Ping Chong :: Ping Chong & Company

Ping Chong was born in 1946 and raised in the Chinatown section of New York City. He studied film-making and graphic design at the School of Visual Arts and the Pratt Institute. Ping Chong began his theatrical career as a member of Meredith Monk's The House Foundation. He collaborated with her on several major works including The Travelogue Series and The Games, for which they shared the Outstanding Achievement in Music Theatre Award in 1986. [read more]

Ping Chong and Company, originally The Fiji Theatre Company, was founded in 1975 to explore the meaning of contemporary theater and art on a national and international level. Today, the company creates unfailingly innovative works of theater and art for modern, multi-cultural audiences in New York and throughout the world. In addition, the company provides an artistic home and professional base for a multi-racial core group of performers, designers and theater artists who collaborate with Ping Chong on a project basis.
http://www.pingchong.org

"Secret History"

Secret History explores the mysteries of cultural identity and the displacement of peoples and cultures in the past century through the personal testimonies of foreign-born New Yorkers. The work is created through a collaborative work process by which Ping Chong interviews people about their lives, cultural identities and experiences of coming to a new place – in this case New York City, 2000.

Secret History is part of the Undesirable Elements series, an on-going series of community-specific oral history works by Ping Chong exploring the effects of history, culture and ethnicity on the lives of individuals in a community. Undesirable Elements was first produced during a residency at Artist Space in New York City. Since then, Ping Chong has created over 25 original Undesirable Elements productions in cities like Atlanta, Charleston, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Seattle, Chicago, Washington DC, Rotterdam, Berlin, and Tokyo, where under the title Gaijin or “foreigner” it received a 1995 Yumiuri Theatrical Award

Secret History was conceived and directed by Ping Chong in collaboration with Trinket Monsod (Philippines), Vaimoana Niumeitolu (Tonga), Hiromi Sakamoto (Japan), Tania Salmen (Lebanon/Venezuela), Patrick Ssenjovu (Uganda), and Cherry Lou Sy (Philippines/China). The video version of Secret History was directed by Hiromi Sakamoto.

View an excerpt on RealVideo:

[Song and Dance 1min 24s :: DSL/Cable :: Dialup]
[What do you think of 9 min :: DSL/Cable :: Dialup]
You need RealPlayer™ to experience this clip. Visit http://www.real.com for more information.

Ping Chong reports: “We have several projects in development. One involves the story of a Thai scientist from a wealthy family who battled the pharmaceutical companies to develop an AIDS drug in Thailand in the early 90s so people could take one or two pills instead of multiple pills. Now she’s in Africa trying to set up this kind of infrastructure. Another project is with the Ma-Yi Theatre about the Philippines and I’m working with Jessica Hagedorn. It will follow four people with different narrartives with history as a backdrop behind all their stories. A third project is for the Kennedy Center, which has invited me to make something for the huge festival on China they’re doing in October. It will be about the rise and the fall and the rise of China and will use puppets. Finally, I will be working with Native Americans in Lawrence, Kansas on a version of Undesirable Elements, which I expect to be very exciting and challenging. Right now I’m in Seattle creating an Undesirable Elements with students here.”

If you could make a piece for the current White House, what would it be?

The first thing that comes to mind is Roberto Rossellini’s film, The Flowers of St. Francis. I would do a work about St Francis – which is to say, a work about compassion and renouncing materialism. There are also some famous paintings by Giotto that address his spirit of compassion. I would take inspiration from these. Maybe I would use puppets.

What is the most important responsibility of an artist?

[read more ]

Ping’s picks include classic films, documentaries, short stories, histories, graphic novels, art installations, and memoirs.

March Achbar, Jennifer Abbott, and Joel Bakan, The Corporation

Leyla Ahmed, A Border Passage

Amy Chua, World on Fire

Barbara Ehrenreich, Nickel and Dimed

Adan Hochschild, King Leopold’s Ghost

Ha Jin, The Bridegroom

Pagan Kennedy, Black Livingstone

Michael Ondaatje, Anil’s Ghost

Yasujiro Ozu, Floating Weeds

Pen-ek Ratanaruang, Last Life in the Universe

Francesco Rosi, Salvatore Giuliano

Marjane Satrapi, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood

James Turrell, Room at P.S.1/MOMA, Queens, New York