From Reuters:

As a young ballet dancer, Zhao Ruheng would traipse across the Chinese countryside performing a carefully selected repertoire to factory workers and peasants and do her bit for the now notorious cultural revolution.

Although relatively privileged during those dark days, she says that the 1966-76 mass campaign to transform China into a militantly Communist society, which descended into violence, denunciations, purges and warfare, was “a big tragedy.”

But as Zhao brings the National Ballet of China to London’s prestigious Covent Garden this week, she also recognizes that the cultural revolution ensured the country quickly became aware of ballet, a benefit that is still felt today.