Miami City Ballet dancers come from a dizzying array of places: Cuba, Venezuela, Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, France, Switzerland, Spain, Germany, Ukraine, Australia, Japan -- as well as from Maine to Miami to California. But none have traveled farther, geographically or culturally, than Haiyan Wu and Yang Zou, two Chinese dancers who have found a home in Miami in dance and with each other.

Both left prestigious positions and high salaries with state-supported companies in China to live alone in a strange new place, and work in a confusing haze where the only thing they could understand was the familiar language of tendu and arabesque.

''When I come here I not speak English, and here so many people speak English and Spanish,'' says Wu, 30, who arrived in 2003, and whose shyness in conversation gives no clue to her fervor onstage.

''I couldn't understand. One day in studio -- I just couldn't open my mouth.'' She gestures helplessly around her face: ``I couldn't say anything.''

''The only thing I could do is follow,'' says Zou, 27, who started at MCB in 2005. ``I had headache every day.''

Outside of rehearsal, they stared at the walls of their studio apartments or the TV. Wu, who couldn't cook and didn't drive, ate Ramen noodles. It was natural for them to turn to each other.

''I was lonely,'' says Zou. ``She was only people I can communicate with. We dance together, talk together, have dinner together. So it was natural we learn to love each other.''

And that, in turn, has deepened their dancing -- especially in a romantic ballet like George Balanchine's version of the second act of Swan Lake, in which they will dance the leading roles when MCB opens its season Friday night at the Adrienne Arsht Center for the Performing Arts. ''Because we're so close and we know each other so well, I know what he is going to do next,'' says Wu. ``I look in his eyes and I trust him.''

''When we do romantic ballet I feel like we are talking to each other,'' says Zou. ``We tell the story to everybody. We try to put our real emotions. We are a couple, we love each other, so it feels good. It is just like saying I love you, like we are just talking.''

OPENING UP

Their improved fluency extends beyond their rapport with each other and their steadily improving English. Both are learning to dance in a new way: bigger, more freely, taking more risks and probing more deeply than was natural for them in the formal culture of China and the traditional style of Chinese ballet.

''She's dancing much bigger -- both of them are,'' says MCB ballet mistress Roma Sosenko. ``When she first came she would dance like in her little box. She was beautiful, but everything was very pretty and little. I was always trying to make her move bigger. It was hard for her, but she likes it now. And [Zou] likes the fast stuff -- they both do.''

It was the allure of the fast stuff that brought Wu to Miami. In 2002 she competed in the International Ballet Competition in Jackson, Miss. She took home a gold medal, as well as the memory of watching the MCB dancers, who were performing Balanchine's jazzy, complex Rubies and MCB director Edward Villella's exuberant Mambo No.2AM.

''I say, wow, this is really American style company,'' Wu says. ``I couldn't forget that night. When I go back to China some people ask me where I go. I say I don't know. But I think I should come back to America.''

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