West greets East

Sokvannara Sar in company class with Pacific Northwest Ballet at the 2010 Vail International Dance Festival. (Erin Baiano | Special to the Daily)

Sokvannara Sar imbues ‘Solo for Sy' with his Cambodian childhood and American education

Friday, August 5, 2011

Wren Wertin

wren@vaildaily.com

Vail Daily (Vail, Colorado, USA)

An American woman. A Cambodian teenager. A sense of movement. An artistic obligation. These are the elements that set the stage for Sokvannara Sar's leap of faith across oceans, across cultures, across disciplines. Known as Sy (pronounced See) by most of the world, the dancer on Saturday performs a work by Jill Johnson that draws on his memories of Cambodia while ensconced in an American reality. Created in conjuction with the Fire Island Dance Festival, “A Solo for Sy” (a title the dancer doesn't approve of, instead preferring “Duality”) was premiered at the New York festival last month before making its Vail debut today.

Sar is the recent subject of a documentary, “Dancing Across Borders,” which chronicles his journey as a young folk dancer in Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, Cambodia, to a ballet student — and star — in New York City. The idea of a 16-year-old boarding a plane for a new life in a strange land is at once romantic and intriguing. But Sar has a different perspective.

“It's just another story,” he said. “It's not more interesting than anybody else's story. It's just that mine's been recorded.”

New film on Cambodia's most famous ballet dancer

(Photo: Rex Tranter)

September 22, 2010
ABC Radio Australia

The American ballerina, Kristy Nilsson, once said that when it comes to dance, no translation is needed.

That proved to be the case for one Cambodian teenager. Ten years ago the philantropist, Anne Bass, saw Sokvannara Sar perform a traditional Khmer dance at Angkor Wat. She was so impressed that she invited him to the United States to study ballet. After years of intense training, Sokvannara, or "Sy" has risen to become one of Cambodia's most successful ballet dancers. Now a documentary about his journey is about to be released worldwide, and it's director hopes it will inspire other young dancers.

Presenter: Helene Hofman
Speakers: Anne Bass, Director and Producer; 'Dancing Across Borders'; Olga Kostritzsky, former teacher, School of American Ballet; Sokvannara "Sy" Sar, Cambodian ballet dancer

Click here to listen to the audio program (Windows Media)

(sound of movie trailer)

BOAL: This was impossible. Already the cards are stacked against him. He has dance training but it's not classical ballet training . . . It really was quite remarkable. I would have said it was a one in a thousand chance that this could work and I think that we found that one.]

HOFMAN: Peter Boal, the Artistic Director of Pacific Northwest Ballet, was sceptical when he first saw Sy Sar dance.

As he explains in the documentary, "Dancing Across Borders", Sy was already 16, and had none of the poise ballet dancers spend years cultivating.

But the world-renowned ballet teacher Olga Kostritzsky, saw potential and spent the next two years privately coaching Sy.

KOSTRITZSKY: You know when he came to the country and I first time saw him, I thought he might be 12. He was very tiny. Secondly, when I checked his extension, you know, he has the physical possibilities and thirdly, because I'm an immigrant myself, I thought he deserves a chance. And I saw the talent.

HOFMAN: Just months after beginning his training, Sy was accepted into the School of American Ballet. Five years later he joined the Pacific Northwest Ballet company in Seattle, where he has just finished his contract. A real-life Cinderella story and one Anne Bass - the philantropist who first spotted his talent in Cambodia - wanted to tell the world. Her documentary, "Dancing Across Borders", has already been screened across the United States, where it will be released on DVD next month.

Negotiations to have it released internationally are in the final stages. Anne Bass says she hopes it will inspire dancers but also teachers and the general public.

BASS: It isn't just a boy from one side of the world goes to another and has a great success against all odds. I mean there's that of course, but I thought the film would allow people to have a look inside the ballet world in a way that they hadn't been able to before. That it would make ballet as an art form more accessible to them. So that was one thing that I hoped to accomplish, and another was that I hoped other people who were able, no matter how great or how small their means, to help talent when they recognised it because I think that's so important and also I hoped it would serve as an inspiration for other younger people to persue their goals even though they might seem quite insurmountable at times.

