Dancing In Utopia captures the trance-like communion of public square dancing in China

Selina Kehuan Wu, from Nanjing, China, is a graphic designer and artist who has spent the majority of her life in the United States. Based in New York City and working for the renowned design studio Collins, Selina’s newest project, Dancing In Utopia, takes form in paying tribute to navigating personal history – our perception reshapes what has happened, where we’re from and how we act. The book surrounds the topic of a popular and iconic pastime activity among the elderly Chinese population: public square dancing. Using this fragment of Chinese history as a journalistic lens in which to see history, politics, propaganda, grassroots culture, as well as social issues in modern China, Selina has created something that feels magical and profound.

Dancing In Utopia is as much about Selina as it is about China as a country; the two entities are intimately connected. Inspired deeply by her childhood when her grandmother moved to the urban centre of Nanjing where tall apartments cradled a public square in which the elderly congregated to dance, exercise or socialise. “The public square dance remains both a concept and a fond memory for me; every time I pass by a group of dancing ladies, I think of my grandmother,” says Selina. “Even after moving to the US, I would go to Chinatown and see elder Chinese women forming groups to dance in the parks, or hear stories of how they wanted to carry this folk activity into a foreign land as a way to strengthen their culture and bond – yet were often seen as loud and disruptive by local residents.”

The more Selina researched this innocent pastime, the more she unearthed deep political, social and historical layers that reveal the sensibilities of 20th-century China. In this photobook, nighttime events are captured beautifully – light ripples through hair and outlines silhouettes, China’s signature red creates an ethereal glow that holds the coordinated dances in what appears like a suspension of time.

Sections of the book are separated with bold, majestic colours: royal blues, patriotic reds, nostalgic purples – and the centrefolds feature these colours climbing out onto the pages before diffusing like dissipating memories themselves. The first half of the book follows a sunset gradient before fading into black, echoing the daily rhythm of “public square dancers and the cultural metaphor of seniors as ‘a generation of sunset’”.

“Throughout the chapters, I also inserted newsprint sheets with articles about square dancing. Each is framed by a pair of images – one symbolising the past, the other the present,” says Selina. “When flipped, the newsprint conceals and reveals an era, inviting readers to reflect on what has changed, and how much, across time.” The book references vintage Chinese ephemera affiliated with the elderly – chapter openings take forms of traditional calendars as well as iconography related to the themes of chapters, such as a “longevity icon” in a chapter about aging and a Tai Chi icon in a chapter about harmony.

In the photos, you can almost feel the music, better yet, feel the sensation of becoming one with music, through motion-blurred images and type, with typography obscured and inserted into the photos, blending in like dancers. Sometimes described as “zombies” for their surrender to the trance-like communion of dance, Selina describes the photos as rarified glimpses of Chinese people that western media seldom represents – vernacular moments, ordinary, unfiltered.

“In my candid shots, I can see people whispering and pointing at me, while others seemed completely unaware of my lens. I captured a woman who wasn’t participating in the dance but simply swaying to the music on her own; another elderly lady walking her dog, holding its paws as if it were her dance partner, the two of them happily moving together,” says Selina. “Now, on nostalgic nights when I flip through these photos, waves of joy and peace return to me. For a few evenings, it was worth being a high-profile photographer.”