The Neal & Massy Foun­da­tion is giv­ing its sup­port to the Dai Ail­ian Foun­da­tion which was formed last year to ho­n­our and pro­mote the life and work of the in­ter­na­tion­al dance icon, dis­tin­guished prin­ci­pal dancer, teacher, chore­o­g­ra­ph­er, dance com­pa­ny artis­tic di­rec­tor, re­searcher, la­ban­o­ta­tor, lec­tur­er and demon­stra­tor.

Dai Ail­ian, who was born in Cou­va, Trinidad in 1916, is wide­ly re­gard­ed in Chi­na as the moth­er of Chi­nese bal­let. The In­ter­na­tion­al The­atre In­sti­tute in Paris, France will ho­n­our Madam Dai in their 30th An­niver­sary pub­li­ca­tion for In­ter­na­tion­al Dance Day at Un­esco this year.

One of the Dai Ail­ian Foun­da­tion's ob­jec­tives is to of­fer per­form­ing arts schol­ar­ships and two young dancers, Juan Pablo Al­ba Den­nis from Port-of-Spain, and Seon Nurse from Laven­tille were award­ed one-year schols. They are now at the pres­ti­gious Bei­jing Dance Acad­e­my in Bei­jing, the Peo­ple's Re­pub­lic of Chi­na, on schol­ar­ships which com­menced last Sep­tem­ber and fin­ish in Ju­ly.

Re­ports in­di­cate that the Bei­jing Dance Acad­e­my is im­pressed with their tal­ent and ap­pli­ca­tion to work and Juan Pablo and Seon are en­joy­ing their learn­ing and cul­tur­al ex­pe­ri­ences while at the same time be­ing great am­bas­sadors for T&T.