Still dancing after all these years

When Luka Yuanyuan Yang, a visual artist born in Beijing, received a six-month residency in the United States from the Asian Cultural Council in 2018, she found herself drawn to the story of a group of older women who defied the stereotypes of age, leading her to spend six years tracing their lives in a documentary called Chinatown Cha-Cha.

Since its debut in cinemas last month, the 85-minute film has received widespread praise, exemplified by its rating of 8.4 out of 10 on the popular review aggregator Douban.

Yang says that her original intention had been to explore the ways Chinese Americans pursued success in the entertainment industry during the 20th century, driven by her fascination with Anna May Wong, the first Chinese American Hollywood star.

Feeling that there might be more women like Wong, whose talent may have gone unnoticed for historical reasons, Yang began researching the subject, and uncovered a wealth of archive materials, documentaries and books on the topic.

Two discoveries that intrigued her the most were Arthur Dong's documentary Forbidden City, U.S.A. and Trina Robbins' oral history Forbidden City: The Golden Age of Chinese Nightclubs.

Both revisited the heyday of nightclubs in San Francisco's Chinatown over half a century ago.

Yang's research led her to the Grant Avenue Follies, a troupe of dancers mentioned at the end of Robbins' book.

Originally set up by four retired dancers who had once been part of the nightclub scene in Chinatown during its golden age, the troupe consists of 10 elderly dancers in their 70s and 90s.

"I was excited to learn that they were still performing, so I contacted them and discovered they were scheduled to perform in Las Vegas," Yang says.

It was there that Yang first met 92-year-old dancer Coby Yee. Dressed in a fluorescent green dress and a pretty headdress, Yee's costume, which she had designed herself, evoked a blend of cultures from China, Mexico and Morocco. "I had never seen a woman of her age exuding such dynamism and charm," Yang says.

The child of immigrants from Guangdong province, Yee was born in the US in 1926 and grew up helping her parents at the family laundry store, ironing hundreds of shirts each day from a young age.

Unwilling to follow in her parents' footsteps, Yee discovered a passion for dancing and eventually became a star in San Francisco nightclubs.

"Most Chinese immigrant families at the time thought that being a dancer was not a decent profession, but Yee bravely pursued her dream, demonstrating her taste and talent for fashion," says Yang.

Despite lacking experience in producing feature-length films at the time, Yang's admiration for Yee and the other members of the Grant Avenue Follies pushed her to learn, and ultimately to make the documentary.

She says that the Chinese title of the film Nuren Shijie was inspired by the 1939 film It's a Women's World, the first all-female film directed by Esther Eng, the first female director of Chinese-language films in the US.

During the six years she spent producing Chinatown Cha-Cha, Yang faced a series of challenges, including battling cancer and getting pregnant.

"During post-production, my female editor visited my home twice a week as I needed to take breaks for breastfeeding. It was an incredible experience to assemble a team predominantly comprised of talented women to tell a story about a group of resilient older women," Yang says.

The film is scheduled to be released overseas in 2025.