The inventive risk – ‘About Face: Disrupting Ballet’

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“We’re avoiding cancel culture by saying we know that this ballet is problematic. We’re not saying don’t do it, we’re saying let’s do it in another way…let’s push it forward.” This “cold open” elegantly captures the film’s ethos: not ignoring past and present harms, but also carrying the work forward into a new and improved space. The gaze shifts to imaginative generativity.

Before this “cowboy Bayadère” came an initiative to have ballet companies pledge to avoid harmful Asian tropes within their Nutcrackers, Chan explains – which started with New York City Ballet (NYCB) and expanded from there. “It’s so crucial to get the Nutcracker right…it’s a tour around the world in two hours. It can be such an incredible teaching tool, but we have to represent culture authentically,” notes Gina Pazcoguin, Chan’s partner in this advocacy, close friend, and former NYCB soloist.

Some wider context feels necessary here, for viewers to fully appreciate why a short dance could be so problematic – and the film supplies it, touching on the history of anti-Asian sentiment in the U.S. into the present (including the wave of anti-Asian bigotry around the COVID pandemic).

As even deeper context, which does feel important for thorough understanding, the film aptly presents the European foundation of ballet and how that’s the filter through which many of us see the art form. “Orientalism is a view that the West has of the East,” explains Meredith Martin, NYU Professor of Art History. The film’s perspective is that we can bring something different: rigor in facing factual history, as well as investigations of cultural authenticity. That, as well as upholding inclusivity, can guide us to not only more respectful, sensitive art, but also better art: deeper, richer, more layered and intriguing.

The film also makes such bigotry all the more real and personal for the viewer – each viewer, no matter their personal identity – with Chan describing some of his own encounters with it, in ballet and in life outside of it. With her signature wit and charisma, Pazcoguin also speaks openly about such experiences. “I am not what you think of when you think of a tutu ballerina…it’s not this face on top of tulle and diamonds,” she affirms.

Chan also demonstrates grace and jocularity, such as when he reads arguably myopic criticisms of his work. It’s easy to see how these two have become close friends and work well together – and it’s lovely to witness.

Yes, it’s important to get The Nutcracker right – yet could this work go further? For Chan and Pazcoguin, the answer was very much affirmative. “It’s a one-minute variation, and we asked ourselves ‘what else can we do’?” Chan recounts. That led them to the “cowboy Bayadère” – A Star on the Rise: La Bayadère…Reimagined! (2024) at Indiana Bloom University.

The film breaks down some of the program’s process and product. For example, that it has most of the steps from the original Petipa ballet, with some added cowboy-specific gestures. They worked with dance historian and musicologist Doug Fullington to re-conceptualize it into a Busby Berkeley Hollywood fantastical drama with a Western film context.

Hearing from artists performing in the program and seeing some footage of the final result brings viewers into the initiative. I came to feel invested in its vision and success as a work of art out there in the world. That involves more than just “not doing Yellowface,” as Pazcoguin notes. Rather, “we need to infuse ballet with authentic Asian voices,” she affirms.

The bigger vision of this work is “chang(ing) who sees themselves in ballet, who can find joy in this practice of French and Italian kings of 400 years ago,” Chan asserts, with footage of Pazcoguin performing. And where they are and what they’re doing now? It’s only the beginning, he confirms.

CEO/Artistic Director of Scottish National Ballet Christopher Hampson, who we hear from when we get a window into the process of reconceptualizing the company’s Chinese Nutcracker variation, also speaks articulately about how we move the art form forward in this area: “I question what we’re safeguarding…I don’t know of any other art form that holds on in such a stranglehold to the scripture of the body and the art form so fiercely.” What are we safeguarding, indeed!

We viewers also hear some about Pazcoguin’s next steps – part of how the film also invests us in these artist-advocates. We come to care about their stories, which are certainly still ongoing ones. The story of ballet as an art form and how it evolves with the changing world – or fails to do so – is another ongoing story.

About Face does not prescribe, blame, or guilt; its gaze is predominantly forward, focused on artistic possibility and on the artists who keep it alive. Yet, it also implicitly presents a question to each viewer: what will be your part in the story of this art form and how it moves with the ever-spinning, ever-changing world around and through it?

By Kathryn Boland of Dance Informa.

Choreographer, choreographers, choreography, Christopher Hampson, dance film, dance films, dance on camera, Dance on Camera Festival, Dance on Camera Festival 2026, dance on film, dance review, dance reviews, Doug Fullington, Georgina Pazcoguin, Indiana Bloom University, Jennifer R. Lin, Meredith Martin, New York City Ballet, New York University, online dance review, online dance reviews, Phil Chan, review, Reviews, Scottish National Ballet