Li Ziyi, Guan's former student, helps younger girls during a class in Duancun.[GAO TIAN/CHINA DAILY]

A love affair

Having taught ballet for more than two decades, Guan is an expert. He had never taught children before, so he decided to return to a more basic, and sometimes buried, love of dancing. "This has to be a love affair from the start. Otherwise, we won't be able to stay," said Guan, who in his first official class encouraged his then-slightly unruly pupils to perform Dance of the Little Swans from Swan Lake.

"I chose the dance because the children have grown up playing in the water," said Guan, referring to the town's five villages, simultaneously separated and connected by open water. "Any art education is a form of aesthetic education. I want my girls to associate ballet with beauty not pain at first, although they'll eventually have to endure pain in their quest for beauty."

The girls danced in soft shoes for six months, before Guan decided it was time for them to try standard ballet shoes, whose hard toecaps assist performers to dance on the tips of their toes, or en pointe.

"One moment, they were learning to tie the ribbons and the next they were jumping around like fallow deer, spirited and spellbound," Guan said. "Within six months, all the girls could stand on the tips of their toes, something never before achieved by a ballet school in China."

Guan gives the credit to his students. "Young as they are, my girls are by no means like their pampered city sisters. I told them: 'I know it's painful, so you can shed tears if you want, but don't cry out loud.' I never heard a single sob in my class," he said. "They practiced nonstop after class. Their mothers sent me photos and video footage showing the girls practicing en pointe while, say, reading a book."

Li Ziyi was among the first students, and she remembers the moment the physical cost of ballet became apparent. "I was washing my feet at the end of a long day. Suddenly, Mom stared into the basin and shouted, 'What's that?' Two pieces of toenail were floating on the surface of the water," she said. "I hadn't felt any pain up to that point, perhaps I was too preoccupied with dancing. But for the next few months until new nails grew, I was in hell."

The girls have danced for visitors from outside Hebei, and occasionally, outside China.