About Face: Disrupting Ballet

Ballet lovers hold deep reverence for classics like The Nutcracker and La Bayadère, and for decades many fans overlooked the racist Asian caricatures embedded in some of these productions. When ballet dancers Phil Chan (resident choreographer at the Oakland Ballet Company) and Georgina Pazcoguin (first female AAPI soloist at the New York City Ballet and co-producer of Broadway’s Here Lies Love) launched the Final Bow for Yellow Face movement, they were met with pushback from traditionalists who accused them of trying to change history.

In About Face, funded by CAAM, director Jennifer Lin (Ten Times Better) follows how Chan and Pazcoguin created new choreography that respected the cultures being depicted. Their petition was ultimately signed by the directors of every major ballet company in the United States, as they convinced ballet leaders that their advocacy is not about canceling the classics. It’s about ensuring that the ballets they love – and the art form itself – can endure and evolve in a more diverse future.

This film was supported by CAAM’s Doc Fund with funding provided by CPB.