Two dance documentaries that focus on Asian-American themes by filmmaker and journalist Jennifer R. Lin are scheduled to jeté onto the Jim Santy Auditorium screen July 16 during the inaugural Ballet West Summit Festival: Where Art Meets Elevation. “About Face” spotlights renowned dancers an d choreographers Georgina Pazcoguin and Phil Chan as they challenge the dance world to rid ballet of Asian stereotypes and make ballet more inclusive, and “Ten Times Better” tells the story of Geroge Lee, an 88-year-old blackjack dealer who was an Asian pioneer in ballet and on Broadway. These exclusive screenings, which begin at 7 p.m. and are part of Park City Film’s Raising Voices En Point series, are free and open to the public. The idea for “About Face” started in 2017 when Chan received a call from Pazcoguin, the first woman of Asian descent to be promoted to soloist with the New York City Ballet, after she participated in a diversity committee meeting  that discussed the classic holiday ballet, “ The Nutcracker,” Chan said. “For people who might not know, the protagonist — Marie or Clara — visits the Kingdom of Sweets in the second act, where she meets all of these different nationalities representing confectionery,” he said. “There is Spanish chocolate, Arabian coffee and Chinese tea in a sort of round-the-world tour. As you can imagine, the European cultures are represented with more character, and the non-European cultures are represented more caricatured.” Pazcoguin gave Peter Martins, who was the artistic director at the time, Chan’s phone number. “Peter wanted to hear from somebody who has experience living as a minority in America, and he wanted to hear from somebody who knows the (ballet’s) choreography inside and out,” said Chan, who is Chinese-American. “Right before Thanksgiving, I met with Peter, and we talked about the history of how Asians have been represented on the ballet stages and who has been in charge of those depictions.” The two also looked at depictions of Asians across other artforms, including opera and theater, and how those portrayals trickled down into film, television, radio and video games, Chan said. “From that conversation, Peter decided to make subtle changes in the makeup, costuming and choreography,” he said. “I left the meeting and called Gina and said told her that I think Peter Martins was going to change ‘The Nutcracker.’” In that moment, Chan and Pazcoguin, who is Filipino-American, realized some performing-arts companies who wanted to welcome non-white artists into this Eurocentric artform still showed those heritages and cultures through caricatures and stereotypes. “So Gina and I decided to do something about it,” Chan said. The two created an organization called Final Bow for Yellow Face, bought the domain yellowface.org for $11 and put up a simple pledge that proclaimed their love of ballet and their dedication to eliminating outdated and offensive stereotypes in productions. “At this point, every major American ballet company has signed the pledge, and all the major ballet companies in the United Kingdom have signed the pledge,” Chan said. “The Paris Opera, the oldest, continuing arts organization in the Western Hemisphere, released their first diversity report a couple of years ago and cited our work by name as a contributing factor in their decision to never do blackface or yellowface on the ballet or opera stages.” Lin, a veteran journalist-turned filmmaker, climbed on board to document Chan and Pazcoguin’s mission, which includes close ties with Ballet West. “I wrote a book called ‘The Final Bow for Yellowface,’ and the second half takes place in Utah in Ballet West,” said Chan, who is also the president of the Gold Standard Arts Foundation, which champions Asian voices in multiple creative disciplines.  In 2019, the company revived a piece, George Balanchine’s “Le Chant du Rossignol” (“The Song of the Nightingale”), which was based on the Hans Christen Anderson fairy tale, with sets designed by Henri Matisse and music composed by Igor Stravinsky, according to Chan. “These were all major artists from the 19th and 20th centuries, but unfortunately the original piece was done in full yellowface,” he said. “So the question was how does Ballet West in 2019 present the work for a diverse 21st-century audience? And that was what my book was about.” Ballet West, in continuation of that work, hosted an Asian voices program in 2024 that spotlighted Asian choreographers, Chan said. “It was the first company in the United States to spotlight this traditionally underserved and underrepresented community and showcase what it can do outside of putting on a turban and dancing around,” he said. “We had a program honoring nine Asian choreographers, including Choo San Goh, a trailblazing Asian-American choreographer.”  