二十年后，金星以全新的面貌重返纽约──首先，她现在成了一位女性。这位现年44岁的表演艺术家兼舞蹈编排家1995年在北京接受变性手术以来，已经以新的身份再度享誉舞蹈界，她放弃了一些曾经饰演的男性角色，以她的女性身份在中国赢得新的声望。

金星从九岁开始在中国一个部队歌舞团接受舞蹈训练，当时还是个男孩子的金星一面研习俄罗斯古典芭蕾，为部队表演舞蹈，一面学习如何使用枪和引爆炸弹。后来金星晋升为上校，之后又赢得了一项全国芭蕾比赛大奖，并在19岁时赴美国学习舞蹈。

金星接受了三次变性手术，其中一次手术持续了16个小时，令她的右腿险些受到永久性损伤。之后，她于2000年创建了上海金星舞蹈团(Jin Xing Dance Theatre Shanghai)，这是中国最早的独立现代舞团体之一。

最近，金星首次以女性身份重返纽约，她带来了“海上探戈”(Shanghai Tango)，这是一台由10部作品组成的舞蹈演出，在乔伊斯剧院(Joyce Theater)上演至2月5日，随后举行全美巡回演出。

在近期一次排练间隙，金星接受了《华尔街日报》(The Wall Street Journal)采访，她身着黑色裤袜，脚穿针织长筒靴，扎着长长的马尾辫，指甲涂成浅咖色。在采访中，金星谈到了自己不同寻常的回归纽约之路。

《华尔街日报》：你第一次来美国时生活状态是什么样的？

金星：我对自己说，“好，我要来美国，在这里我能做真正的自己。”也许我是个同志。我要发现自我。六岁时，我觉得自己应该是个女孩，于是我就对自己说，“好，我不属于同志群体。或许我应该改变自己，变成一个女人？”从19岁到美国的那一天起，我就开始搜集信息，了解怎样通过手术回归真正的自我。我花了九年时间来思索这个问题。最终，28岁那年我在中国迈出了这一步。

《华尔街日报》：手术让你的舞蹈生涯发生了什么变化？

金星：没有什么变化。当然，和我在部队跳的舞不一样。在部队里，我表演的都是军旅舞蹈，是别人编排的，非常阳刚，以武器为道具。而我现在跳的是现代舞，和我的性别没有关系。

《华尔街日报》：当年你作为一名年轻的舞蹈家，认为自己的灵魂放在了错误的躯体里，这有没有妨碍你的事业？

金星：我在表演时会把性别问题抛开。我只是一个人。当我是个男人时，我内心的想法是女性的，但我却有着男性的躯体。现在我变成了一个女人，但男性的经历一直伴随着我。我真的比别人幸运，因为我亲身经历过两个世界。作为艺术家，这种经历真的很有帮助。这是一件珍贵的礼物。

《华尔街日报》：在中国人们是怎样看待你变性这件事的？

金星：变性一直都是很忌讳的话题。这件事在中国一直是热门话题。当然，他们谈论我的个人生活──报纸上70%的报道是关于我的变性，30%是关于我的现代舞。现在情况开始有所变化。

《华尔街日报》：在“海上探戈”中，有没有什么舞蹈是因为你变成女性而无法再表演的？

金星：有一段叫“小岛”(Island)的舞蹈是为两名男性舞者编排的。我在手术之前跳那段舞蹈。我变成女性之后就不能再跳了，因为那是两个男孩穿着舞蹈护身在舞台上表演的，他们身体几乎全裸。

《华尔街日报》：你是否创编一些舞蹈来反映你作为变性者所感受到的歧视？

金星：这种经历会自然而然、不自觉地融入你的创作。你会从一个不同的角度看世界，当然，会结合你的个人经历，社会对你的看法以及所有的误解和歧视。你去感受它，再通过舞蹈把它表现出来。

