Ballet, the dance created for court performances in Renaissance Europe that reached into the world of high art in early 17th century France, has long been loved by Chinese. As early as the I920s, and into the 1950s and 1960s when the country was alienated from the West and its people were mired in poverty, some urban Chinese parents sent their daughters to ballet class after school, believing that this Western genre of art was the epitome of beauty and an educa-tional requirement for young ladies who held great expectations.