HOFMAN: "Dancing Across Borders" is also a tribute to Cambodia and its rich heritage of arts and culture. Before moving to the United States, Sy studied traditional Khmer dance at the Wat Bo School in Siem Reap. He returns to the school regularly, and believes his story encourages some of the other young dancers:

SAR: It's really up the people what they take from seeing the film or hearing about me as one of the first , if not the first Cambodian ballet dancers. So, for little kids, espeically when I go back to my old school they look at me, they really admire what I've done and they think it's a beautiful art form and even thought they don't get to do ballet it inspires them to do whatever they're doing in a different mentality. It's all up to them.

(fade out to music and cheers)

A Dance Across Barriers and Borders

Sokvannara (Sy) Sar performing Oberon in a Midsummer Night's Dream. (Photo: by Rex Tranter)

Men Kimseng, VOA Khmer
Washington, DC Monday, 10 May 2010

It all started at a temple in Siem Reap province. Sokvannara Sar, better known as Sy, was performing the Fisherman Dance for tourists at Preah Khan temple.

The year was 2000, and among the audience that day was an American socialite and arts patron named Anne Bass. It was her first time in Cambodia, and after she left, she could not stop thinking about Sy.

She determined to find a way to put him into the world of ballet. That decision was the beginning of an odyssey for the dancer, one that is captured in a new film, “Dancing Across Borders.”

“This image of him and his spirit kept coming back to me,” Bass says in the film, which had a brief showing in Washington and other US cities recently. “And I thought about the fact that Cambodian dancers, especially male dancers, don’t have much for the future and I sensed a really great talent in him and I kept thinking how sad it would be just to leave that unrealized.”

Sy flew to the US under Bass’ sponsorship to receive training from ballet professionals. He was 16 year old—old in the dance world—and he spoke no English. But he impressed his teachers.

“The first time I saw him I thought this boy is stunning,” Jock Soto, a former professional dancer of the New York City Ballet says in the film. “He is so beautiful…and I didn’t have a clue what he could do.”

Sy told VOA Khmer recently he had no idea what ballet even was. He just showed up where he was told to show up, and he danced. He jumped up and down. He learned. He became a ballet dancer. He was taught under a professional coach, Olga Kostritzky, and he practiced. He practiced and practiced.

In 2006, he had a chance to perform for the opening of the new US Embassy in Phnom Penh. He flew through the air, jumped, flitted his legs, landed. His hands moved—up, down, sideways. He flexed his body to the tune of a piano. He did things many Cambodians had never seen. They marveled.

Later that year, he competed in Bulgaria, bringing the Cambodian flag for the first time in many years to an Olympic dance competition. He made it to the semi-finals before he was eliminated.

“I think one of the best parts of the competition for Sy was sharing the stage with dancers from ballet companies throughout the world,” Bass says.

Contestants were from many countries including Belarus, Kazakhstan and South Korea. He later began dancing for the Pacific Northwest Ballet, in Seattle.

“It wasn’t that we were forcing him on this fast track,” Peter Boal, artistic director for that ballet company, says. “It’s just he was able to learn what he needed to learn, accomplish what he needed to accomplish, in such a short amount of time to go up a level—which was great because if he couldn’t, he wouldn’t have made it as a professional dancer.”

“It’s really was quite remarkable,” he says. “I would have said it’s a one in a thousand chance that this could work, and I think we found that one.”

Sy’s natural ability and style have made it hard for people to believe he only recently began ballet—a Western form of classical dance that is far removed from Cambodian folk dance.

“Our Cambodian dance is different from ballet,” Sy said. “We don’t have to do too much bending. We do some, but we can start when we get older. But 99 percent of ballet dancers have to start at ages 8 or 9. Cambodia dance is slow. There is not too much jumping, twisting or extending legs. There is no toe twisting.”

Sy spent four years at the Pacific Northwest company. He quit a few months ago and is now looking for a new company. He has no plans yet to bring his learning back to Cambodia.

