What is JacketFlap

  • JacketFlap connects you to the work of more than 200,000 authors, illustrators, publishers and other creators of books for Children and Young Adults. The site is updated daily with information about every book, author, illustrator, and publisher in the children's / young adult book industry. Members include published authors and illustrators, librarians, agents, editors, publicists, booksellers, publishers and fans.
    Join now (it's free).

Sort Blog Posts

Sort Posts by:

  • in
    from   

Suggest a Blog

Enter a Blog's Feed URL below and click Submit:

Most Commented Posts

In the past 7 days

Recent Posts

(tagged with 'David Barboza')

Recent Comments

Recently Viewed

JacketFlap Sponsors

Spread the word about books.
Put this Widget on your blog!
  • Powered by JacketFlap.com

Are you a book Publisher?
Learn about Widgets now!

Advertise on JacketFlap

MyJacketFlap Blogs

  • Login or Register for free to create your own customized page of blog posts from your favorite blogs. You can also add blogs by clicking the "Add to MyJacketFlap" links next to the blog name in each post.

Blog Posts by Tag

In the past 7 days

Blog Posts by Date

Click days in this calendar to see posts by day or month
new posts in all blogs
Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: David Barboza, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 1 of 1
1. Dream Interrupted

"Still Dancing in Her Dreams." That was the title, and so I read, unprepared, this story about Liu Yan, 26, who was paralyzed in an accident just prior to the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. According to New York Times reporter David Barboza, Ms. Liu had been China's leading classical dancer, a woman of such extraordinary grace, extension, and soul that she had earned the only solo performance in the extravagant, theatrical Zhang Yimou show. It was to last six minutes. It was to have been called "Silk Road." She was rehearsing before 10,000 when, in Barboza's words, "she leapt toward a moving stage that malfunctioned, causing her to fall into a deep shaft and crash against a steel rod."

She woke in a hospital, with no use of her legs, her story unknown. She was asked not to speak of her fate; her family and witnesses were silenced, too. It would distract, officials felt, from the opening ceremonies, which she watched on a TV, in her hospital room.

Her arms still open to the wind. Her legs don't move.

I had been to Chanticleer, hours before, with a friend. We had seen a vase, its rooted limbs upreaching. We had spoken of its beauty, and I had thought of a dancer then—seen a dancer in the arcing, budded shafts. Now Liu Yan in my mind is that dancer—still a dancer, always a dancer, tragically caged now, as a dancer. These are the stories one cannot look past. The stories one can't fix, or mend.

11 Comments on Dream Interrupted, last added: 4/20/2009
Display Comments Add a Comment