In 2000, on a trip to Angkor Wat in Cambodia, Anne Bass, a Manhattan socialite and patron of dance, discovered Sy Sar, a 16-year-old boy performing with a traditional dance group.
Impressed by his natural ability, she brought him to New York, where she placed him in the care of instructor Olga Kostritzky at the School of American Ballet.
Now, in her first film, “Dancing Across Borders,” Bass recounts Sar’s 10-year road to success as a dancer.
Inspiring but not inspired, the documentary concentrates on the young man’s transition from native dance to Western ballet (there are seemingly endless shots of him practicing in a New York studio) but gives short shrift to how he adapted to an alien culture.
It would have been nice to learn as much about Sar the man as about Sar the dancer.