Asian Ballet Project Uses Film to Explore Identity, Adoption

The Asian American Ballet Project is transforming an ambitious dance project that expresses the emotional and personal journey of cross-racial adoption into a film that will be played at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. The 10-minute film, Reclamation, will screen on a loop from 3 to 8 p.m. in Calderwood Hall during the Museum’s Free First Thursday event on Dec 4.

The work uses dance, music and spoken word to tell the story of Kathy Eow, who was born in Korea and adopted by a family in New Hampshire.

“She speaks about her journey,” Beth Mochizuki, the artistic ballet project’s director, told Sampan during a video call.

At first, she said, Eow resisted relating to her adopted family. “Then, at the end of the ballet, she decides ‘OK, I’m a part of this family. Even though I’m part of this family, it doesn’t mean that I’m not Korean. I’m still Korean, even if I don’t know a lot about my ancestry. That is in my blood’... It’s a nice message.”

Mochizuki said this film originated from a project by the same name produced in 2024. The work was a collaboration between Eow, a spoken word artist; musician Yoona Kim; and choreographer Zoe Mueller.

After seeing Eow perform spoken word in 2023, Mochizuki felt “this should be a ballet.”

She envisioned it with movement, and Eow’s speaking performance.

“It would be even more powerful,” she said.

The group came together and produced the ballet the next year, but they wanted more than just live shows.

“We thought if we could film it, then we could present it in different places,” Mochizuki said, “as a ballet company, it’s nice to have this film as part of our artistry that can go to other places that we can’t physically go.”

How can the group express topics like ancestry, heritage, and history by using dance? And how can it make all concepts clear?

“What really helped is having Kathy speaking the words,” said Mochizuki, “so that it wasn’t just interpretive through dance, but it was the words and the dance and the music, all combined to create” a clear story.

With the narration, she said, the viewers won’t feel confused.

Since being a member of the Neighborhood Salon Luminaries at the Gardner Museum early this year, Mochizuki decided to present the film as a part of her presentation at the end of this program.

“I’m excited that there is a little bit of an adoptee connection with Isabella Stewart Gardner, who had adopted her nephews,” she said. “The curators and the staff there are so open to people in the community, finding connections with them and being able to present artists from the Boston area. They’ve been very supportive.”

Mochizuki noted the film also explores universal questions of identity and belonging that extend beyond adoption.

“I think that is not something unique to being an adoptee or being biracial,” she said. “I feel a lot of our audience really related and responded to that because of being in America and having ethnic heritage in different countries already. The message in the film: You matter; you are the part of your own ancestry; you are an important link in your past and in the future are important message that I think people will respond to and will enjoy about the film.”