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"Dancing Across Borders"
May 2010 Socialite and dance patron Anne Bass has directed a feature length documentary, “Dancing Across Borders,” about the ballet education of Sokvannara (“Sy”) Sar, a teen she discovered at a dance performance at Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Bass explained that she was touched by Sar’s dancing. She noted his musicality, suppleness, and joyful spirit, and she offered to whisk him away to New York to study ballet, a dance form he had never seen but one Bass clearly valued. There was something immediately discomfiting about Bass’s version of doing good. Bass was so pleased with her project that she decided to make a film about him. Unfortunately, although a gifted dancer, Sar did not seem to share Bass’s unbridled enthusiasm for ballet. Throughout the film, you could see, hear, and feel Sar’s hesitancy concerning his pursuit of a ballet career. Sar agreed to come to the U.S. to study at the renowned School of American Ballet, but the real pull for him appeared to be the promise of providing money to his family, not the odd-looking dance style he first encountered on tapes shown on a TV screen. Sar looked happiest when he was either in Cambodia or reminiscing about his family, friends, and dance training there. Temple dancing in Cambodia has sacred and ancestral ties. But ballet, for Sar, seemed devoid of soul. Sadly, with the onset of ballet training, the charming, flirty temple dancer we met at the beginning of the film utterly disappeared. Sar became unsmiling and lonely as he strived hard to perfect the strange and demanding new movements he was taught. (Sar complained at one point that ballet was turning him into a duck!)
As the film rolled on, Sar developed into a dancer of admirable talent. He became a semifinalist at the International Ballet Competition in Varna. His jumps, in particular, amazed with their springiness. My eyes were often glued to the screen, reveling in Sar’s sometimes spectral dancing. Yet, the overwhelming feeling the movie produced in me was heartbreak. To snatch a carefree youth from a poor country and create a ballet dancer almost from scratch, churning him out in a kind of factory format, seems like an unjust and cruel social experiment, even if the results were fascinating, especially for balletomanes. At one point, Sar said, very honestly, that he felt caught between two worlds and belonged to neither. Sar’s agonizing choice between an opportunity to help his family financially and leaving behind his beloved homeland was surely a painful one. In the end, I was unconvinced that the beautiful dancing Sar achieved was worth the personal sacrifice on his behalf. I lamented the joy that Sar lost more than I celebrated the impressive ballet skills he learned.
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by Carmel Morgan
There’s no doubt that the 5-year transformation of Sar from a late-starting ballet student (he began training at age 16) to an apprentice with the Pacific Northwest Ballet is remarkable, even miraculous. When he began ballet classes, Sar had all sorts of obstacles in his way, not just his relatively old age. For example, he didn’t speak the language of instruction, had never heard a piano before, and was shy about partnering girls. Much of the credit for Sar’s transformation goes to Olga Kostritzky, who like Bass, recognized and appreciated Sar’s abilities. While Sar’s indoctrination into the ballet world was initially torture for both teacher and student, the two eventually became quite fond of each other. Their one-on-one ballet boot camp sessions were extremely intense. The claustrophobic private crash course was successful, however, and Sar literally grew in leaps and bounds.