Ballet West, along with Chan, took the weeklong program to the Kennedy Center. “We completely sold out the festival,” Chan said.  The seeds of the festival were planted in the spring of 2021 when 21-year-old Robert Aaron Long embarked on what some called a race-motivated shooting spree at two Asian spas and a massage parlor in Atlanta, Georgia, Chan said.  “After the shooting, it felt like the entire ballet community came to me and Gina to ask what they could do,” he said. “One of the calls to action was to hire Asian choreographers to make our own dances, and the response was no one was ready, which I thought was a lame excuse.” So, during the following weeks, Chan and Pazcoguin, without a budget, put together the first 10,000 Dreams Choreographic Festival that premiered that following May in honor of Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. “We had 31 days, and every day you learned about a different Asian choreographer,” Chan said. “Out of that programming, we paired five Asian choreographers, four of whom were women, with five ballet companies.” The festival has been the basis of the Gold Standard Arts Foundation, which is the next phase of the conversation with Final Bow for Yellow Face, Chan said. “We just got a grant from the Ford Foundation to support this work, and we want to give a thank you to Pamela Yau and Kori Wakamatsu, respectively of Drexel University and Brigham Young University, who are studying the Asian American experience in the arts,” he said. “Pam is on our board and chairs our data committee, and they are looking at where we’re losing Asian dancers and potential Asian artists. The foundation can use this data to make real change in the field.” Still, some things are already changing, Chan said. “In 2019, before we started this work, there were five commissions that went to Asian American choreographers in the entire country — four went to Edwaard Liang at BalletMET, and one went to Caili Quan,” he said. “In 2024, the year we did the Kennedy Center, that number shot up to 34. So, exponentially more artists are getting more work, getting opportunities, getting chances to make mistakes, getting chances to learn and getting their voices out there.” In addition to “About Face,” the July 16 audience will also see “Ten Times Better,” Chan said. “George Lee didn’t quite have his dues when he was young,” he said. “He had a tough life. He was a refugee, and a stunning dancer who made a life for himself. Now, in his 80s and 90s, he’s finally getting his due.” Lin took on the project while she was filming “About Face,” Chan said. “I showed her a photo of George and said, ‘I don’t know anything about this man, except he was in Balanchine’s ‘Nutcracker,’” he said. Lin tracked Lee down and put “About Face” on hold to tell his story, Chan said. “I have so much respect for George’s story because without people like him there wouldn’t be people like me, and there wouldn’t be a place for me,” he said. “Even though there wasn’t a big place for George, there was a little place and that was enough to get a bigger place for all of us.”  Although Lin, Chan and Pazcoguin have been focused on the Asian experience through these two projects, Chan has noticed a ripple effect on how the public can see others in general with more nuance and empathy. “Ultimately I think that’s what the arts is supposed to do,” he said. “The beauty of the arts is that you see the world through someone else’s eyes. They make you think about your favorite character in a film or book. They may have a different lived experience than you. They may be a different age or gender or lived in a different time period.” The screenings will be followed by a Q and A with Lin, Chan, Ballet West Artistic director Adam Sklute and the films’ producer, Cory Lin Stieg. “I hope these works open more doors,” Chan said. “It’s not just improving the ‘chinky’ ‘Nutcrackers,’ but empowering Asian choreographers, set designers, costume designers and lighting designers and looking at how we’re partnering with — artistic directors, executive directors and ballet school principals — who are welcoming our first-step dancers as they are welcomed into the ballet world. The work we’re doing has gone from how do we fix a one-minute dance into how do we create more opportunities for Asians to be included in this artform that used to be only for European kings and queens.” Raising Voices En Point Film Screenings at the Ballet West Summit Festival When: 7 p.m. July 16 Where: Park City Library’s Jim Santy Auditorium, 1255 Park Ave. Cost: Free Web: balletwest.org/events, aboutfacedocumentary.com and tentimesbetterfilm.com The post Dance documentaries leap onto the Summit Festival screen appeared first on Park Record. ...read more read less