A scene from the dance The Thousand-Handed Goddess of Mercy

"Our teacher beat a drum on the floor and I could feel rhythmic vibration passing under my feet over the floor," Tai said when remembering her childhood.

She was totally thrilled by the vibration and bent over the floor to press her face and hands and even her whole body to the floor to feel the vibration and rhythm. Dance and rhythm have become her lifelong friends since then. In the following years, whenever she saw dance performances on TV, Tai would like to press her face closely to the loudspeaker to feel the rhythms of different beats.

When she was 15, she was selected by the China Disabled People's Performing Art Troupe, an unofficial troupe for special art founded in 1987. She was chosen as a dancer and began to receive professional dance training. Through sheer will and hard work Tai made dance her form of expression.

"The only way for me to learn dancing is to remember, repeat, and remember again, until I can feel that a band is alongside me and can play music for me at any time," said Tai. In her eyes, dance is a visible and colorful music and a beautiful language to express her inner world.

The persistence and hard work paid off. She became one of the best dancers of the troupe. Along with other members, she has visited over 50 countries and performed in all the world's leading theaters, including New York's Carnegie Hall and Milan's La Scala Theater. In 2000, a huge poster of her dance The Soul of the Peacock was posted in Carnegie Hall, the first time this had been done for a Chinese performer.

Another form of art

But Tai does not care too much about honors or fame. She has refused many advertisement invitations from various enterprises. "I am a dancer and I need a quiet life," she said.

She was not satisfied with the achievements in dance and set herself a new goal. In 1994, she was admitted to the Hubei Art Institute, majoring in design and decoration. While at university she was immersed in another world, that of painting, which greatly enriched her understanding of beauty and art.

One of her paintings shows a person against a dark background. In the black space, Tai drew a lot of ears, eyes and suns. Through this drawing, she hopes to express that the blind can hear the world with ears, the deaf and mute can see the world with their eyes and the sunlight makes people feel the hope of life.