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The contributions the American cultural presence made to China's cultural pluralism are obvious. In the area of music, many pieces visiting American musicians played had never been included in the repertoire of Chinese musicians. Through their performances, American musicians also introduced to the Chinese people the works of American composers. In July 1980, the Minnesota University Symphony Orchestra toured China. The pieces it presented were almost exclusively by contemporary American composers. Some of what was served up for cultural consumption was especially impressive to Chinese audiences for its American characteristics. The dances by Graham Young's students were loudly cheered by the audience, a major part of which was of college students, as there had seldom been on Chinese stages such vivid and humorous performances or such a free treatment of the actor-audience relationship.
The diversity American artists brought to Chinese cultural life was also expressed in the expansion of activity to performances of some particular instruments on the Chinese stage, such as the harp and mouth organ. Before the Chinese-American mouth organist Huang Qingbai made his first visit to China in 1979, this instrument had been regarded by Chinese as merely a toy. Though his efforts, the mouth organ has been established as a musical instrument of artistic value and incorporated in the orchestra, though some Chinese musicians still hold a negative view of it. Similarly, Chinese audiences first saw a harp solo and harp ensemble during performances of incoming American musicians in 1981.
The influx of American artistic endeavours also affected the activity of already established Chinese artists. Thus the first generation of Chinese ballet dancers were trained by Russians. As a result, Chinese ballet followed a distinctive Russian tradition. But what has surprised the Russians in recent years was that they have seen a successful combination of both Russian influence and Western approaches in the current performances of Chinese dancers. There are, of course, many factors in this transformation, but the most direct source of the new approach came from Ben Stevenson, the artistic director of the Houston Ballet who has been deeply involved in China's dance education since 1979 and who has visited China several times since 1980 when he came to China as the first American on the short term exchanges sponsored by the Center for U.S.-China Arts Exchange.
Nurtured by a ballet school which originated in Russia and was