Hu Rongrong

Hu Rongrong, whose family came from Yixing, Jiangsu, was born in Shanghai in 1929. As a child she starred in films such as Parents and Children and New Year's Coins, her tap and ballet dancing likened to Shirley Temple's, and from the age of five she studied ballet with the Russian emigre dancer Sokolsky, among the earliest Chinese ballet students. From 1950 she taught dance at the Shanghai Theatre School, and in 1960 became deputy principal of the Shanghai Dance School. In 1964-65 she led the choreography of the ballet The White-Haired Girl, expanding it from a short piece into a full-length dance drama. In 1979 she became the first director of the Shanghai Ballet. She died in Shanghai on 30 March 2012.