esea contemporary is pleased to present ‘Echoes of Elsewhere’, a special event with artist-filmmaker Luka Yuanyuan Yang. The programme features three of Yang’s short films – ‘Cantonese Tunes on Mott Street’, ‘Tales of Chinatown’, and ‘The Lady from Shanghai’ – alongside a talk on her latest book, ‘Dance in Herland’. Blending documentary, archival research and cinematic reimagining, Yang traces overlooked fragments of Chinese diasporic life across time and geography.

From the backstreets of New York’s Chinatown to the stages of 1940s Shanghai, the films uncover personal and collective histories long obscured by dominant narratives. Yang’s protagonists – performers, activists, and dreamers – speak through oral histories, photographs and embodied memory, revealing layered experiences of migration, displacement and cultural survival. Together, the works invite us to consider how stories are constructed – and who has the power to tell them.

‍Programme:

‘Cantonese Tunes on Mott Street’, 2022, 16 min 28 sec, single-channel video

This film centres on three Cantonese opera enthusiasts in New York: a Chinese immigrant from a Cantonese opera family, a Hong Kong immigrant who moved to New York as a child, and a Chinese refugee from Cuba. For them, Cantonese opera performances serve as both a sanctuary and a place of community.

‘Tales of Chinatown’, 2019, 19 min 11 sec, single-channel video

Starting with a walking tour through San Francisco’s Chinatown, this film brings the viewer to the last surviving Chinese theatre, following a scene from the 1940s film ‘Lady from Shanghai’, directed by Orson Welles. Wandering from iconic venues in San Francisco’s Chinatown, including ‘Shanghai Low’ and the ‘Forbidden City Nightclub’, the camera follows the walking tour of Chinese American nightclub dancer Cynthia Yee and includes a series of interviews with historians Wylie Wong and David Lei.

‘Lady from Shanghai’, 2019, 16 min 24 sec, single-channel HD video

Despite living in San Francisco for her entire adult life, 78-year-old Ceecee Wu has considered herself ‘the lady from Shanghai’. Her 101-year-old mother, who has amnesia, shares this sentiment, muttering, ‘Where is this? Am I in Shanghai?’ Ceecee, who doesn’t read Chinese, reveals correspondence between her and her ex-husband from Shanghai that highlights how the two met through a dating website and formed a relationship that overcame the obstacles of language and geographical boundaries.

This event takes place in conjunction with the screening of Yang’s feature documentary 'Chinatown Cha-Cha' at HOME, Manchester on 26 July. Together, these two events offer a unique opportunity for audiences to engage more deeply with the artist's practice across two distinct contexts within the city.

A limited number of copies of ‘Dance in Herland’, which explores gender, performance, and alternative historiographies through the lens of Yang’s long-term research, will be available for purchase following the screening at esea contemporary. The event will conclude with an informal conversation and a moment of gentle reflection over refreshments in our Studio space.

Image credits:

1-2. ‘Tales of Chinatown’, 2019, film still, 19 min 11 sec, single-channel video. Courtesy of the artist.

3-4. ‘Lady from Shanghai’, 2019, film still, 16 min 24 sec, single-channel HD video. ‘Tales of Chinatown’, 2019, film still, 19 min 11 sec, single-channel video. Courtesy of the artist.

5-6. ‘Cantonese Tunes on Mott Street’, 2022, film still, 16 min 28 sec, single-channel video. ‘Tales of Chinatown’, 2019, film still, 19 min 11 sec, single-channel video. Courtesy of the artist.

'Echoes of Elsewhere': Film Screening and Book Talk with Luka Yuanyuan Yang