Ping Chong and Company

01/24/2025

🎥 Generations Rise: Reston — Check out this new documentary short about our 2023 production

Directed by Reston-based filmmaker Rebekah Wingert, this short film shares the process and impact of Generations Rise: Reston, a 2023 Undesirable Elements production directed by Sara Zatz and Tuyet Thi Pham, and commissioned and produced by the Reston Community Center in Reston, VA.

At a time when trans youth, immigrants, and marginalized communities are under threat, this work shares personal narratives of resilience and identity, inspiring us to build a community rooted in compassion, inclusion, and equity for all.

We invite you to learn more about the Undesirable Elements process, and work through this powerful film.

🎥 Watch the documentary: LInk in Bio
📖 Read more: News on our website

01/24/2025

From the desk of JANE JUNG, ARTISTIC LEADERSHIP TEAM MEMBER

This photo was taken 5 years ago in January 2020. It was after a production meeting we had at the PCC office, for Nocturne Remix 2020, which was supposed to be a live theatrical presentation that turned into an online production after the Covid pandemic hit that year in March. PCC invited four artists in our community to create a 20 minute piece in response to Ping's Nocturne in 1200 Seconds, and we were to stage these works alongside a remount of Nocturne in 1200 Second directed by Ping. Iris and Kenny were just about to conclude their Creative Fellowships with PCC, our inaugural Fellows ❤️.

The Creative Fellowship and this moment of intergenerational creative archival engagement laid the groundwork for how we envision our path forward as an organization. A convergence of community, legacy, generations, artistry, and responsiveness to the current moment. 5 years later, I look back with gratitude for this community of artists, while also reflecting on the ways we are still processing the impact of that time.

Check out the resulting online work created back in 2020:
Nocturne Remix 2020: https://nocturneremix2020.pingchong.org
A Universal History of Infamy: https://nocturnein2020.pingchong.org/infamy-about

01/23/2025

Congratulations to and PCC Artistic Leader on an incredible run of ‘Temporary Boyfriend’ co-presented by PCC with and co-commissioned by .
In Temporary Boyfriend, artists Malcolm-x Betts and Nile Harris stage the nuanced poetics of their long-term collaboration. Drawing from past performances in each others works over the past five years, Harris and Betts render the friction and intrigue at the pith of their connection in this improvisatory duet creating an ephemeral intimate portrait of the aesthetics of proximity and estrangement.
To learn more about this work, which is available for touring engagements through 2027, please visit out website.

Photos by Maria Baranov@photo_by_baranova

12/31/2024

DONATE & support us in Creating Space for Joy! Over the last month, we have shared our reflections on how 2024 has been a year of creating space for change at PCC. This year was a profound process of discovery. Our collective practices combined and re- emerged to create beautiful new patterns of movement and possibility, leaving us with joy, and hope for the future.

On this final day to give in 2024, we ask you to support PCC with a donation. With your support, we are excited to create even more space for change in 2025—for new voices, for new collaborations, and for new visions of what PCC can be.

From all of us at PCC, Happy New Year, and wishing you joy in 2025!

DONATE HERE: https://bit.ly/donate-pcc

12/24/2024

DONATE & support us in Creating Space for Legacy! It has been two years since the retirement of Founding Artistic Director Ping Chong and long-time Executive Director Bruce Allardice, and we have been honoring legacy and creating space for change, as we intentionally build a forward looking organization Now in our 3rd year of our planned transition period, generously supported by Mellon Foundation, we have been building practices and platforms around shared leadership, organizational structure, strategic communications, board development, and how to envision a sustainable future while also being accountable to the present. As we share our reflections on change - in our artistry, organizational structure, and spaces of learning and connection- throughout December, we also ask you to support PCC with a donation by December 31st.

DONATE HERE: https://bit.ly/donate-pcc

12/23/2024

PCC Education Director, Christina Emily Bixland, here! Throughout the fall, I've been co-teaching an undergrad course at Hunter College with head of their theater department Dongshin Chang, along with guest visits from ALT members Sara Zatz & Mei Ann Teo Teo, and even our Artistic Director Emeritus Ping Chong himself! Based on PCC’s devising and documentary theater practices, the class introduced students to techniques for gathering community voices and stories and developing multi-cultural theater that speaks personal truths and counters dominant narratives. Last week the students shared their culminating projects - powerful original pieces of collective storytelling based on their personal experiences. Take a peek at these images from throughout the course. Many thanks to Hunter College for inviting us to work with their bold, brave, and creative students!

