via CAAI News Media
by Todd Eberle
March 26, 2010
Anne Bass, the New York City socialite known for her philanthropic endeavors in the ballet world, visited Cambodia on a World Monuments Fund trip in 2000. In Angkor Wat she saw a group of teenagers present a native dance and couldn't shake the performance of one of the boys from her memory. Dancing Across Borders is the Cinderella-esque documentary film Bass made about her efforts to sponsor the teenager, Sokvannara Sar (also known as "Sy," pronounced "See"), to come to the United States to learn ballet. In the process, Sy realizes the American Dream he didn't even know he had until his and Anne's paths crossed. Bass was as unacquainted with filmmaking as Sy was with ballet (he had never seen so much as an image of a ballet dancer before), and the film is even more compelling when you realize it's about two debuts, both on and off camera. In it, two new movie stars are born: Sy, who possesses matinee-idol looks, and his ballet teacher-to-the-stars, Olga Kostritsky (Mikhail Baryshnikov and Jock Soto are but two of her former pupils).
Anne Bass and Sokvannara "Sy" Sar.
Sy and his ballet coach, Olga Kostritsky.
Artist Julian Lethbridge and Sy.
It's not entirely clear from the film if Bass's dream for Sy has become his own, but watching his development, from being incapable of speaking English (let alone spelling "ballet") to becoming a world-class ballet dancer, in just a few years is a powerful story. When he appears at the famous Varna Dance Festival, in Bulgaria, it's moving to see him dance solo for the first time in the context of historical footage of Nureyev and Barishnikov, both of whom made their debuts in Varna.
Bass premiered the film at S.V.A. last night for two theaters full of friends and threw a party (the likes of which only she does) afterward at the Cedar Lake Studios, which Robert Isabell's office transformed into a Balinese world.
After touring nine film festivals, Dancing Across Borders starts its New York City run at the Quad today. It will premiere in Los Angeles on April 13.
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