PRESS 2024

As ‘Nutcracker’ Returns, Companies Rethink Depictions of Asians - The New York Times, November 29, 2021

The changes are the result of a yearslong effort by performers and activists to draw attention to Asian stereotypes in “Nutcracker.” Some renowned groups — including New York City Ballet and the Royal Ballet in London — several years ago made adjustments to the Tea scene, eliminating elements like Fu Manchu-type mustaches for male dancers. The sharp rise in reports of anti-Asian hate crimes during the pandemic, as well as a recent focus on the legacy of discrimination in dance, opera and classical music, have brought fresh urgency to the effort. “Folks are finally connecting the dots between the idea that what we put onstage actually has an impact on the people offstage,” said Phil Chan, an arts administrator and former dancer who has led the push to rethink “The Nutcracker.”

Advocacy group wants to see more Asian dancers on the stage, and more Asian choreographers on the program - The Washington Post, May 1, 2021

“At the end of the day, Gina and I are coming to this as lovers of ballet,” Chan says. “We want it to survive and be relevant. Ballet could be a time-capsule experience or be something that is radical and relevant and moves you and makes you feel alive.

“So which is it?,” he says. “Is it a cute historical experiment to just say, ‘Oh, this is how Europeans used to dance,’ or is it something that can mean something today?”

(video) Dancers seek to rid ballet performances of Asian stereotypes - CBS EVENING news, may 19, 2021

For Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, "Final Bow" is showcasing the work of 31 Asian choreographers. "It's the only way I know how to push back against the ugliness that we're facing right now is to share hopeful things, to share joy, to share art," Chan said.

“Bringing Down the Curtain on Yellowface” - NPR’s 1A with Joshua Johnson, December 12, 2018

Should longheld traditions change with the times? How has the ultra-white ballet world grappled with issues of race?

“BBC News: The Cultural Frontline” - BBC, March 15, 2020

Two dancers on a mission to replace caricature with character. Georgina Pazcoguin and Phil Chan of the campaign group Final Bow for Yellowface tell us why they’re working to eliminate offensive stereotypes of East Asians on our stages.

Pulling Back the Curtain on the Ballet World: New Memoir Shares the good, the bad, the ugly, & the beautiful - Good Morning America, July 26, 2021

Now, with the new memoir that’s pulling back the curtain on the world of elite ballet — Swan Dive: The Making of a Rogue Ballerina takes us backstage like never before.

Georgina Pazcoguin grew up dreaming of becoming a ballerina but never imagining that she’d become a trailblazer: the first Asian American soloist here at the New York City Ballet. Her journey has included some breathtaking leaps but also some dramatic dives, which she details in a new book.

'Caricatured Orientalism' And 'Slanty-Eye Yellowface Makeup:' Life As A Biracial Ballerina (an exclusive excerpt from Swan Dive) - ELLE Magazine, July 27, 2021

I never felt comfortable with this depiction of Asian culture. There I was onstage, a biracial woman with Asian Filipino heritage, improperly representing Chinese culture with an outdated caricature. It never felt right to me. As a young member of the company at that time, I was not in a position to announce, “I’m uncomfortable doing this. This is racist.”

The depiction of the culture was wrong, and so was the culture that permeated City Ballet. I believe had I expressed my feelings, I would have been pushed aside, my role given to another dancer who would be happy to step into the role. Shut up and dance was the sentiment.

(Video) Asian American ballet dancers making a more inclusive Nutcracker - NBC Nightly News, December 22, 2022

Many depictions of Chinese culture in “The Nutcracker” felt wrong to Asian American dancers Georgina Pazcoguin and Phil Chan. NBC News’ Vicky Nguyen spoke with them about starting a movement to set a more inclusive stage.

“'YELLOWFACE' IN 'THE NUTCRACKER' ISN'T A BENIGN BALLET TRADITION, IT'S RACIST STEREOTYPING” - THE LA TIMES, DECEMBER 11, 2018

Ballet people will argue that all of these elements in “The Nutcracker” are just tradition, that no insult is intended. But in 2018, no one should be able to plead ignorance of stereotyping’s dangers. During my “Nutcracker” research in dozens of backstage conversations, I ran into effervescent young ballet girls, most of them white, who dutifully told me that the Chinese Dance helped them “learn about other cultures.” What I saw them learning was how to flatten anyone of Asian descent into a cartoon

“TONING DOWN ASIAN STEREOTYPES TO MAKE ‘THE NUTCRACKER’ FIT THE TIMES,” - THE NEW YORK TIMES, NOVEMBER 13, 2018

It was looking like a caricature and enforcing some negative stereotypes,” said Jonathan Stafford, the leader of City Ballet’s interim artistic team. “We’re kind of in the middle of an evolution right now, a new cultural awareness. While we need to maintain the integrity of the original, we also need to make sure it works for today’s audience,” he added. “We don’t want people walking out offended.

