Ping Chong (Chinese: 張家平; pinyin: Zhāng Jiāpíng; born 1946) is a Canadian-born American contemporary theatre director, choreographer, video and installation artist.
Born in Toronto and raised in the Chinatown section of Manhattan, Chong is a creator of and an early pioneer in interdisciplinary theater work and the integration of media into it.
As a non-white immigrant and an artist growing up in a highly segregated city and white art world, it is no surprise that this theme proved central to his work.
In the earliest works, such as Lazarus, Fear and Loathing in Gotham (1975), and Humboldt's Current (1977), the theme of otherness reflected Chong's personal sense of estrangement from the society he grew up in as a first-generation immigrant.
From 1990 with the East/West Quartet: Deshima (1990), Chinoiserie (1996), After Sorrow (1997), Pojagi (1999) and in 1992 with the launch of the Undesirable Elements series the work took a 180-degree turn toward poetic documentary and historical subjects.
The development process includes an extended residency and rehearsal period during which Ping Chong and collaborators conduct intensive interviews with potential participants who are not generally performers, from the local community.
These interviews then form the basis of a script, performed by the interviewees, which covers the historical and personal narratives of individuals who are in some way living between two cultures.
The five cast members of Beyond Sacred vary in many ways but share the common experience of coming of age in a post-9/11 New York City, at a time of increasing Islamophobia.
[1] In 2014, Chong and dramaturg, director, and playwright Talvin Wilks created Collidescope: Adventures in Pre- and Post-Racial America in collaboration with undergraduate and graduate designers and actors in the University of Maryland School of Theatre, Dance, and Performance Studies.
Of the work, Chong says, "In response to the recent killings of Trayvon Martin, shooting of Jordan Davis|Jordan Davis, shooting of Michael Brown and the seemingly endless killings of black men and boys for unarmed offenses, we have designed Collidescope to be a collision-course view of the legacy and psyche behind this history of racial violence, racism and social injustice in America.