Off stage, Sun is fairly similar to the character she portrays on stage; both of them are pessimistic and delicate in nature, and yet both have the feminine virtue of perseverance. Perhaps this is one of the reasons why the director of the dance drama chose Sun to play the role of Yuer.

Sun was born in Ya'an City, Sichuan Province in 1980. In order to improve her physical health, Sun's parents sent her to study dance when she was six years old. Since then, she has been fascinated with the art. When she was a young girl, she enjoyed and greatly admired the dances performed by adults; and she dreamed of becoming a dancer.

Sun seems to have been born to dance. As a child, she made her bed into a stage on which she danced cheerfully; and her parents were her first audience. At that moment, no one suspected that her dream of becoming a dancer would come true one day.

Sun has been lucky; and her road toward becoming a professional dancer has been easy. At the age of 12, she entered the Sichuan Dance School. Four years later she was enrolled in the Classical Dance Department of the Beijing Dance Academy, which is known as China's supreme dance college. After graduating from the academy in 1999, she began to work as a solo dancer at the China National Opera and Dance Drama Theater. She once played the ghost of Lin Daiyu in the dance drama The Spirit Entombing Flowers in the Red Mansions and held the lead role in the dance The Romance of Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai at a dance evening titled "Getting Close to China's Dance Dramas."

Behind these successes though are painful torments that others would hardly be able to tolerate. "Compared with my classmates," Sun says, "my physical health is poor, but I insist on rising at 6:00 every morning for a jog. I have to devote myself to training, making 10 to 20 times more of an effort than others; if I don't, I will lag far behind those who enjoy a more suitable physique for dancing."

One of the experiences that has made a lasting impression on her as a dancer involves the seven-minute dance routine she performed at the Sichuan "Golden Dragon Cup" Dance Contest. While preparing for the competition, she practiced the action of kneeling so often that she injured her knees. She hid her wounds from the others though, and kept on practicing. Alone, she folded her trouser legs up and found her knees bleeding. She could not help bursting into tears.

Girls who want to make dancing a lifetime career endure severe physical challenges. Therefore, many give up halfway. Sun persists because she is unable to forget her family's great expectations of her. "I must have strong willpower and stick it out," she says to encourage herself.

As a dancer, Sun spends most of her life in the training hall. Although extremely tired after a day's training, she has not given up her hobbies, which include reading, calligraphy, painting, drama, and sculpture. "I think dance is an art that creates images out of roles," says Sun. "Taking the Love and Hatred in the Yuanmingyuan Garden for example, the story that the dance drama tells is far removed from modern times. One has to read books or watch dramas to learn about the people of the past, and then create images of these people on stage through dance," adds Sun. As a dancer, Sun knows how to express her deepest feelings through body language.

"I want to play a number of different roles in dance dramas," Sun says with great hope and confidence. "Anyway, dance is an art for youngsters only, so I should make full use of my potential when I am young. There is still a long road for me to go in life. My goal is to be an artist, not just a dancer. I hope to be engaged in different arts and to find a road suitable for me. Of course, I will never separate myself with art because I love it."

(China Pictorial April 7, 2003)