ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: ENT3-JIN XING

(11 Nov 1999) English/Nat JIN XING, DANCER EXTRAORDINAIRE AND CHINA'S FIRST OPEN TRANSSEXUAL. STORY:CHINESE DANCER LOCATION:LONDON DATE:NOVEMBER 5TH '99 When Chinese dancer, JIN XING, walks into the room, she effortlessly attracts attention with her noble bearing and elegant clothes. But there is something else about her that sets her apart ;Jin Xing is a transsexual and more significantly, she's the first transexual in China to talk openly about her sexual identity. At thirty-two, Jin Xing (pronounced jin Shing) has an impressive resume as a prize-winning dancer and choreographer and the founder of China's first wholly contemporary independent dance troupe. She is currently performing in her show, \"Hostess\" as part of the \"Beijing in London\", a ten-day festival of Chinese underground cultural events at the Institute of Contemporary Arts. Born into a military family, she (then a he) joined a dance troupe run by the army at the age of nine. Dance instructors remember a wilful child, fiercely determined and extraordinarily talented as a dancer. Jin Xing spent a total of sixteen years in the Chinese Army as a man, training with the cream of performers and sportsmen and women to become one of China's finest male classical dancers and a colonel to boot. After winning a competition in 1986, Jin Xing abandoned the rigours of classical ballet to study contemporary dance with the MARTHA GRAHAM Company in New York for four years. Real artistic distinction came in 1996, a year after Ms Jin's sex change operation in China, when she established China's first independent dance troupe and began performing a set of startingly original pieces that explored issues of love and identity. Like many transsexuals, Ms Jin said she had known from childhood that she had a gender conflict. Living in New York and Europe, where she spent three years, Jin Xing became aware that a sex change was a real possibility. She did not discuss her decision to become a woman with her parents until she was about to go ahead with the operation in a Beijing hospital in 1995. Although Jin Xing is aware that many Chinese people do not understand her metamorphosis from man to woman, she does not feel they reject her for it. In fact, the famous dancer has been relatively well accepted by the cultural establishment, so much so that she recently attended a lunch for British Prime Minister, TONY BLAIR, on his trip to China. In 1998, she won an award from the Cultural Ministry and as a sign of their official approval, many Government-backed organizations have commissioned her to choreograph performances. She recently staged a performance of monks from Shaolin Monastery and has also worked with a children's acrobatic troupe at the military academy where she studied as a young man. \"Don't get the wrong idea that China is becoming very contemporary\" warns Zin Wing, \"This is a very small, tiny part of Chinese society\". The dancer also owns and runs a Beijing club called \"Have Dream\", making her the perfect hostess for this week's festivities in London. MUSIC CLEARANCE DETAILS TITLE: DOCTOR FEEL GOOD ARTIST: ARETHA FRANKLIN WRITER: FRANKLIN/WHITE PUBLISHER: EMI SONGS LABLE: WEA INT Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork Twitter:   / ap_archive   Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​ Instagram:   / apnews   You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...