“I want to spend a bit more time studying this dance, but sometimes I think of going home,” he said. “In the future if there is a need to have me share knowledge or form a ballet group, that would be good, as there is no ballet in Cambodia.”

In fact, Cambodia once had ballet. It was taught by Russian coaches in the 1960s, said Proeung Chhoeung, an adviser to the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts.

And the government would like to see it return, although it has made little progress, he said. “We will surely have it in the future.”

Dancing Across Borders

Dancing Across Borders

Directed by Anne Bass. Distributed by 123 Productions. In English and Khmer with English subtitles.

Running time: 1 hour, 28 mins.

Parent's guide: No MPAA rating (ballet documentary).

Showing at: Ritz at the Bourse, Philadelphia, PA between April 30 and May 6, 2010
(Showtimes: 1:10, 3:30, 5:40, 7:40, 9:45pm)

An American Dream as Realized by a Cambodian Ballet Dancer

Anne Bass and Sokvannara "Sy" Sar.

March 26, 2010
By Todd Eberle
Vanity Fair (USA)

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).

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.

A Cambodian Boy’s Rise to Ballet, on Film

Sar Sokvannara

By Im Sothearith, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
24 November 2009

In “Dancing Across Borders,” a new documentary, a dancer tells the camera: “To dance the dance is like fishing in the rice field with other people, because that’s what we do. We fish and we talk with friends and sing. So when I came to the fishing dance, it’s kind of like, ‘Oh, we know this.’”

That raw ability for dance, explained by the dancer, Sar Sokvannara, is at the center of the film, which chronicles his attempts to leave Cambodia and enter the world of international ballet.

“Dancing Across Borders” was the result of a brief visit by the filmmaker, Ann Bass, to Angkor Wat in 2000, when she met Sar Sokvannara, who was just 16. His natural charm and grace prompted Bass to wonder how opportunity might sharpen a person’s innate talent.

“I was very, very struck with his musicality, his proportion, his challenges,” Bass, a patron of American dance, told VOA Khmer. “I just haven’t seen anything like this. It’s just folk dance. It’s just a very simple thing. [But] he has great charisma on stage. And I worried about what would happen to him in Cambodia, whether there was a future for someone with that talent.”

After she returned to the US, Bass eventually decided she would help the boy. The story that unfolds, through video footage originally meant to inform his parents of his progress, is an inside look at the world of ballet and the relationship between Sar Sokvannara, Bass, and his new dance teacher, Olga Kostritzky.

The film, the first for Bass, who has founded several art schools, chronicles Sar Sovannara’s life as he learns to cope with his new environment. The key to his success, ultimately, is his charisma, hard work, and unforeseen advantages from his Cambodia upbringing.

“His dance training, his learning to move to music, you know all that musicality and having that kind of movement groove in your brain, that was all there,” Bass said. “And also, in Cambodia, people are very physical and they are not kind of spoiled like we are, where we are all rolled around from one place to another. People jump, leap, squat—and he had a very flexible Achilles tendon—and all kinds of things that made it much easier for him physically. He was just very limber, and that certainly helped.”

Sar Sokvannara, who was born in Siem Reap and trained in folk dance at the Wat Bo school there, ultimately went on to join the Pacific Northwest Ballet School, in Seattle, Washington.

Cambodian choreographer Sophiline Cheam Shapiro, who was awarded a National Endowment for the Arts award earlier this year, said she highly valued Sar Sokvannara’s achievements, especially to begin training in ballet at an old age, 17.

Cambodian traditional dance and Western ballet have completely different physical requirements and aesthetic forms, she said. “This transformation is very difficult.”

“I admire him for being very successful,” said Yun Theara, a professor of traditional music and vice dean of the Royal University of Fine Arts. “I am sure success must be thanks to his innate talent, along with his effort, which makes this possible.”

Cambodian world-class ballet dancer Sokvannara “Sy” Sar

Sokvannara Sar

Pacific Northwest Ballet dancer Sokvannara Sar leaps during his dance routine as shown in Anne Bass’ documentary, “Dancing Across Borders.” Photo provided by Pacific Northwest Ballet.