12/20/2024

DONATE & support us in Creating Space for Connection! The power of connection manifests in the ongoing evolution of our engagement and learning spaces, and through expansion of what constitutes our Undesirable Elements practice of inviting community members in to share their stories in spaces of reflection. As we build the future of PCC, these practices are transforming in exciting ways that respond to different needs for authentic connection. As we share our reflections on change - in our artistry, organizational structure, and spaces of learning and connection- throughout December, we also ask you to support PCC with a donation by December 31st.

DONATE HERE: https://bit.ly/donate-pcc

12/17/2024

From the desk of SARA ZATZ, ARTISTIC LEADERSHIP TEAM MEMBER

I continue to be deeply moved and inspired by artists who are creating and holding space for community, healing, and joy. This month, I was honored to be invited by NASHi Experimental Theatre Club .etc to lead a documentary theater workshop over ZOOM, for theater artists in Kyiv, Ukraine, and to witness three profound artistic works, across genres, all rooted in deep documentary and community practices:
🔹Mercedes, Part 1, a multidisciplinary documentary, gallery, and healing room installation by and
🔹New Joy, an evening of gratitude by the , the intergenerational community choir led by , dedicated to using song and ritual as tools for collective liberation
🔹La Paloma Prisoner, by , a multidisciplinary play about the reclamation of identity by women in Colombia’s prison system, developed over a decade, alongside programs designed to uplift the voices and narratives of current and formerly incarcerated women-identified folx of color through performances/workshops in prisons, conversation circles, and panel discussions.

PHOTOS 📸
1️⃣ leading workshop with NASHi ETC in Kyiv / photo credit .gots
2️⃣ Resource materials shared in the Healing Room of Mercedes, Part 1 at BAM Fisher, as supported by
3️⃣ Special Guest and Troy Anthony at NEW JOY
4️⃣ Lobby resource and ritual space of La Paloma Prisoner at .nyc
5️⃣ Water for healing, ritual, embodiment given to each audience member by Community Engagement curator of La Paloma Prisoner, Samara Gaev

12/12/2024

From the desk of NILE HARRIS, ARTISTIC LEADERSHIP TEAM MEMBER

This month, I’m reflecting on all the work that the company has made this year! From ‘this house is not a home’ in January to ‘minor b’ in August, it has been a full year of programming. Here are a few recent press highlights about the productions. Many thanks to and

Photo by

12/12/2024

🩵 DONATE & support us in Creating Space for Artistry! This year has been a time of artistic exploration, and deepening our understanding of the throughlines between Ping’s creative legacy and the new work emerging out of our Artistic Leadership Team’s process of making: encompassing experimentation with form, practice, and placement of lived experience in our creative offerings.

🩵 Our kaleidoscopic art making is coming together to form a new vision of what work is possible now, and in the future, at PCC. As we share our reflections on change - in our artistry, organizational structure, and spaces of learning and connection- throughout December, we also ask you to support PCC with a donation by December 31st. https://www.pingchong.org/support/donate

🩵For more reflections on their artistry in our current moment, please see Artistic Leadership Team members Mei Ann Teo and Nile Harris highlighted in Ripple Effect, a video from the Mellon Foundation (https://tinyurl.com/4c85wj5u)

12/05/2024

Please support Ping Chong and Company in Creating Space for Change! Just as a kaleidoscope reveals beauty by invoking change and combining core elements into new possibilities, PCC is committed to creating a new model of artmaking that challenges assumptions and invites audiences and communities to see and experience the world in new and unexpected ways.
https://www.pingchong.org/support/donate
In the coming weeks, we will be sharing reflections on change, as it reflects in our artistry, organizational structure, spaces of learning and connection. Now we ask you to join us with a donation to PCC as we continue building and holding space for our artists, our work, and our future.

12/03/2024

This time of year can be overwhelming. There are so many asks, the need is great, and the demands on our time are high. So, today, instead of a standard post, we are simply offering a moment of gratitude from all of us here at PCC.

We are grateful for bold artmaking, courageous truth-telling, friendship, connection, generosity, moments of joy and laughter, camaraderie, humanity, our collective resilience, and our community of artists whose work inspires us.
Thank you, our community and friends, for being on this journey with us.