《华尔街日报》：经过这么多年，你再次在纽约登台舞蹈，你对此有何感受？

金星：拥有自己的舞蹈团，在世界各国旅行，说多种语言，变成一个女人，这就是我当兵时的所有幻想。当年我坐在军营里仰望天空，幻想着自己的生活。如今一切都成为了现实。

《华尔街日报》：你说你在中国一个电视舞蹈比赛上担任评委。你是“恶评委”还是“好评委”？

金星：我是毒评委。我是中国的西蒙•考威尔(Simon Cowell，考威尔是英国电视人，担任多个电视比赛的评委，以直白、有时引发争议的语言风格闻名──译注)。

When Jin Xing was last in New York in the early 1990s, the Chinese dancer was a confused young man reckoning with his sexual identity while trying to forge a career on the stage.

Two decades later, Jin Xing has returned to New York a very different person─for starters, she's now a woman. Since undergoing a sex-change operation in Beijing in 1995, the 44-year-old performer and choreographer has rebuilt a reputation in the dance world, abandoning some of the male roles she once performed and building a new kind of celebrity in China partly around her altered identity.

Trained from age 9 in a Chinese military dance program─as a boy, Jin Xing studied classical Russian ballet to entertain troops while learning to wield a gun and detonate bombs─the performer rose to the rank of colonel before winning a national ballet competition and leaving for the U.S. at age 19 to study dance.

After three gender-reassignment surgeries, including one that lasted 16 hours and nearly left her with permanent leg damage, she founded one of China's first independent modern-dance companies, Jin Xing Dance Theatre Shanghai, in 2000.

This week she is back in New York─for the first time as a woman─with 'Shanghai Tango,' a program of 10 works to be performed at the Joyce Theater through Sunday, followed by a national tour.

At a recent rehearsal, dressed in black leggings and mukluk slippers with a long ponytail and fingernails painted a light shade of coffee, she spoke with The Wall Street Journal about her unusual path back to New York.

What was going on in your life when you first came to the United States?

I said, 'OK, I'm coming to the country so I can be myself.' Maybe I'm gay. Discover myself. When I was 6 years old, I felt like I should be a girl, so then I said, 'OK, I don't belong to the gay group. Maybe I need to change myself to become a woman?' From 19 years old, the day I come to America, I start looking for the information, how to become myself through operations. It takes me nine years thinking it over. I'm finally 28 years old and I take the step in China.

How did the operation change your dancing?

It's the same. Of course, it's different from the military. With the military, I'm dancing all military repertoires, other people's choreography, very masculine, dancing with weapons. Since I'm doing contemporary dance today, it doesn't matter if I'm a man or a woman.

Was it a impediment for you as a young dancer to believe you were in the wrong body?

When I'm doing my performance, I drop the gender issue. I'm just a person. When I was a man I had a woman's thinking in my heart but I'm carrying a male's body. Now I've become a woman, but I always carry on the stories of men. I'm really privileged because I've experienced both worlds. As an artist, it really helps. This is a gift.

How were you treated in China after your sex change?

This is always a taboo. This is always top talk in China. Of course they talk about my personal life─newspapers talk 70% about my sex change and maybe 30% about my modern dance. Now they're starting to change.

Are there any works in this program you can no longer perform because you're a woman?

The piece called 'Island' is choreographed for two male dancers. Before the operation I was dancing that piece. After I became a woman, I cannot dance that piece anymore because it's two boys on stage with dance belts, almost nude.

Do you choreograph dances to reflect discrimination you've felt as a transsexual?

The experience naturally, automatically, goes into your work. You're looking at the world from a different perspective, combined with your personal experience, of course, with how society looks at you and all the misunderstandings and discrimination. You take it and bring it back through dance.

How do you feel to be dancing in New York again after so many years?

To have your own company, traveling internationally, speaking many languages, becoming a woman, it's all the fantasy I had when I was in the military. I was sitting in the military compound looking at the sky, fantasizing about my life. And everything came true.

You mentioned judging a TV dance competition in China. Are you the mean judge or the nice one?

I'm the bitchy one. I'm the Chinese Simon Cowell.

Ellen Gamerman