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Written by Sarah Boslaugh Thursday, 27 January 2011 14:47
This documentary includes more footage from the rehearsal hall than from the stage, providing a behind-the-scenes look at the making of a dancer.
Dancing Across Borders is a ballet film organized around a story too improbable to be fiction: a teenage Cambodian dancer is given the chance to study ballet in the United States and becomes a star. It’s a modest documentary from a first-time director but the end result is a far more honest film than the schmaltzy Mao’s Last Dancer, and one that imparts a much more realistic view of what it takes to succeed in ballet.
The story begins in Siem Riep, Cambodia, familiar to global travelers as the gateway to the world-famous temple complex in nearby Angkor. In 2000 the American ballet patron Anne Bass (who directed Dancing Across Borders) visited Angkor on a tour with the World Monuments Fund and was impressed by a young man, Sokvannara Sar, performing traditional Khmer dance at the Preah Khan Temple.
Although the style of Khmer dance is about as different from ballet as it can be, Bass was so struck with Sar’s grace and charisma that she arranged for him to travel to the U.S and audition for the School of American Ballet in New York City. Sar was rejected, a predictable result given that he was almost 17 and had no ballet training whatsoever. However, after a summer of intensive study he was accepted as a student and began attending beginner’s classes with students half his age. He progressed rapidly, while also learning English and earning his high school diploma with honors from the Professional Children’s School. In 2006 Sar was a semifinalist at the Varna International Ballet Competition and joined the Pacific Northwest Ballet, where he has since danced featured roles including “On the Other Side” (with music by Philip Glass) at the Vail International Dance Festival in 2008 (source of the dramatic photo used on the film’s poster and DVD jacket).
If you think this story sounds like a certain film (and musical) about a young man from a mining town in Northern Britain, you’re right—except that the story of Sokvannara Sar is true. A better analogy may be that of Rudolph Nureyev, who became the most famous male ballet dancer of the second half of the 20th century despite getting an equally late start. Will Sar become the next Nureyev? Does he even want to? We don’t know, but one thing is assured: Sar is an extremely gifted dancer who is able to take the best from every situation and remain centered throughout it all.
The best thing about Dancing Across Borders is the way it documents Sar’s evolution as a ballet dancer from complete beginner to accomplished performer. This documentary includes more footage from the rehearsal hall than from the stage, providing a behind-the-scenes look at the making of a dancer. This vantage point emphasizes just how much work goes into producing the kind of polished performance we expect when attending the ballet.
Information about life outside the dance studio is less forthcoming; although there are many interviews with Sar he tends to be noncommittal or stick to the obvious responses. I’m perfectly OK with this. Were Sar not a gifted dancer we wouldn’t be watching his story and it may well have been his own choice to keep his personal thoughts to himself. Background and perspective are provided by interviews with, among others, Olga Kostritzky (his private teacher and creator of the Boys Program at the School of American Ballet), Peter Boal (Artistic Director of the Pacific Northwest Ballet) and Benjamin Millepied (dancer and choreographer with the New York City Ballet).
By keeping its focus on Sar’s evolution as a dancer, Dancing Across Borders avoids an obvious pitfall; this is not the story of a poor boy who was plucked from a dreadful environment but of a young man who took advantage of an opportunity offered him. Several trips back to Cambodia demonstrate Sar’s continuing allegiance to his home country and to the Wat Bo School where he was studying Khmer dance when spotted by Bass. His future may lie more in modern dance than ballet (he’s short for a principal dancer and his ballet technique remains imperfect) or he may go in an entirely different direction (he’s already found time for university studies in what must already be a hectic schedule), but whatever he does next will almost certainly bear watching.
The DVD comes with a good package of extras. First of all there are seven additional performances or excerpts of performances, ranging in runtime from under a minute (a clip from TVK Cambodia of Sar performing at the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh in 2006) to over 14 minutes (Sar’s performance of Mopey with the Pacific Northwest Ballet in 2009). Three interview segments with director/producer Anne Bass provide more background on how Dancing with Borders came to be, and a photo gallery presents stills related to the film. | Sarah Boslaugh
The story begins in Siem Riep, Cambodia, familiar to global travelers as the gateway to the world-famous temple complex in nearby Angkor. In 2000 the American ballet patron Anne Bass (who directed Dancing Across Borders) visited Angkor on a tour with the World Monuments Fund and was impressed by a young man, Sokvannara Sar, performing traditional Khmer dance at the Preah Khan Temple.
Although the style of Khmer dance is about as different from ballet as it can be, Bass was so struck with Sar’s grace and charisma that she arranged for him to travel to the U.S and audition for the School of American Ballet in New York City. Sar was rejected, a predictable result given that he was almost 17 and had no ballet training whatsoever. However, after a summer of intensive study he was accepted as a student and began attending beginner’s classes with students half his age. He progressed rapidly, while also learning English and earning his high school diploma with honors from the Professional Children’s School. In 2006 Sar was a semifinalist at the Varna International Ballet Competition and joined the Pacific Northwest Ballet, where he has since danced featured roles including “On the Other Side” (with music by Philip Glass) at the Vail International Dance Festival in 2008 (source of the dramatic photo used on the film’s poster and DVD jacket).
If you think this story sounds like a certain film (and musical) about a young man from a mining town in Northern Britain, you’re right—except that the story of Sokvannara Sar is true. A better analogy may be that of Rudolph Nureyev, who became the most famous male ballet dancer of the second half of the 20th century despite getting an equally late start. Will Sar become the next Nureyev? Does he even want to? We don’t know, but one thing is assured: Sar is an extremely gifted dancer who is able to take the best from every situation and remain centered throughout it all.
The best thing about Dancing Across Borders is the way it documents Sar’s evolution as a ballet dancer from complete beginner to accomplished performer. This documentary includes more footage from the rehearsal hall than from the stage, providing a behind-the-scenes look at the making of a dancer. This vantage point emphasizes just how much work goes into producing the kind of polished performance we expect when attending the ballet.
Information about life outside the dance studio is less forthcoming; although there are many interviews with Sar he tends to be noncommittal or stick to the obvious responses. I’m perfectly OK with this. Were Sar not a gifted dancer we wouldn’t be watching his story and it may well have been his own choice to keep his personal thoughts to himself. Background and perspective are provided by interviews with, among others, Olga Kostritzky (his private teacher and creator of the Boys Program at the School of American Ballet), Peter Boal (Artistic Director of the Pacific Northwest Ballet) and Benjamin Millepied (dancer and choreographer with the New York City Ballet).
By keeping its focus on Sar’s evolution as a dancer, Dancing Across Borders avoids an obvious pitfall; this is not the story of a poor boy who was plucked from a dreadful environment but of a young man who took advantage of an opportunity offered him. Several trips back to Cambodia demonstrate Sar’s continuing allegiance to his home country and to the Wat Bo School where he was studying Khmer dance when spotted by Bass. His future may lie more in modern dance than ballet (he’s short for a principal dancer and his ballet technique remains imperfect) or he may go in an entirely different direction (he’s already found time for university studies in what must already be a hectic schedule), but whatever he does next will almost certainly bear watching.
The DVD comes with a good package of extras. First of all there are seven additional performances or excerpts of performances, ranging in runtime from under a minute (a clip from TVK Cambodia of Sar performing at the U.S. Embassy in Phnom Penh in 2006) to over 14 minutes (Sar’s performance of Mopey with the Pacific Northwest Ballet in 2009). Three interview segments with director/producer Anne Bass provide more background on how Dancing with Borders came to be, and a photo gallery presents stills related to the film. | Sarah Boslaugh
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