11/27/2024

For the last ten weeks, we (PCC Artistic Leaders Sara Zatz and Mei Ann Teo) taught an MFA course at the School of Drama in the . The class brought together techniques from PCC’s Undesirable Elements, devising, and documentary theater practices, and culminated in a beautiful work in progress, an original student-devised ensemble-based piece. The students, Catalina, Harper, Jing, Tomoka, Rodrigo, and Sydney, chose to generate around the theme of silence, collaboratively creating original pieces that delved into their lived experiences while creating dynamic and potent containers. These images are from various moments across the course, the scene line up, and one of the final images of this work: [ ] Stories of Silence and Transformation. We thank the New School MFA Contemporary Theatre and Performance program for having us this semester!

11/26/2024

From the desk of MEI ANN TEO, ARTISTIC LEADERSHIP TEAM MEMBER

This month, I’m sitting with much gratitude of vulnerable art making and all that it takes to do so.

(1) I met Chaesong Kim through PCC and got to witness her powerful work She Walks the Air, a truly stunning work she made with an incredible group of artists. Tompkins Square Park at its best.

(2) Still haunted by this final image of the work the MFA students did at the New School in Sara and my class. (3) Visited Christina Bixland’s Hunter class on the day they shared their duets made through Undesirable Elements processes, where each connection between students was genuine and deep. A true honor to witness that sacred space.

(4) Got to witness Bryonn Bain tell his and Nanon Williams’ stories of wrongful incarceration in his powerful Lyrics From Lockdown - the first time I’ve seen the show since directing it at the National Black Theatre in 2013 (after touring it to festivals in Singapore and Belgium). The luminous Mo Browne curated this showing as part of her Seen, Sound, Scribe series at Lincoln Center Atrium, and the phenomenal Claudia Pena and Bryonn live streamed the show and engaged 2 prisons in a talk back after that with Black Thought. A night to remember.

(5) PCC is in the throes of the final transition year. We are hard at work on retreat charting out new models while going (6) back to the roots to align with the foundation that Ping and Bruce built.

(7) A still from the recent Mellon Foundation video highlighting PCC with Nile and myself. Lifting up here the phenomenal team at Are We There Yet Films who made the video - a delight to be seen by them.

11/26/2024

11/21/2024

11/20/2024

From the desk of JANE JUNG, MANAGING DIRECTOR + ARTISTIC LEADERSHIP TEAM MEMBER

It’s ALT Retreat Week!! We’ve been planning for this week intensively for the past few months & now it’s finally here. We will be gathering at Downtown Art to work through our future facing mission, vision, values, and model. PCC is in the final, culmination phase of our 3 year transition period that was originally mapped out in our 2022 Strategic Plan. We are putting all of our learnings over the past few years into practice. Stay tuned over the next few months as we share our process, findings, and new directions.

Shout out to Katie Fong of Leading Changemakers, our Organizational and Board Development Consultant partner and PCC Operations Manager extraordinaire Stacy Waring. Both Stacy and Katie have been incredible thought & accountability partners to the ALT and we are so grateful for their brilliance and holistic approach.

The first photo is from a retreat planning session this past fall, and the second photo is from our retreat one year ago, when we had all just started to kick off our work together.

11/14/2024

From the desk of SARA ZATZ, ARTISTIC LEADERSHIP TEAM MEMBER

This month has been about focusing in on the learning, exchange, connection, and gratitude. Always finding the ways that Undesirable Elements continues to resonate across generations and genres.

🩵 1 and 2 - Deeply honored to be included in this incredible volume, The Radical Act of Listening: Making Documentary and Investigative Theatre, by KJ Sanchez, alongside interviews with so many deeply respected artists and colleagues.

🩵 3 - October brought a beautiful exchange with UK Theatre maker & practitioner , who spent 2 weeks with PCC diving into Undesirable Elements, meeting and interviewing past participants and attending our current classes at New School and Hunter College.

🩵 4 - Our students offered their culminating public sharing, devised around themes of silence, and rooted in documentary and UE theater practices. Our final class was a deep reflection, warmed by the sun, and grounded by proximity to water. .meiann .eliz .catharsiswww

🩵 5 - Thank you .cherry for this generous shout out to PCC and UE in the acknowledgements of “Love Can’t Feed You”! Reading your words filled my soul.