Red Detachment of Women (ballet)
Xue Jinghua (born October 7,1946 ) (Chinese: 薛菁华; pinyin: Xūe Jīnghúa) is a Chinese ballerina who was cast in the now internationally well-known Red Detachment of Women of the National Ballet of China as Wu Qinghua, the heroine of the ballet for which she became a big-time prima ballerina. The film version of the ballet was released in 1971 in China, five years into the Cultural Revolution. As one of the Eight model plays, the film was shown across the country in every cinema, every factory, and every village in the following several years until 1976 when the Cultural Revolution officially ended. As a consequence of the film, Xue Jinghua achieved a nationwide fame. Liu Qingtang was cast as Hong Changqing in the ballet and the film version of it.
When Richard Nixon, the thirty-seventh President of the United States, visited China in 1972, he was entertained with a stage production of Red Detachment of Women, and Xue Jinghua performed as Wu Qinghua in the ballet. This, according to Xue, was the best of her numerous performances since 1967.
What happened next was that Xue Jinghua was diagnosed with tuberculosis, and she was bedridden for the next five years. Afterwards, it took her tremendous effort to return her physical condition to the level of a ballerina.
In 1977, when Xue Jinghua was ready to return to the stage, she experienced her political troubles: she was suspected to be related to the Gang of Four who had seen their downfall in 1976, and an investigation begun. Meanwhile, she was relegated to work as a seamstress for other ballerinas. She eventually survived her ordeal, unscathed.
After the Sino-US relationship was normalized in 1979, Xue Jinghua was among the first delegation of artists that were sent by the Chinese government to visit the US.
In the following decade, Xue visited many countries as a ballerina as well as a representative of Chinese artists.
In 1990, she resigned her position at the Central Ballet Troupe headquaterted in Beijing to join her husband, Chen Ping, in Hong Kong. Here Xue started working as a ballet coach. Xue and her husband have a daughter, Mimi.