Feature Film Review: AND THE COMMUNITY WILL RISE. Dance Documentary

Summary:

And the Community Will Rise embodies the significant role that residents and advocates for public housing play in ensuring the social, political, and cultural integrity of San Francisco in the face of the current housing crisis, gentrification and displacement threatening the city. Chinatown’s Ping Yuen buildings were the first high-rise public housing in the U.S. built in 1952, and provide crucial affordable housing for the community.

A collection of stories within a public housing structure called Ping Yuen comprises the film AND THE COMMUNITY WILL RISE in a unique way to depict what the true United States looks like beyond what the news media depicts. Told in voice over format, with a combination of dance and music, the history of a community within Chinatown and the residents of the Ping Yuen in San Francisco are unveiled in this documentary.

This is far from a typical documentary film as there are no talking heads, but historical pictures and dance reenactments to tell the story as residents, both old and new, speak of their personal experiences within the close-knit Ping Yuen community. The film begins with the historical background that led to forming the public housing establishment for Chinese immigrants to the diverse complex it is today. It’s a story of racial inequality, discrimination and history that is rarely told as the film delves into real memories that depicts both the fight and the good times to first get and then maintain the Ping Yuen.

Lenora Lee Dance approach to making a historical film was quite different from most documentaries involving minority communities. Rather than have historians tell the story, Dance chose to find the residents who have lived the history and those who currently live in the community, making it clear that preserving individual cultures while befriending newcomers is what makes the Ping Yuen different from other public housing structures. The film consists of dance, music and cultural reenactments to tell the entire history of the community.

Lenora Lee Dance shows several rare moments rarely seen in the divisive narratives spread across various media formats. The film displays what the United States truly is, a diverse population where the majority of people are able to put differences aside and become a single community such as within the Ping Yuen. The community lives true to the title of the film, AND THE COMMUNITY WILL RISE.

Review By Victoria Angelique

Directed by Lenora Lee