Final Bow for Yellowface: Dancing between Intention and Impact Paperback – June 30, 2020

Excellent book with great insight and tips for speaking out against caricatured portrayals of Asians in the arts. Best book I’ve ever read for giving practical ways to approach racism and cultural appropriation found in society today through meaningful discussions instead of automatically canceling someone. This book should be required reading for all artistic directors, choreographers, and anyone in a leadership position within the arts.

Ballet and its evolving relation with Asian dancers, audience members, and culture are just the starting point here. This book makes a compelling case that cultural sensitivity to all segments of existing and potential audiences should not only be equated withpolitical correctness. For the arts to survive and thrive we need a new artistic business model.The book explains the finer points of how to transform problematic works or present programs that cast a wider net than has been usual. The ideas promoted in this excellent book can be applied to all visual and performing arts.

The arguments and examples in this book are enlightening. I'm glad it addresses cultural appropriation of any culture, but the lens of Asian culture is very useful. The Arabian section of my own company's Nutcracker has always bothered me, and now I feel better equipped for starting a discussion about it after reading this book. Many thanks!

Representation, depiction, and portrayal matters. This book looks beyond intent and offers some solutions. If you’ve never thought deeply about these issues, it’s a strong introduction.

Required reading for any dancer, choreographer, artistic director, dramaturge, dance historian, or patron seeking to inform their dance making, viewing, creating, and analysis with inclusion and understanding of the complexities integral to the current dance experience, nationally and globally.

This book is a must read for anyone in the arts. It’s full of information and is beautifully written by someone who cares deeply about what he does. Absolutely loved it!

What a great book! Super informative and gives a lot of perspective and nuance to a discussion I've had MANY times with my friends over the older arts ie: opera and ballet

Phil Chan’s Final Bow for Yellowface examines the portrayal of Asian characters in ballet and the burgeoning movement to revise the outdated, and often offensive, representations that still appear onstage. In this thoughtful, reflective, and accessible book, Chan draws on personal experiences and historic context to consider the debate between preservation and adaptation. Acknowledging how messy and ambiguous the distinctions between character and caricature or appreciation and appropriation can be, he provides concise frameworks that the reader can apply. These practical tools can be used to facilitate essential, but often uncomfortable, conversations about the portrayal of race in dance.Gathered reflections from performers about their experiences with yellowface are interspersed throughout Final Bow. Some of these anecdotes will cause you to pause, others will make you cringe, and collectively they illustrate the necessity of the Final Bow movement.This book isn’t a manifesto for radical transformation, but instead poses the important question: “What exactly are we preserving, and why?” It is steeped in Chan’s deep love for dance and offers a pathway for ballet to become more inclusive and representative. It is a must-read for any arts professional.