Dance in Herland surveys artist Luka Yuanyuan Yang’s cinematic oeuvre, including her feature-length production Chinatown Cha-Cha and five short films centered on diasporic Chinese communities. The first part of this two-part publication takes its title Chinatown Cha-Cha from Yang’s film. Through the oral accounts of six dancers, it unveils and traces the history of oversea Chinatowns and local nightclubs in their rise and decline. It features conversations between Yang and two key figures of Chinatown’s nightclub scene: the late Coby Yee, legendary dancer and owner of Forbidden City nightclub in San Francisco and Cynthia Yee, a next-generation performer who co-founded Grant Avenue Follies. In a commissioned essay in this part, art historian and curator Xin Wang discusses how Chinese American dancers creatively respond to the Western construction of Orientalism and ways to reframe the Chinese diaspora.

The second part, Make It Home, includes a fictional text that tells the ghost stories haunting Chinatown theaters. Through a series of legendary tales, the piece captures the joys and sorrows of life in Chinatown, Oral histories told by Chinese Americans and Chinese Cubans reveal the historical role of Cantonese opera in maintaining the connection between Chinese immigrants and their homeland, illuminating how history propelled members of the diaspora in different regions to face distinct destinies. Accompanying these accounts are two personal narratives tracing the experience of diaspora and an interview with scholar Selia Tan, who explores Kaiping Diaolou—watchtowers that stand as witness to Chinese immigrants’ dreams, both realized and shattered.

The book concludes with a retrospective of the legendary life of Chinese-American filmmaker Esther Eng, who also served as the starting point for Yang’s entire project. Dance in Herland has traced a rich and expansive world of the Chinese diaspora—particularly its women—through threads such as Chinatown’s female dancers, Cantonese opera, and cinema. What shines most vividly within this narrative is the resilient vitality and flourishing artistic creativity these women have exhibited amid the turbulent and unpredictable tides of history. As Xin Wang writes in her essay: against the backdrop of these historical haunting, Coby Yee, with her joyful, sheepish, cheeky smile, offers valuable lessons in transcendence. She engaged with the circumstances that shaped her life, showcasing while shedding the historical baggage, layer by layer, like a set of strange costumes.

Luka Yuanyuan Yang is a visual artist and filmmaker working across documentary film, photography, installation, and performance. Through weaving documentary and archival materials, she explores themes of identity, migration, and memory, challenging conventional historical narratives and amplifying overlooked voices. Her debut feature documentary Chinatown Cha-Cha premiered in the Official Selection at Pingyao International Film Festival and Hawaii International Film Festival in 2024, followed by a nationwide theatrical release in China (Douban Rating 8.4/10).

The film received support from The Gotham, Doc Edge, Beijing International Film Festival, CNEX, Shanyi International Women’s Film Festival, and Aranya Waves Film Festival. Her short films have been featured in The New Yorker and screened at New Orleans Film Festival, Atlanta Film Festival, Camden International Film Festival, Asian American International Film Festival, and Women Make Waves Taiwan.

Her works are in the collections of Power Station of Art, Kadist Art Foundation and ENIX Museum of Migration. She has received fellowships from the Asian Cultural Council and Asymmetry Art Foundation.