The Approval Matrix - New York Magazine, December 3, 2021

Pacific Northwest Ballet’s Green Tea Cricket is highlighted as “highbrow” and “brilliant.”

2024 By Date

Op-Ed: ​​How to Save a Doomed Geisha - Dance Magazine, October 7, 2024

If there is a company interested in revisiting Geisha, why not rework the libretto alongside Japanese collaborators who are aware of its possible impacts? Aren’t there stories we could tell about Japan that aren’t tragic fantasies about beautiful and sexually submissive Japanese women? In the case of Geisha, a skilled and thoughtful reworking probably wouldn’t even have to change too much of the choreography, sets, or costumes. As someone who directed an award-winning production of Madama Butterfly last year for Boston Lyric Opera, I know firsthand that it is possible for a non-Japanese person to tell an authentic geisha story that both reflects artistic intentions and meets the times.

10,000 Dreams: A Celebration of Asian Choreography Program A Review - The Ballet Herald, June 26, 2024

The festival, curated by Phil Chan, co-founder of Final Bow for Yellowface, featured two mixed repertory programs and a special one-night-only tribute to Choo San Goh (1948-1987), a trailblazing choreographer and former associate artistic director of The Washington Ballet. The festival brought together an impressive lineup of the participants, including Houston Ballet, Ballet West, Pacific Northwest Ballet, Singapore Ballet, and The Washington Ballet. The event turned out to be a heartfelt celebration of Asian representation in ballet, shining the spotlight on the talented choreographers and dancers alike.

Dance Review: ‘10,000 Dreams: A Celebration of Asian Choreography’ at The Kennedy Center - MD Theatre Guide, June 26, 2024

The 10,000 Dreams celebration at the Kennedy Center Opera House showcased an impressive array of performances over six days. Each program  featured Goh’s choreography and was curated with meticulous attention to every detail he imagined. The Kennedy Center Opera House provided a much needed space for Goh’s ballets…If it returns at a future date, do plan to attend this remarkable festival as it promises an unforgettable experience. 

Review: 10,000 DREAMS DANCE FESTIVAL - PROGRAM A at The Kennedy Center - Broadway world, June 23, 2024

Phil Chan, a choreographer and co-curator of the festival, served as the Master of Ceremonies at both of the performances I attended, bringing wit and reverence to the role. Stunningly dressed in what I imagine were custom-made suits in jewel-toned Chinese brocade, Chan made the purpose of the evenings both urgent and personal by reflecting on the racist legacy of orientalist fantasy in The Nutcracker and other ballets and the historical lack of representation for Asian dancers and choreographers.  We are lucky to have his leadership, along with Georgina Pazcoguin, as they work to enact change in ballet companies globally. If the works featured in the festival are any indication, there is a wealth of talent ripe for the stage.

(VIDEO) Honouring the legacy of late Singaporean ballet choreographer Goh Choo San - Channel News Asia, June 22, 2024

The late Singaporean ballet choreographer Goh Choo San has been honoured at a dazzling recital in the US. It was among a series of performances at the Kennedy Center in the US capital, as part of a week-long festival called 10,000 Dreams: A Celebration of Asian Choreography.

10,000 Dreams - The Georgetown Dish, June 19, 2024

A blossoming initiative to recognize and elevate Asian creatives working in ballet will grace Kennedy Center stages as a weeklong festival from June 18-23, 2024! 10,000 Dreams: A Celebration of Asian Choreography shines the spotlight on Asian and Asian American choreographers, who represent their cultural heritages from the countries and regions of Singapore, China, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, and more.

