Te editions She Dances in the Land of Others

"Dance in Herland" is a publication that expands upon the film "Chinatown ChaCha," developed from artist and director Yang Yuanyuan's feature film and five short films exploring themes of overseas Chinese. Unlike the linear narrative of a film, this book weaves together interviews, archives, fictional writing, and research texts to re-construct the memories of Chinese dancers scattered between San Francisco and Cuba, forming a narrative network that spans time and geography.

In the book, dancers from Chinatown nightclubs, Cantonese opera performers, and firsthand witnesses from diasporic communities appear through oral histories. Their bodies are like fluid archives, preserving untold memories of migration and emotional echoes in their dance steps, gestures, and gazes. From the heyday of nightclub stages to Cantonese opera troupes that connected overseas Chinese with their homeland, "Dance in Herland" not only traces a neglected cultural history but also showcases how diasporic Chinese continuously "create their homes" between performance and daily life.

As an extension and reflection of the film project, this book constructs new narrative spaces between history and personal memories, allowing those figures who once shone under the stage lights to be seen again.