Turning point

While most ballet schools have strict requirements about a students' physique, the ballet class at Duancun School is different in that it accepts girls like Jiaojiao who are prone to gaining weight. Instead, the ballet school allows their students to fight their appetite as part of their training, which involves running, the martial arts, and a special diet that replaces their main meal with fruit.

The school is less than 10 minutes away from her home by bicycle, but she arrives 30 minutes early. The examination room is a dance studio located on the ground floor of the school's science and technology building. Jiaojiao immediately starts to do warm-up exercises.

The ballet instructor, Guan Yu, who is also the deputy director of the ballet department at the Beijing Dance Academy, sent text messages to the parents of the girls a few days previously to remind them that the exam was due to start at 10 am.

For three consecutive years, the art school in Hebei's capital has been enrolling students from the small town in the province's rural hinterland, in a rare occurrence barely imaginable before.

In 2012, at the invitation of the art charity Hefeng Foundation, Guan Yu set up the ballet course for the first time in Duancun to offer children a chance to appreciate the artistic dance form.