Steve Mellon, Post-Gazette Yanlai Wu of Mt. Lebanon, shown at Point State Park, will open her Chinese classical dance school in Downtown this weekend. Click photo for larger image.

To meet an old friend in a distant country is like the delight of rain after a long drought.

-- Chinese proverb

They were the chosen ones. Selected from more than 7,000 candidates across mainland China, Yanlai Wu and Ying Li met at the Beijing Dance Academy. Wu, the first to arrive, was placed on the path of traditional Chinese dance. Li, who came the next year, was placed in classical ballet.

Like Lotus blossoms they flowered under the strict regimen, each rising to the top of her class. But with the onset of two vastly different careers -- Li to the Central Ballet of China, Wu to the Beijing Youth Troupe -- the two lost touch.

Through a bit of serendipity, the two friends met once again, a world away, in Pittsburgh. Li had established herself as the reigning ballerina at Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre with another Beijing classmate and husband, Jiabin Pan. Wu arrived only last year, enamored with a city made by steel and set to marry local businessman Juping Jin. She had her sights set on her own school, one founded in the bedrock of Chinese traditions.

The drought was over.

Devoted to dance

Wu was born in Yunnan province, located near Vietnam. A team of experts from the Beijing Academy would visit schools all over China to pick the most promising dancers. Wu was then 11 years old and had never had any training. She was asked to stand up and move around. "Do you like dance?" they inquired.

She emphatically replied, "Yes." For the chosen, many considered this career a way out. In Wu's case, her province was lovely -- some say it was the location for James Hilton's Shangri-La in "Lost Horizon" -- but surrounded by mountains and difficult to access.

After several tests based on body proportions, flexibility, rhythm, mime and intelligence, Wu and her mother received a letter to travel to Beijing. Wu had to persuade her mother to go. There she received another battery of tests, this time based on academics.

With a process that began in January, it wasn't until June that Wu received her letter of acceptance. She was one of 30 children to make the final cut.

It was a major decision because Beijing was three days by train. Wu would not be able to return home during the school's weeklong vacations. She lived at the academy's compound near the world-famous Summer Palace. Although less well-known than the programs at the Paris Opera in France and Vaganova Academy in St. Petersburg, Russia, it is frequently compared to them.

Randy Choura Ying Li, who dances for Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre, says of her friend Yanlai Wu: "I am moved by her energy -- she is a treasure." Click photo for larger image.

The current complex is as large as New York City's Lincoln Center and functions as a complete dance community. There are academic buildings that encompass middle school through college levels. The dance building itself holds 43 large, light-filled studios and, in the basement, a workout room and acrobatic training center. Dormitories house more than 1,000 students majoring in folk dance, modern dance, choreography, and dance history and theory, among others.

Nearly 200 teachers live with their families and other staff members in apartment buildings nearby. Also included are several theaters, a department of music education, a health clinic, library and a film/archival center.

A new world

It was a completely new world that could be overwhelming. But, after her acceptance into the Chinese classical dance program, the now 12-year-old Wu plunged into a hardy schedule that began at 6 a.m. and didn't end until 9 p.m. six days a week. She began her day by running in the park and took ballet class, the foundation of her training, every day.

Li arrived the next year from Shanghai, considered the most cosmopolitan and trend-setting of Chinese cities. That year all of the selected dance students were to be trained in classical ballet. Still, she was schooled in traditional Chinese styles as well. "It's all arms and shows the Chinese culture in great detail," she says. "I benefited from that in my own career."

The two often took the daylong train trip to Shanghai for vacations, where Wu had relatives. Wu remembers giggling when she saw Li on the train -- one that they would share for more than six years.

Upon graduation, Li settled in at the Central Ballet of China and would win prizes at the Prix de Lausanne, Osaka and Varna competitions. Wu won a spate of awards on her own, including first prize at the Beijing Dance Competition and the choreography award at the Guangzhou International Dance Festival. She would move to Japan and appear with the Setsuko Ishiguro Dance Company and was the only dancer to appear with fashion designer Issey Miyake. She went on to produce, choreograph and dance in the Dunhuang Dance Tour and "Dream Symphony," a production with 300 artists that reproduced palace music and dance of the Tang dynasty.

But America beckoned to them both. Li first settled in at Ballet Met in Columbus, Ohio, before coming to Pittsburgh. Wu went to New York and, through connections made there, began teaching at the Mitsi Dancing School in Houston.

While teaching there, she met her future husband. Jin offered to move to Houston, but after a visit to Pittsburgh, Wu decided to come north with her son, 7-year old Haoyuan. Houston already had a number of Chinese schools. She would offer Pittsburgh Chinese, with a metropolitan area population of 20,000, their first exposure.

The reunion

Upon arrival in Pittsburgh, an acquaintance spoke of "a Chinese dancer at the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre." Wu simply looked in the telephone book and the connection was made.

While Li was greatly "surprised," the two never missed a beat. She immediately helped her friend set up the Oriental Star Dance School in Squirrel Hill, remarking, "I am moved by her energy -- she is a treasure."

But Wu wanted more. After only a year, she was inspired by Downtown Pittsburgh and decided to move her school to the Diamond Building on Liberty Avenue across from Fifth Avenue Place.

"It is a beauty. In my imagination, my school must be here," she says. "I want to be a bridge between the Chinese and American culture."

Wu plans to offer classes in classical Chinese dance and lunchtime aerobics. And yes, Li will be teaching ballet to the young dancers at the fledgling studio, which opens Saturday.

It is symbolic of the burgeoning awareness of Chinese culture here. A newly formed organization, Harmonizing, will produce a concert with Chinese erhu virtuoso Karen Han at the Pittsburgh High School for the Creative and Performing Arts on Oct. 15.

Both Li and Wu will perform in their respective styles on the program. But somehow they will share a deep connection, one that simply began by being chosen a world away.

For further information on the Oriental Star Dance Academy, call 412-344-1585 or visit orientaldance@gmail.com.