Chong, Ping

Ping Chong is an interdisciplinary theatre director, choreographer, videographer and installation artist. He studied visual arts, dance, and filmmaking, and originally intended to work in film. His career began in the early 1970s when he joined Meredith Monk's performance company. Monk, a pioneer of experimental and interdisciplinary theater, steered Chong in that direction; his collaborations with Monk included The Travelogue Series and, later, The Games .

Since 1972, he and his company (Ping Chong & Co.) have created over 50 works for the stage, which have been presented at major venues all over the world. He is the recipient many awards, including two Obies, a National Institute for Music Theatre Award, a Playwrights USA Award, and two "Bessie" Awards for creative achievement. He has also received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Guggenheim Foundation, the TCG/Pew Charitable Trust, and the USA Artist Fellowship in recognition of his contribution to American arts and culture.

Among Ping Chong's many significant works are:

The East-West Quartet, a four-work series exploring east-west relations past, present, and future, comprised of the productions Deshima, Chinoiserie, After Sorrow (a collaboration with choreographer Muna Tseng and composer Josef Fung), and Pojagi ;

Kwaidan and OBON: Tales of Rain and Moonlight, two puppet theatre works based on Japanese ghost stories;

EDDA: Viking Tales of Lust, Revenge and Family, a music-theatre work created in collaboration with Ben Bagby and the Sequentia Ensemble;

Blind Ness : The Irresistible Light of Encounter, an exploration of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and the colonial history of the Belgian Congo;

Undesirable Elements, an on-going series of works exploring the effects of history, culture and ethnicity on the lives of individuals living in a particular community (he has created over 25 versions of Undesirable Elements in cities such as Atlanta, Charleston, Chicago, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Seattle, Long Beach, Newark, Clinton, Rotterdam and Tokyo);

Children Of War, created in collaboration with Center for Multi-Cultural Human Services in Virginia with a group of young people who have experienced war and civil turmoil;

I Will Not Be Sad In This World and Plage Concrète, video works which have been screened internationally and on public television;

and several environmental art installations, including In The Absence Of Memory, Tempus Fugit, A Facility For The Containment And Channelling Of Undesirable Elements and Testimonial .

Source: http://www.pingchong.org/30th/ping.html (Accessed Sept. 27, 2010)

From the guide to the Ping Chong archive, 1971-2007, 1980-2007, (The New York Public Library. Billy Rose Theatre Division.)