10,000 Dreams Recognizes Asian Choreographers, Past and Present - Pointe Magazine, June 14, 2024

The festival has been three years in the making. In 2021, Final Bow organized the 10,000 Dreams Virtual Choreography Festival, which spotlighted an AAPI choreographer each day in May. With it came a challenge to artistic directors of ballet companies around the world: Commission an Asian choreographer by 2025. This month, each of those partnerships will be featured at The Kennedy Center

Tekno, Trees, and 10,000 Dreams: City Lights for June 13 Through 19 - Washington City Paper, June 12, 2024

The Kennedy Center has not hosted a dance festival on the scale of 10,000 Dreams: A Celebration of Asian Choreography since 2017. The weeklong event brings dancers from four countries and nine companies to Washington for three rotating programs of work by choreographers of Asian descent. Modern-day impresario Phil Chan—a New York-based historian, choreographer, and cultural consultant—cocurated the festival with the goal of bringing high-level dancers and varied choreography to the stage. He chose the name 10,000 Dreams to reference both a popular number in East Asian cultures and the infinite creativity of Asian peoples working in dance around the world.

Ballet choreographer Goh Choo San to be honoured at Kennedy Center ballet festival gala in July - The Strait Times, June 4, 2024

From June 18 to 23, the six-day festival held at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, will recognise the works of Asian creatives in ballet, with a focus on Goh, the first Asian choreographer to gain international recognition. The event is curated by the Kennedy Center and arts advisory group Final Bow For Yellowface co-founder Phil Chan.

The summer’s dance performances get curiouser and curiouser - The washington Post, June 3, 2024

As befits an event with a five-digit number in the title, this festival brings a bounty of dance to the Kennedy Center. Among other highlights: The Washington Ballet performs “home-coming” by Brett Ishida, whose spooky riff on “Macbeth” the company showed off this past fall, and the Pacific Northwest Ballet unfurls “The Veil Between Worlds” by Edwaard Liang, who happens to be the Washington Ballet’s artistic director. A special evening will honor the legacy of the late Choo San Goh, a pathbreaking artist who was the Washington Ballet’s resident choreographer. Curating the program with the Kennedy Center is Phil Chan, co-founder of Final Bow for Yellowface, an initiative to rid ballet of offensive Asian stereotypes and make it more inclusive.

Asian Voices front and center in Ballet West’s 6th Choreographic Festival, set for SLC June 5-8, and Kennedy Center, June 18-23 - The Utah Review, May 30, 2024

Set to premiere next week, Ballet West’s sixth edition of its Choreographic Festival, Asian Voices (June 5-8) features two world premieres as well as two recent works, all by Asian choreographers. Asian Voices is positioned to be the perfect bookend to the company’s 60th anniversary season. Ballet West will present the world premieres of American Ballet Theater soloist Zhong-Jing Fang’s Somewhere in Time, with a commissioned score by Korean-Canadian composer Deanna H. Choi, and Caili Quan’s Play on Impulse. There also will be the Ballet West premiere of Phil Chan’s Amber Waves and Edwaard Liang’s Seasons, featuring the guest company performance of BalletMet from Columbus, Ohio. 

“Phil Chan” (PODCAST) - Art Restart Podcast, May 28, 2024

In this interview, Phil describes how he developed the mission and methods of Final Bow for Yellowface and explains how reexamining the standard ballet repertoire through a multicultural contemporary lens honors and benefits the artform as a whole.

Ballet West Choreographic Festival aims to celebrate Asian contributions to dance - KSL News Radio, May 14, 2024

The sixth Ballet West Choreographic Festival will feature the work of Asian choreographers. The Choreographic Festival will feature the world premiere of three brand-new works, choreographed by up-and-coming artists. Additionally, the show will feature the Ballet West premiere of Phil Chan’s piece titled Amber Waves. 

Filmmaker Jennifer Lin focuses documentary lens on the arts - ABC 6 News, May 13, 2024

Her latest project, 'Beyond Yellowface', follows two dancers of Asian descent who are tasking ballet companies around the world to do better with racial representations in ballet.

STAGING CLASSICAL WORKS FOR TODAY’S AUDIENCES - CI to Eye Podcast, April 17, 2024

What do we do when “the classics”—those canonical treasures that embody the rich traditions of our genres—start to feel outdated for today’s audiences, or even at odds with our missions? In today’s episode, we take a close look at celebrated works from the classical Western canon that include harmful portrayals of non-Western cultures, and hear how one artist is taking action to prune and preserve the art he loves.

