smooth as people might imagine. Most of the young woman’s time is devoted to hard practice and performance. Many of her companions gave up dancing, but she persists. Time is always short for her, but one of the benefits of a busy life is her skill at balancing study, performance and personal life. If she misses a class, she makes it up no matter how much extra effort it takes. From primary to high school, Li has always been a straight-A student.

At the end of last year, Li Mengchu emceed her high school’s student art festival. She also choreographed a number and with a chorus for the festival. Actually most of her classmates had no interest in Chinese folk dance. Li’s dedication however has led to an invitation to be the school’s assistant dance teacher in charge of choreography and rehearsals. Students gradually changed their mind about folk dance after Li incorporated a lot of modern elements to the tradition. Now Li’s class is one of the most popular electives in the school.

In the Wake of Expo

Dancing is a way to communicate for Li Mengchu. Last summer, she taught an American girl Xinjiang dance, one of the most representative dances of China. This was part of an activity called “Across the world, a red string.” She also applied herself to her English lessons, so conversation with foreign visitors would be richer.

Selected to be one of Shanghai’s 60 Stars of Etiquette, the young dancer attended a large-scale environmental activity called “Concerning Our Wetland Home” in the Theme Pavilion of the 2010 World Expo. “We are becoming aware of the importance of protecting wetlands and other environments. Our effort may be modest, but we are unremittingly devoted.”

To put the low-carbon concept into practice, she and her family changed all the household bulbs over to energy-saving types, sorted their domestic waste, switched to reusable shopping bags instead of plastic, and collected waste water to flush their toilet.

Naturally Li Mengchu has special feelings for this Expo, and many times visited the park where she performed. “Hundreds of millions of people came to participate in the event,” Li says about the meaning of the Shanghai Expo in her life, “and I think the Chinese have demonstrated their strong interest in foreign cultures and hopes for further exchanges on culture, technology and art. In other words, the Expo is a stage for exchanging the best we all can offer each other.”

The theme of Germany Pavilion, Balancity, left the deepest impression on her. “People can create a harmonious city one positive act at a time. Low-carbon is not an abstract concept. If we keep them in mind all the time, our accomplishments will be automatic.” She points to changes in her own lifestyle that once she would have thought of as hardships, “My parents used to come pick me up or call a cab for me after performances or rehearsals. Since being touched by the vision for ‘Better City, Better Life,’ I started to just jump on the subway or bus. I do what I can, which is saving the environment as well as my money.”