Chinese Dancers

From the collection of

MACE is the strategic lead organisation for screen heritage for the East and West Midlands regions. An independent charity based at University of Lincoln, MACE preserves and makes accessible a collection of more than 100,000 historic moving images representative of the diverse cultures and histories of communities throughout the heart of England from the Lincolnshire coast to the Welsh border.

Chinese Dancers (Central News)

Media Archive for Central England
Birmingham
1982-07-27
Sound

A group of Chinese dancers perform outside the Birmingham Repertory Theatre

Cultures collide in this news report from 1982. Peter Green watches a group of Chinese dancers demonstrate their art outside the Birmingham Repertory Theatre. Unfortunately, their graceful and ancient dance is spoilt somewhat by the appearance of a man pushing a council dust-cart across the green, in what we'd now call photo-bombing.

A group of Chinese dancers perform outside the Birmingham Repertory Theatre.

Chinese Britain

From restaurants and supermarkets to colourful New Year celebrations, explore how television has represented British Chinese communities through the decades.

The dynamic dragon dances of Lunar New Year are an annual fixture on our television screens. Like Carnival or Diwali, this point in the calendar offers regional news crews across the country an opportunity to capture colour and spectacle on our doorstep. The history of Britain's Chinese communities is centuries-long, but the wave of postwar immigration in the 20th century coincided with the rise of television, and over the ensuing decades local news has reported on this community, with a mixture of curiosity and novelty, for an implied majority white British audience.

This collection brings together several of these reports, most of which are anchored in areas where British Chinese communities are most visible: restaurants, supermarkets and, naturally, New Year celebrations. And yet, despite the undeniable contribution that this community has made to the changing landscape of British society, there is a dearth of opportunities for British Chinese talent on our screens – with the likes of Bert Kwouk, Gemma Chan and Benedict Wong serving as few exceptions to the norm. So, to complement the news items in this collection, there are also personal documentaries and short films by British Chinese filmmakers who turn the camera around, and offer their perspective on life in Britain.