Physical description:
Open toed dance shoes with 2" heels and ankle straps with buckle closures. Silver colored leather is used as the exterior layer of the shoe with decorative silver stitching detail on the toe area of the shoe. The shoes are lined with peach colored leather and peach colored silk-satin. Between the inner sole and the outer sole is a layer of gold colored leather. The soles are brown leather with additional textured leather pieces adhered to the bottom of each toe area. The interior of the right shoe has gold lettering which reads RAE SON Ltd. Vancouver, BC.
Content description:
These are a pair of shoes that “Fei Ying” wore as part of the dance costume for her signature dance. See images of Fei Ying in costume, performing. Mary Young was born in the late 1920s in Hanford, CA, and raised in Visalia. She took on the stage name “Fei Ying” when she began her career as an exotic dancer at the Forbidden City in San Francisco. She went on to be a featured performer at Fong Wan’s Oakland nightclub the New Shanghai Terrace Bowl, the only Chinese nightclub with vaudeville acts and Chinese entertainment in the East Bay in the 1940s. She toured extensively and headlined at venues throughout the West Coast and Pacific Northwest during the 1940s. The costume she wore for her signature act, the fans she used during her fan dance, and the photographs that document her performances will allow OMCA to tell her story and the story of the Chinese nightclubs of the San Francisco Bay Area. According to the Gap Analysis, OMCA will prioritize “objects which fill gaps in our ability to tell the stories of the diverse peoples and cultures of California, their identities and the dynamics of power between and among them, and help underrepresented groups find and tell their own stories.”
