Among the thousands of remarkable artists who have passed through Yaddo, few have been as broad in their talents, or as fascinating in their personal history as dancer, choreographer, and actress Si-Lan Chen Leyda (1905-1996) Chen was born in Trinidad to a Chinese father and a French-African mother. When Sun Yat-sen brought about the Republic of China, he requested that Mr. Chen serve as Foreign Minister. This event kicked off a long peripatetic period in Si-Lan's life that would see her move to Hong-Kong, march from Canton to Wuhan when Chiang Kai-shek took power, and eventually flee to the Soviet Union. There her career as a dancer and choreographer blossomed. There too, she came to know a brilliant young film scholar by the name of Jay Leyda, whom she would marry. The couple eventually settled in Hollywood, where Si-Lan worked as the dance director for one feature film, and starred in three othersâonce opposite Shelly Winters and Liberace. Amazingly, all this preceded her 1954 residence at Yaddo, during which she produced the work closest to her heart.