He was our Baryshnikov. Truly, it's hard to overstate what a presence Li Cunxin was in Houston in the 1980s. The child of an impoverished family in rural China, he was plucked by Madame Mao’s cultural delegates to study at the Peking Dance Academy at the age of 11. He was eventually awarded a scholarship to study in Houston, where he famously defected and went on to become one of the greatest ballet dancers in the world—and stayed, despite offers from other companies. And for kids like me, he was, and always will be, the one true Nutcracker prince.

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