'10,000 Dreams' at Northrop seeks to celebrate Asian choreography and end stereotypes - Minneapolis Star Tribune, April 8, 2024

"Essentially, this came out of looking at ballet companies and asking whose voices were getting heard," Chan said. "We were really seeing a lot of ballet companies working with primarily white choreographers. We saw all these Orientalist depictions with kimonos and turbans onstage from companies who didn't hire Asian creatives at all." In 2017, Chan and Pazcoguin formed an organization that began to reach out to ballet companies and ask them to commit to eliminating offensive stereotypes of Asians in their productions. More recently, the organization has further asked companies to commit to commissioning an Asian choreographer by 2025. "A lot of companies responded very positively to that. So what we're seeing is the fruits of one's labor from this work," Chan said.

Indiana University Livestreams Star on the Rise: La Bayadère … Reimagined! - Dance Magazine, March 29, 2024

“With the flip in the storyline, the beauty of the dance remains and the questionable plot dissolves,” says IU senior Ruth Connelly. Fellow senior Aram Hengen adds that the school’s learning environment is the perfect place for this change to begin:­ “It’s a lab, basically.” Both are excited to see ripple effects­ beyond their campus.

The Jacobs School of Music starts a new chapter with ‘Star on the Rise: La Bayadère... Reimagined!’ - Indiana Daily Student, March 29, 2024

Phil Chan — co-founder of “Final Bow for Yellowface,” an organization dedicated to removing Asian stereotypes from classic ballets — had the idea to adapt “La Bayadère” to remove these problematic stereotypes six years ago. In 2020 after a lecture given at the Jacobs School of Music, Chan used “La Bayadère” as an example of a problematic ballet which could be adapted to remove the stereotypes while saving the dances. Chan said Sarah Wroth, professor of music in the ballet department, approached him and expressed interest in the production. 

“Star on the Rise” - WFIU, March 28

Striving to replace caricature with character, stagers Phil Chan and Doug Fullington have taken a classical ballet out of its original setting—a mystical, yet mischaracterized India—and placed it in a quintessentially American setting: a Hollywood Western movie set during the dream factory’s Golden Age.

‘Star on the Rise: La Bayadère ... Reimagined!’ replaces caricature with character - News at IU, March 25, 2024

Leaders at the Jacobs School invited Chan, author of “Final Bow for Yellowface: Dancing Between Intention and Impact,” and Doug Fullington, a dance historian and musicologist, to stage a reimagined production of “La Bayadère” at IU. With Chan and Fullington at the helm, they created a dazzling reimagining of the classic ballet within the context of the golden age of Hollywood, rather than India.

How Do You Solve a Problem Like ‘Bayadère’? Send In the Cowboys - NY Times, March 23, 2024

A new production of the ballet sets it in 1930s Hollywood instead of a mythic India, eliminating Orientalist clichés while embracing American ones.

How NOT to cancel 'La Bayadere' - Dance Australia, March 23, 2024

As ballet expands beyond its origins as a strictly Eurocentric art form, folks on both sides of the footlights are experiencing some growing pains. I’m the co-founder of an organisation called Final Bow for Yellowface, that has successfully gotten companies to eschew yellowface on our stages. A big part of my work as a director and choreographer is to reimagine outdated classics from Europe that still speak to us today, removing racial caricature that prevents these works from being widely enjoyed. As a person of Asian heritage, deeply involved in the ballet community, I’ve got a lot of skin in the game; I very much want to preserve the best from my dance heritage, but also want Asian characters on our stages to be represented with integrity. It’s possible to do both, as I’ve discovered in reworking the popular ballet, La Bayadère.

Review: Oakland Ballet dreams big in ‘Dancing Moons Festival’ excerpts - SF Chronicle, March 15, 2024

The remainder of this program serves a smorgasbord of dance bites ranging from the dead serious to the sassy, and the tastiest bits are all by Phil Chan.

CHOREOGRAPHER PROFILE: PHIL CHAN - Dance Data Project Newsletter, March 2024

“I like to describe my work as the opposite of cancel culture; I am not advocating for us to no longer perform problematic works, I am pushing for our field to find creative ways to reimagine them.”

Film about pioneering ballet dancer George Lee premiers at Lincoln Center - AsAm News, February 11, 2024

When filmmaker Jennifer Lin found publicity photos of the seminal 1954 production of The Nutcracker, she was stunned: The dancer in the “Chinese Tea” section of the ballet was actually Asian. Reviews mentioned that the dancer, George Lee, had phenomenal abilities that others could not replicate. Yet he remained relatively unknown in ballet history.

A ballet out of step - The Australian, February 1, 2024

West Australian Ballet has been urged to cancel its production of La Bayadere, a work now regarded as insensitive to Indian people and Hindus.