Dance veteran leads new initiative for Chinese ballet

Zhao Ruheng will never forget her trip to Hong Kong in 1980, when she participated in a summer workshop organized by the Royal Academy of Dance.

For Zhao, dance director of the National Center for the Performing Arts in Beijing and former president of National Ballet of China, the trip was her first encounter with the UK-based examination board, one of the world's most influential dance education and training organizations with a focus on classical ballet. The experience was the beginning of a new chapter in Zhao's career.

She was not only given an English name, Sonia, by one of the ballet teachers, Jean Bedells, whose mother Phyllis Bedells was one of RAD's founding members, but she was also inspired by the teaching methods of RAD.