Yolanda Chen, 1920s

Sylvia (Silan) Chen, 1920s, a noted dancer, whose co-production with the great Russian choreographer, Kasian Goleizovsky, pupil of Fokine and classmate of Nijinsky, brought down the ceiling of the Bolshoi Theater, and made its star, Abramova, turn green with envy.

Spring of 1927, Sylvia and Yolanda Chen in the garden of the Foreign Office where Eugene, now Foreign Minister of the Wuhan Government, worked to re-possess the British concessions.

scanned from "Footnote to History" by Silan Chen Leyda, ISBN 0-87127-134-6

Published by Dance Horizons

ISBN 0 87127 134 6

Sylvia Chen's American husband Jay Leyda (1910-1988), was a leading film historian, filmmaker, photographer, archivist, translator, teacher, and noted Sergei Eisenstein, Emily Dickinson and Herman Melville scholar.

1950s, Yolanda with her Russian husband Alexander Shelenkov, a renowned film cameraman. Yolanda was an eminent camerawoman for Mosfilms. Together they made quite a few outstanding movies, among them "Romeo and Juliet", a ballet drama, danced by Ulanova.

Yolanda and Jack's first son, Eugeniy (Danny) Bernardovich Chen . Due to wartime circumstances, Yolanda raised Danny in Russia.