SHANGHAI — Beneath the towering green sign of Beisheng Market on Laohutai Road, Huang Shenrong emerges just after 6 a.m., as the day begins to stir. The 84-year-old is in a pressed dark brown shirt, black trousers, and polished leather shoes, tucking plastic bags heavy with vegetables and meat into his electric scooter’s basket.

As he pulls out a separate pair of shoes from a worn reusable tote bag, it’s clear he’s headed somewhere important.

Two elderly women greet him with a “Morning!” as they pull up on scooters beside him, and I tag along as they follow the faint sound of ballroom music. They climb a narrow staircase to the second floor, where a sign reads “New Dream,” and wordlessly present their beige punch cards to two elderly staff members at the counter.

Inside, the air is dim under glowing LED strips and lolling laser lights. Regulars settle on leather chairs along the wall. They unpack thermal cups, the men change shoes, and the women take out dresses from their bags.

Huang nods at a few. “We’ve known each other for 30 years,” he says. “We’re all the same age now.” Though everything else still looks straight out of the 1990s, the floor is new. Huang tells me the floor was renovated not long ago with springs — “better for old knees.”

Though New Dream is known as Shanghai’s premier nightclub online, it has nothing to do with the night. Instead, the ballroom dance hall runs on its own clock, with three sessions a day — 6 a.m., 1 p.m., 7 p.m. — each ending half an hour after the music stops. The owner, 56-year-old Chen Ping, doesn’t remember how this schedule began, insisting it was already in place when she took over 16 years ago.

“The dancers are still from that generation,” she says. “We just follow their rhythm.”

Ballroom culture runs deep in Shanghai. In the 1920s and ’30s, venues like the Paramount and Ciro’s drew in elites and intellectuals from all over the world. Then, in the 1980s, after the reform and opening-up, dance halls erupted in popularity again. Parks and ballrooms filled with people dancing the “fast three” and “slow four” in their spare time. It was a rebirth of movement.

However, as these ballroom dance aficionados age and the younger generation turns to social media dance trends, dance halls are struggling to stay afloat. Now, the ones dancing the classics are over 65, and with rent pricing skyrocketing, there may be fewer than 20 dance halls like New Dream left in Shanghai, according to Chen.

For now, they remain a cultural touchpoint for their loyal clientele.

Huang started dancing in the parks and later met his wife dancing. They began coming to New Dream years ago, seeking the privacy of the studio.

“I’ve been dancing here since the day it opened 35 years ago, all 35 years,” Huang says. “The owner wasn’t the same back then.” During this time, he tells me, he brought his wife here in the evenings. Two years ago, he began coming alone. Now he comes in the mornings.

When I lift my camera, he waves a hand. “Don’t show my face,” he says. “They’ll laugh.” A woman passing by cackles. “Go on, take his picture!” She stretches her arms and steps onto the floor.

Huang finishes lacing his shoes, rotates his ankles, and disappears into the crowd. After two hours, he reappears, wiping his forehead. He gathers his things. More people are still arriving, repeating the same ritual.

By 11 a.m., the DJ — named Xue — comes down with a mop and begins cleaning. Within 30 minutes, the hall is silent.

“The afternoon is liveliest,” Xue says. “Groups come together.” Sun Jianguo, the 72-year-old manager, adds, “Xue plays better music in the afternoon. He lets loose.”

When I return at 1:30 p.m., the hall is full. The morning was only a rehearsal.

“The afternoon crowd is younger,” says Chen. “By younger, I mean around 60- to 70-years old. They are the main force.”

The music shifts — from waltz to rumba, then disco. By 3 p.m., the beat is strong and persistent. Lights flash. Dancers gather around a wooden box in the center, where they hold up the dance hall’s sign, swaying in unison.

“This is the best moment!” says Qin Qin, a New Dream regular, face flushed and spinning like it’s her first time.

Not far away, another regular, Ying Ying, is catching her breath and nodding with a faint smile. Every day, the septuagenarian rides her mobility scooter about half an hour all the way from Shanghai’s northern Putuo District, a commute she likens to “going to work.”

Ying Ying first took to the floor in the early ’90s, not long after leaving her job at an electronics factory, where years of hunched-over soldering damaged her eyes and throat. Before that, she had spent nearly a decade on a commune in Shanghai’s Chongming Island.

Her colleagues took her out to dance during lunch breaks. Soon, she was hooked. On Sundays, she would leave her young son with her mother and travel across the city to dance halls on Nanjing Road, Huaihai Road, and in Pudong New Area.

“Those old ballrooms had style,” she recalls, eyes bright. “Elegant women, gentlemanly men.”

Life outside the dance hall was less elegant. The factory closed, forcing her to retire at 45. Her husband developed diabetes and now lives in a nursing home, where she brings him meals each week. Her son, born in the ’80s, lives with her and remains a bachelor.

“When I feel pent up, I dance,” she says. “Once I dance, everything dissipates. It’s better than mahjong.”

Qin Qin has a similar story. Laid off from a textile factory, she turned to selling fruit before gathering the courage to enter a dance hall — initially hoping to lose weight.

“I was afraid they’d laugh at me for being fat,” she says.

What began as exercise soon became a ritual, and eventually, something like faith. Over time, she lost more than 10 kilograms, but gained a reason to move every day. Now, she can’t imagine life without it.

Each afternoon, she rides her motorcycle to New Dream, always changing into a carefully chosen outfit — today, a rose-red knit top, white lace skirt, and a handmade hairband. She has a whole drawer dedicated to dance wear. From 1 to 3 p.m., she barely rests.

The afternoon crowd today also includes Chen Aijun, 72, who has invited 30 friends through group chats. She and her friends share dance videos on social app WeChat and Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, as they hit up dance halls all over Shanghai. They are the keepers of the city’s rhythm.

Despite the bustling afternoon crowd, Chen Ping, the owner, says business is half of what it used to be in the early 2000s. She remembers bygone evenings when crowds reached 1,000. “You could barely stand,” she says. “Back then, we had to control the flow of people at the entrance and suggest they go to other dance halls.”

Now the evening crowd is much smaller, on par with the morning. Yet as the evening draws close, a more varied crowd starts to arrive. Some come to practice steps in front of mirrors, while others — mostly men — sit alone in corners and never dance.

“Two or three years ago, some young people did start showing up at night — but not to dance,” says Chen. “They came to take photos, check in on social media, and even livestream. Maybe that’s when they called us the ‘best nightclub.’ But it didn’t bring in new people.”

She admits the business may struggle in the next three to five years. Last year, as evening attendance kept falling, Chen had to reduce the price of the evening session from 12 yuan to 5 yuan ($1.70 to $0.70) — after holding steady for nearly 16 years.

“We’ll keep going as long as we can,” Chen says. “I’m not sentimental, but I cherish this.”

She continues: “If one day it ends, I’ll be at peace. I believe I’ve done my duty for them — for this era of dance halls.”

As the music plays and I watch dancer after dancer take to the floor, it becomes clear to me that New Dream isn’t for those who’ve left. Rather, it’s for those still here — still turning, still swaying, still pausing time before the next song ends.