The untold story of ballet dancer and Broadway performer George Lee comes to light in “Ten Times Better,” a documentary that blends archival footage and interviews to paint a portrait of a quintessentially invisible immigrant with an extraordinary past. The 88-year-old blackjack dealer in Vegas grew up in Shanghai studying ballet with Russian emigres and escaped the Chinese civil war as a refugee with his mother. In the U.S., he was handpicked by George Balanchine to originate the Chinese dance in the choreographer’s 1954 premiere of “The Nutcracker” and persuaded by Gene Kelly to try Broadway in the original “Flower Drum Song”—pioneering tales of an early AAPI dancer who confronted and broke barriers.
