Anne Bass is a wealthy woman. Immensely wealthy, mainly because of a huge divorce settlement from Texas oil billionaire Sid Bass, she has given generously to many arts organization, primarily those involving dance. On a trip to Angkor Wat in 2000, she was convinced to attend a dance recital by the Wat Bo School in Preah Kahn, and among the participants was a 16-year-old Cambodian boy, Sokvannara Sar.
"Dancing Across Borders," directed by Bass, is an unexciting documentary film that follows her attempts to turn him into Mikhail Baryshnikov or Rudolf Nureyev. Cambodian folk dance, while requiring talent and intense instruction, is not classic ballet, but neither Bass nor her bankroll were deterred.
The boy was eager, and had some talent, and worked diligently for almost five years with Olga Kostritzky and other dance teachers like Jock Soto and Peter Boal. He also was hired by the Pacific Northwest Ballet, in Seattle, when Boal became artistic director of the company.
Sar and Bass posed for photos when "Dancing Across Borders" opened in New York a couple of months ago, but I could find no information as to what the boy is doing now. Bass' charitable feelings may have been honorable, but the film's celebration of a rich, white American woman taking an Asian boy from Cambodia to support these feelings leaves one rather suspicious about many things, and not very entertained by watching a boy struggling to learn to live in a different world, not to mention learning ballet.
"Dancing Across Borders" opens today at the Tivoli.
–Joe