{"id":52396,"date":"2022-09-15T13:56:42","date_gmt":"2022-09-15T20:56:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=52396"},"modified":"2022-09-15T13:56:42","modified_gmt":"2022-09-15T20:56:42","slug":"asian-american-dancers-challenge-ballets-legacy-of-yellowface","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=52396","title":{"rendered":"Asian American Dancers Challenge Ballet\u2019s Legacy of Yellowface"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By<\/span>Julia Tong<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Above: Georgina Pazcoguin and Phil Chan, founders of the Final Bow for Yellowface<\/em><\/p>\n

Like many young ballerinas, Cory Stieg danced in\u00a0The Nutcracker<\/em>\u00a0each year. And though she loved the show, the Chinese Tea dance in particular stuck in her memory\u2014for all the wrong reasons.<\/p>\n

Stieg\u2019s teacher insisted she shuffle out on stage with her head bobbing and an open-mouthed grin on her face. \u201cHaven\u2019t you seen Chinese people before?,\u201d Stieg recalls her teacher saying. \u201cLike at the nail salon, they\u2019re always so happy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stieg says she remembers the comment vividly. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think I had the vocabulary at all whatsoever to be like: \u2018Perhaps this is a weird way to portray Asian people on stage.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Yellowface, stereotyped caricatures of Asian people, has long been a part of ballet classics. Now, two Asian American artists are working to combat this legacy. Arts educator Phil Chan and Filipina American ballerina Georgina Pazcoguin have founded Final Bow for Yellowface, an organization that is working to end ballet\u2019s racial stereotypes.<\/p>\n

In tandem with those efforts, Stieg has partnered with director Jennifer Lin and producer Jon Funabiki on a new documentary titled\u00a0Beyond Yellowface<\/em><\/a>, which follows Chan and Pazcoguin as they advocate for culturally aware ballet. A\u00a010-minute clip<\/a>\u00a0is available on the film\u2019s website for public viewing.<\/p>\n

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Georgina Pazcoguin performing in the Ballet des Porcelaines<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

As Chan writes in his upcoming book\u00a0Banishing Orientalism: Dancing Between Exotic and Familiar<\/em>, yellowface originated in ballet\u2019s Eurocentric roots. European artists could explore taboo subjects by projecting them onto an imagined Oriental culture. However, that created harmful caricatures of Asian people that still remain today.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat are we doing when we keep doing\u00a0Madama Butterfly<\/em>\u00a0over and over and over at the expense of hiring Asian choreographers, opera composers to write new stories?\u201d he asks.<\/p>\n

The ballet world\u2019s strict hierarchies, however, can make change difficult.<\/p>\n

Many ballets today use the same choreography from a select group of 20th<\/sup>\u00a0century choreographers. Traditional classics like\u00a0The Nutcracker<\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0Swan Lake<\/em>\u00a0are key revenue generators for dance companies, leaving little space for new choreography. And the elite ballet world is notoriously difficult to break into: Pazcoguin, for instance, is the first female Asian American soloist in the prestigious New York City Ballet, and has\u00a0written candidly<\/a>\u00a0about the difficulties she faced on the road to her promotion.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn ballet\u2026you\u2019re taught to be a perfect pupil, and you follow the teacher and do exactly what they say, and don\u2019t speak up, and don\u2019t ruffle any feathers,\u201d Stieg says. \u201c not encouraging of any questioning or changes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s diverse audiences, however, are forcing companies to adapt. In 2017, the New York City Ballet received thousands of letters criticizing the Nutcracker\u2019s Chinese Tea dance. Though the artistic director was initially reluctant to change the ballet, Chan was able to convince the director to adjust the Tea dance\u2019s choreography to retain audiences.<\/p>\n

Buoyed by the success, Chan teamed up with Pazcoguin to continue their advocacy. Since then, Final Bow for Yellowface has garnered support across the ballet world. The organization\u2019s\u00a0pledge<\/a>\u00a0to eliminate \u201coutdated and offensive stereotypes of Asians (Yellowface) on our stages,\u201d for instance, has been signed by major companies across the U.S. and Europe.<\/p>\n

Some companies have already acted on their promise. A clip from\u00a0Beyond Yellowface<\/em>\u00a0follows the Scottish National Ballet\u2019s efforts to update their production of\u00a0The Nutcracker.<\/em>\u00a0The company hired a traditional Chinese dance instructor to stage a more culturally conscious Tea dance, and also changed one character from male to female.<\/p>\n

The changes generated heated backlash from the ballet world\u2019s more traditionalist bloc. Commentators accused the company of succumbing to \u201ccancel culture,\u201d with one writing: \u201cWhat\u2019s next, no more white swans in\u00a0Swan Lake<\/em>?\u201d<\/p>\n

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Director Jennifer Lin interviewing Georgina Pazcoguin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Lin points out that these comments entirely miss the purpose of Final Bow for Yellowface\u2019s work.<\/p>\n

\u201cChan and Pazcoguin are not saying, \u2018get rid of\u00a0The Nutcracker<\/em>,\u2019\u201d she says. \u201cThey\u2019re saying: \u2018The Nutcracker<\/em>\u00a0is iconic, but can we make it better?\u2019 It\u2019s really that simple.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chan also suggests another path forward for ballet: completely reimagining classics for the modern era. Artistic mediums like opera and theater commonly make creative changes to original texts. Chan points to the\u00a0Public Theater\u2019s<\/a>\u00a02022 run of\u00a0As You Like It<\/em>, which transformed Shakespeare\u2019s comedy into a musical, as a recent example.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to relax our grip a little bit, so the artists of today can really breathe life from who we are in this moment into these works,\u201d Chan says.<\/p>\n

Chan is putting these ideas into action for Indiana University\u2019s upcoming production of the ballet classic\u00a0La Bayadere<\/em>. The ballet is set in a Hindu temple, and has been\u00a0criticized<\/a>\u00a0for its caricature of Indian culture and use of\u00a0blackface<\/a>. Chan\u2019s reimagining transports the action to the Golden Age of Hollywood, replacing the temple with a ranch, the Temple Dancer with the late actress Debbie Reynolds, and the warrior Solor with football legend Dean Perry.<\/p>\n

After all, Chan observes, \u201c pastiche India really doesn\u2019t work when you have people of Indian descent in the audience.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t necessarily need the turbans and the tigers and the\u00a0Jungle Book<\/em>, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

As\u00a0Beyond Yellowface<\/em>\u00a0continues production, Lin and Stieg plan to follow Chan\u2019s\u00a0La Bayadere<\/em>, as well as highlight festivals featuring Asian American choreographers. The production has faced both COVID and funding related challenges. The team hopes to raise enough for a feature-length film.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe thing that sort of bonds all of us together is that we just deeply care about ballet, and we wouldn\u2019t be doing this if we didn\u2019t,\u201d says Stieg. \u201cWe want the art form to be able to move forward, and include more people, and represent the people who are fans.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Beyond Yellowface team will be hosting a Zoom\u00a0<\/a>virtual sneak peek<\/a>\u00a0and conversation on September 14th<\/sup>. This story was produced in partnership with\u00a0AsAm News<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ByJulia Tong September 14, 2022 Above:...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52396","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52396","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52396"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52396\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52397,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52396\/revisions\/52397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52396"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52396"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52396"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}