George Lee, a Chinese-born ballet dancer who was likely the first Asian to perform at New York City Ballet when he danced in George Balanchine’s original production of Tchaikovsky’s “The Nutcracker” in 1954, died on April 19 in Las Vegas. He was 90.
Jennifer Lin, who directed a short documentary about Mr. Lee called “Ten Times Better” (2024), confirmed his death, in a group home while under hospice care. He had no immediate survivors.
Mr. Lee, who immigrated to the United States in 1951, was studying at the School of American Ballet, City Ballet’s affiliated school, when Mr. Balanchine asked him to demonstrate his talent.
Mr. Lee, then known as George Li — he changed the spelling of his surname in 1959, when he was naturalized — had been trained by Russian teachers in Shanghai. He responded to Mr. Balanchine, who was raised in Russia, in the choreographer’s native language.
“He said, ‘What can you do good? Show me what you can do good,’ so I show him something,” Mr. Lee told The New York Times in 2024. “I did things like splits and double turns, down and up, turn again like a ball, and that’s it. He picked up some things and put them together.”
During a dress rehearsal, when a makeup artist covered him in yellowface, Mr. Balanchine intervened.
