Oops this Old Show is a Little Racist — Now What?

Date & Time: Tuesday, September 17, 2024
5:30-7 pm

Location: Kilachand Hall, Common Rm (101)
91 Bay State Rd, Boston, MA 02215

Event Description: Magic carpets, glittering pagodas, harem fantasies…Orientalism dominated Europe’s creative landscape and imagination since the 1700s, but what purpose did it serve? Final Bow for Yellowface co-founder Phil Chan will explore over 300 years of “exotic” portrayals of “Orientals” on the Western ballet and opera stages, and examine the creative process of shifting a Eurocentric work of art for a multiracial audience, while offering practical frameworks for how to create art outside of your own cultural experience without succumbing to cancel culture.

Attendance: (For Kilachand Honors College Students) At the end of the event, a QR will be posted for you to check-in. This QR will expire so please complete the check-in form immediately. You must check-in to earn co-curricular attendance credit for this event.

Learn more about Phil Chan

Phil Chan is a co-founder of Final Bow for Yellowface and the President of the Gold Standard Arts Foundation. He is a graduate of Carleton College and an alumnus of the Ailey School. He has held fellowships with Dance/USA, Drexel University, Jacob’s Pillow, Harvard University, the Manhattan School of Music, New York Public Library for
the Performing Arts, NYU, and the Institut National d’Histoire de l’Art in Paris. As a writer, he is the author of Final Bow for Yellowface: Dancing between Intention and Impact and Banishing Orientalism, and has served as the Executive Editor for FLATT Magazine and contributed to Dance Europe Magazine, Dance Magazine, Dance Australia, and the Huffington Post, and currently serves on the Advisory Board of Dance Magazine. He served multiple years on the National Endowment for the Arts dance panel and the Jadin Wong Award panel presented by the Asian American Arts Alliance. He was a Benedict Distinguished Visiting Professor of Dance at Carleton College, and was named a Next 50 Arts Leader by the Kennedy Center. His recent projects include directing “Madama Butterfly” for Boston Lyric Opera (garnering “Best of 2023” in The Washington Post, Boston Globe, and Broadway World), and staging a newly reimagined “La Bayadere” for Indiana University. His dances are currently in the repertory at Ballet West and Oakland Ballet, where he serves as Resident Choreographer. Learn more on his website or follow him @philschan or @finalbowforyellowface.

Additional Materials

New York Times’ Review of IU Ballet’s revamped-by-Phil-Chan Bayedere

Scholarly article, “Unpinning Madama Butterfly” on Chan’s work with the Boston Lyric Opera