Dance is Zhao's window to the real world, acting's just a sideline

Every morning actress Zhao Tao boards a packed bus headed for Taiyuan Normal University in Taiyuan, the capital of Shanxi province, where she works as a dance teacher. Nobody on the bus gives the young woman a second look.

It was a different scene to that in September when the part-time actress was mobbed by fans at the Venice Film Festival.

It's a contrast that Zhao is used to: famous abroad but anonymous at home. Nominated for best actress awards in the Venice Film Festival this year and at Cannes in 2002, she is barely known at home because the films were banned on the mainland.

'I never have to worry about being recognised here,' says Zhao, sitting in a Beijing cafe, where customers also fail to recognise her. 'People just don't have the opportunity to see my work.'

Zhao, a petite 26-year-old with straight hair and no makeup, looks like a college student in her black T-shirt and blue jeans. Quietly spoken, her almond-shaped eyes light up only when she talks about her latest movie, The World, inspired by a year she spent working at Windows on the World in Shenzhen.

'When director Jia [Zhangke] and I were killing time waiting for a flight to Shenzhen, I told him some of the stories that happened to my co-workers at Windows on the World,' says Zhao, who plays the similarly named protagonist Zhao Xiaotao. 'I didn't expect him to remember these anecdotes and turn them into a story.'

Born to an ordinary working family in Taiyuan, it never occurred to Zhao to be an actress. She learned dancing at the Shanxi Drama School when she was 13 before moving to the Beijing Dance Academy in 1996. After graduation in 1998, she returned home to become a dance teacher.