PING CHONG is a theatre director, choreographer, video and installation artist.  He is the recipient of two Obie Awards including one for Sustained Achievement in 2000, six National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships, a Playwrights USA Award, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a TCG/Pew Charitable Trust National Theatre Artist Residency Program Fellowship, a National Institute for Music Theatre Award, two “Bessie” Awards for Sustained Creative Achievement and for Outstanding Creative Achievement.  In 1994, Mr. Chong held the Wynton Chair at the University of Minnesota, was a Bellagio Fellow in 1998, and received an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from Cornish College in 1999 and an honorary Doctorate of Human Letters from Kent State University in 2004.  Since 1972 he has created over 50 works for the stage, which have been presented at major

photo: Stephen Garrett                 venues all over the world.

          

In 1990, Ping Chong created the first work of the EAST-WEST QUARTET, exploring East-West relations past, present and future.  DESHIMA, which was commissioned by the Mickery Workshop in Holland, received its American premiere at La MaMa, ETC in 1993 and was presented at the Tokyo International Theatre Festival and the Singapore Festival in 1995.  CHINOISERIE toured nationally and was featured as part of the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s 1995 Next Wave Festival.  The third in the series, AFTER SORROW, a collaboration with choreographer Muna Tseng and composer Josef Fung, premiered in January, 1997 at La MaMa ETC and was presented at the 1997 Theatre of Nations Festival in Seoul, Korea and in the 1998 Festival of Asian Arts in Hong Kong.  In the summer of 1999, Ping Chong was in residency at the Harvard Institute on the Arts and Civic Dialogue, developed POJAGI, which focuses on Korean history.  POJAGI was performed as part of DMZ2000 Art Festival in the Republic of South Korea on New Year’s Eve, 1999 and premiered at La MaMa in February, 2000.  

In collaboration with set designer Mitsuru Ishii and puppet artist Jon Ludwig, Ping Chong created KWAIDAN, a puppet theatre work based on three Japanese ghost stories by Lafcadio Hearn.  KWAIDAN premiered in June, 1998 at the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta and was featured in the Henson International Festival of Puppet Theater. KWAIDAN then toured to the Walker Art Center, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago, Dartmouth College and Spoleto USA Festival ’99 as well as other. From 1999-2000 KWAIDAN was presented in three cities in Japan, at the Barbican Center in London, the New Victory Theater in NYC and the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Ping Chong’s second puppet theatre work OBON: Tales of Rain and Moonlight, also based on Japanese ghost stories, premiered at Seattle Repertory Theatre in April 2002 and toured to the 2002 Spoleto Festival USA in June and to seven cities in Japan in the fall of 2003.  His latest puppet theatre work, CATHAY : THREE TALES OF CHINA, was commissioned by the J.F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts as part of its Festival of China and was created in collaboration with Shaanxi Folk Arts Theatre, Xian China.  CATHAY premiered at Seattle Repertory Theatre in September 2005, followed by engagements at the Kennedy Center and New Victory in New York October – November 2005.  

 

EDDA: Viking Tales of Lust, Revenge and Family a music-theatre work in collaboration with Ben Bagby and the Sequentia Ensemble, was presented at the University Musical Society in Ann Arbor, MI, in April  2000, and at the Lincoln Center Festival in July 2001 with critical and popular acclaim, and has since toured world-wide. Ping Chong’s latest multidisciplinary theater work, BLIND NESS: The Irresistible Light of Encounter, explores Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness and the colonial history of the Belgian Congo. BLIND NESS premiered at Kent State University in Ohio, and had its New York premiere at LaMaMa ETC in June 2004.

At New York City’s Artists’ Space in 1992, Ping Chong created the first production of 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 since created over 25 versions of UNDESIRABLE ELEMENTS in cities such as Atlanta, Charleston, Chicago, Cleveland, Minneapolis, Rotterdam, Berlin and Tokyo, where the piece, performed under the title GAIJIN, or “Foreigners” in Japanese, received a Best Play of 1995 Award from the Yomiuri News Company. In 2002, CHILDREN OF WAR, was 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, and was presented in December 2002 at George Mason University and has been presented to arts and social justice organizations nationwide.   

In 2005, TCG published the complete EAST-WEST QUARTET. Other published works include KIND NESS, which received the 1998 USA Playwrights Award and was published in TCG’s Plays in Process and in New Plays USA. NUIT BLANCHE was published by TCG in Between Worlds.  SNOW was also published in Plays in Process.  UNDESIRABLE ELEMENTS/NEW YORK and GAIJIN were published in Japan in 1995.  TRUTH & BEAUTY was  published in the March 2001 issue of American Theatre Magazine.. Ping Chong created an audio version of UNDESIRABLE ELEMENTS with sound artist Jordan Davis, available on CD. A video version of SECRET HISTORY, part of UNDESIRABLE ELEMENTS series produced in New York City 2000, was directed by Hiromi Sakamoto. 

 

Mr. Chong has also worked successfully in both media and visual arts.  He directed two television specials with Meredith Monk – PARIS for KCTV, Minneapolis and TURTLE DREAMS (WALTZ) for WGBH. which won the Grand Prize at the Toronto Video Festival.  His second original video work, I WILL NOT BE SAD IN THIS WORLD, has been screened at festivals internationally.  His video, PLACE CONCRETE, was shown as part of WNET/WGBH’s New Television Series and received a Bronze Star at the 1989 Sacramento International Film and Video Festival.  In 1985, Mr. Chong created an environmental installation for MIT’s Albert and Vera List Visual Arts Center, Cambridge as part of the inauguration of its new media arts building.  In 1988, he created a trio of out door multi-media installations, PLACE CONCRETE, as part of the Three Rivers Arts Festival in Pittsburgh.  The New England Foundation for the Arts commissioned a touring installation, IN THE ABSENCE OF MEMORY, unveiled at the Trinity College Gallery in Hartford, CT in January, 1990.  The video installation TEMPUS FUGIT was first shown in March, 1990 at the Haggerty Museum of Art, Marquette University.  An installation, A FACILITY FOR THE CONTAINMENT AND CHANNELING OF UNDESIRABLE ELEMENTS, was commissioned by Artists Space in New York City in October, 1992; another, TESTIMONIAL was exhibited in the 1995 Venice Biennale’s TransCulture show.