What are the traditions we want to protect?
What do we want to leave behind?
Last winter, in partnership with Phil Chan and Georgina Pazcoguin of Final Bow for Yellowface, we asked choreographers Yin Yue, Edwaard Liang, and Peter Chu to use their voices and vocabularies to reimagine the Chinese Tea variation from The Nutcracker on their own terms. We called this project UNBOXED. To investigate the questions, challenges, and possibilities this project posed, these Asian-American dancemakers engaged in workshops with the Hubbard Street Dancers to create new variations of the Chinese Tea dance borne out of authenticity and inclusivity rather than harmful stereotypes.
We are excited to unveil the next phase of this project: The UNBOXED Professional Development Series - a complete curriculum, provided free of charge, for arts educators consisting of comprehensive study guides and virtual professional workshops with the UNBOXED choreographers, held over Zoom this fall. Guided by National Core Arts Standards and developed by Hubbard Street’s Education team, this curriculum addresses vital topics such as diversity, prejudice, culture, and appropriation, using these new dance pieces as inspiration to tackle these important and universal themes.
Scroll down to explore the curriculum and learn more about the Professional Development Series of virtual workshops this fall.