Dai Ailian (; May 10, 1916 – February 9, 2006) was a Chinese dancer and an important figure in the modern history of dance in China. She was born in 1916 into an overseas Chinese family living in Trinidad. Her years as a dance teacher and educator helped China build a generation of dancers, choreographers, and educators. She is known in China as the "Mother of Chinese Modern Dance" for her contributions to the field of dance in China, including her early articulation of three core commitments that shaped dance in China during the second half of the twentieth century.
Early life
Dai Ailian was born in Couva, Trinidad to a third-generation Chinese family, whose origins were in Xinhui, Guangdong Province. Born Eileen Isaac, she never knew her family's Chinese surname, as her paternal grandfather was given the surname Isaac upon his arrival in Trinidad. She used the name Eileen Isaac until her move to England, when her teacher Anton Dolin asked her for her Chinese surname. Her mother selected the surname Dai, after her father's nickname Ah Dai. Influenced by her mother, who loved music, she liked to dance from a young age. She began studying ballet in Trinidad from the age of 7.
In 1931 at the age of 15, Dai moved to London to further her study of ballet under former Ballets Russes dancer Anton Dolin where she danced alongside Alicia Markova. 1930s London was a hub for major ballet talent and she also studied with Marie Rambert and Margaret Craske, the foremost discipline of Enrico Cecchetti. Inspired by German expressionist modern dancers, she joined the classes of Lesley Burrows-Goossens, one of the few modern dancers teaching in London at the time. She went on to study modern dance at Jooss Modern Dance School on full scholarship after it relocated to London. There she learned the theory and techniques developed by Rudolf von Laban including Labanotation, which she was later enthusiastic in spreading in China.
In London Dai saw Indian dancer Uday Shankar as well as Japanese, and Javanese dances, but no Chinese dances, which inspired her to want to create Chinese dances. In this period, she choreographed a number of works, including a solo dance called Yang Guifei's Dance Before the Emperor that she created in 1936 based on her interpretation of the famous concubine, a historical character that Dai learned about at the British Museum Library. In 1937 Dai had a very small role as a Chinese Dancer in The Wife of General Ling. This film is the only recording of Dai's dancing from her time in London. She spoke no Chinese when she left London for China at the end of 1939.
Founding of modern Chinese dance
In 1937, Dai performed in benefit concerts in London organized by the China Campaign Committee to raise funds for the Hong Kong-based China Defense League, which was headed by Soong Ching-ling, wife of Sun Yat-sen. After reading the book Red Star Over China by Edgar Snow during the Japanese invasion of China, she travelled to Hong Kong with the help of Soong in 1940. While in Hong Kong, she premiered her work East River in January 1941 in one of the concerts to raise funds for the war effort against the Japanese invasion. After Hong Kong was attacked by Japan, she traveled to mainland China, where she participated in charity concerts and studied Chinese folk dances and operas. She created pieces based on folk traditions such as The Drum of the Yao People and The Old Piggybacking the Young. This was in line with her theorizing that dance should be rooted in local performance forms. Apart from creating, choreographing, performing dance pieces, she also taught dance all over China.
After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Dai was at the center of the push to create new dance institutions. In 1949 she was named deputy director of the Central Song and Dance Ensemble, and in 1954 she became the principal of the new Beijing Dance Academy. She also served as director and adviser to the Central Ballet of China, and was the vice-chairman of the Chinese Dancers' Association.