Artist-in-Residence
Artist-in-Residence Phil Chan
Oakland Ballet Company is thrilled to welcome Phil Chan as our Artist-in-Residence, and OBC looks forward to many wonderful future collaborations with him to continue to serve our mission, our community and our dance artists. Phil’s profile as an activist, author and choreographer will enrich our programs and strengthen our ties to the East Bay community where he was raised. OBC is pleased to provide an artistic home for Phil’s choreographic adventures while also supporting his important work as an arts advocate for increased racial equity in the dance world. Phil’s most recent choreographic work for OBC were the new dances for the Angel Island Project 2025; a very significant project that brings Huang Ruo’s beautiful oratorio to life with the Del Sol quartet and 16 vocalists.
Bio
Phil Chan is the co-founder of Final Bow for Yellowface and President of the Gold Standard Arts Foundation. 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, the 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. He has also served as Executive Editor of FLATT Magazine and contributed to Dance Europe Magazine, Dance Magazine, Dance Australia, and Huffington Post. He currently serves on the Advisory Board of Dance Magazine.
Chan has served on grant and award panels including the National Endowment for the Arts dance panel, the Jadin Wong Award (Asian American Arts Alliance), and the Dance Data Project advisory council.
His recent projects include directing Madama Butterfly for Boston Lyric Opera (named “Best of 2023” by The Washington Post, Boston Globe, and Broadway World); staging a reimagined La Bayadère for Indiana University; and producing the 10,000 Dreams: Asian Choreography Festivals (named “Best of 2024” by Minneapolis Star Tribune, Utah Review, and Pointe Magazine). His choreography is in the repertory of Ballet West and Oakland Ballet, where he serves as Resident Choreographer.
He was honored with the 2024 Dance Advocate Award from Dance/NYC and named a “Next 50 Arts Leader” by the Kennedy Center. He is the subject of the award-winning documentary About Face, and is currently a professor at Harvard University.