Out of a temple in remote Cambodia, a world-class ballet dancer is discovered

May 28th, 2009
By Ninette Cheng
Northwest Asian Weekly

While visiting Cambodia in 2000, American arts patron Anne H. Bass witnessed a rising star. Then 15 years old, Sokvannara “Sy” Sar performed a dance at Cambodia’s famous Preah Kahn temple and caught Bass’ eye.

Nine years later, Sar is a member of the Pacific Northwest Ballet Company, and Bass has documented his journey every step of the way. On May 25, Sar’s story, in a film titled “Dancing Across Borders,” produced and directed by Bass, was showcased at the Seattle International Film Festival.

Sar’s journey began on the streets of Cambodia.

“I pretty much just followed my friends,” he said. “I didn’t know what it was really. I just wanted to try [dancing] out.”
At the age of 9, Sar began his dance education at the Wat Bo School and eventually found himself performing as a lead at the Preah Kahn temple. Bass happened to catch one of his performances.

After Bass returned home to the United States, she continued to think about Sar’s performance of the fisherman’s dance.

“I just kept thinking about … the fact that Cambodian dancers, especially male dancers, don’t have much of a future,” Bass said. “He was just so unbelievably and naturally gifted. He was a totally charismatic performer. The next thing I know, I was writing a letter to him and inviting him to dance ballet.”

Bass served as Sar’s sponsor on his trip to the United States.

Sar arrived a few weeks before turning the age of 17, an unusually late starting age for a ballet dancer.

He did not speak any English and was initially rejected from the School of American Ballet (SAB). Peter Boal, then a principal dancer and faculty at SAB, felt that he was not ready and said there was a language barrier.

“Already the cards were stacked against him,” Boal said in the film.

Sar also had to deal with the culture shock of moving to a different country. He enrolled in a high school and received his diploma in three years.

“It was tough,” Sar said. “I had never left home. There was nobody around who I could talk to. I was a little bit of an outsider.”

“He didn’t like anything from the standpoint of food,” Bass said. “We tried everything. He just really missed his mother’s cooking.”

One summer of intense training later, Sar was accepted into SAB and began classes with children ages 6 to 9.

To make up for lost time, he spent hours studying privately with ballet teacher Olga Kostritzky.

“It wasn’t easy,” Kostrizky said in the film. “Every day he would go through an enormous amount of material.”

“It’s a one in 1,000 chance that this could work, and I think we found that one,” Boal said.

In January 2006, the U.S. State Department in Cambodia organized an evening of cultural performances to celebrate the new embassy building. Sar was among the list of those invited to perform.

“[The Cambodians] are so proud of him,” said Roland Eng, a former Cambodian ambassador to the United States.

When Boal left SAB in 2006 to become the artistic director of the Pacific Northwest Ballet in Seattle, he invited Sar to attend the company’s school. Sar enrolled one year later.

That was the same year Bass developed the idea for the documentary.

“When he first came here, I got a video camera so I could film his classes to send a record of his progress to his mother,” Bass said.

“That clip just kept running until we had a movie,” Sar said.

“I hope that some people who come to this film with no feeling for ballet might develop an interest in dance,” Bass said.

“Maybe [this film will] inspire some kids in this country or in my country,” Sar said.

Bass hopes that the film will also prompt viewers to offer their support when they recognize unusual talent, like in her case with Sar.

“[The film] is good because it’s not just about me.” Sar said. “It’s just a story. … There are not many Cambodians who do ballet. It’s more about that than me.”

Bass plans to continue attending film festivals to distribute the documentary. In January, she previewed the film in Cambodia to great success. Bass and Sar plan to return to show the film to children in various schools.

As for Sar, now 24, his future plans involve dance, academics, and some self-discovery.

“I think I’m going to stick around in PNB for a while,” he said. “I’m going to go back to school, college, just part-time, but I’m not quitting dance. … I’m just trying to figure out what exactly I want to do as an individual,” he said. “I’m not sure specifically who I want to be yet.”