Fogo Azul, Meredith Monk & More to Perform at Celebration of Ping Chong and Bruce Allardice

Ping Chong and Company has announced the host and lineup of visionary performers for All Islands Connect Underwater: a Celebration of Ping Chong and Bruce Allardice, a public tribute to influential Founder and Artistic Director Ping Chong and his longtime professional partner, PCC Executive Director Bruce Allardice, who both retire from their leadership roles at the company at the end of 2022. The event, hosted by playwright, author, and performance artist Jessica Hagedorn, and taking the form of a party punctuated by brief performances, takes place on Wednesday, January 25, 2023, from 6-9pm, at Chelsea Factory (547 W 26th St, New York, NY 10001).

Artists participating in All Islands Connect Underwater include Chinese Theatre Works, the organization that preserves and promotes the traditional Chinese performing arts and creates new performance works that bridge Eastern and Western aesthetics and forms; New York City-based all-women, trans, non-binary, and gender non-conforming Brazilian Samba Reggae drum line Fogo Azul; legendary multidisciplinary artist and one of Ping Chong's earliest and most formative collaborators, Meredith Monk; dancer, choreographer, and founder of Muna Tseng Dance Projects Muna Tseng, whose moving dance-theater solo performance SlutForArt was written and directed by Chong; and legendary American jazz group The Jazz Passengers. Other luminaries will be toasting Chong and Allardice at the event.

All Islands Connect Underwater continues a season celebrating 50 years of impactful work by Ping Chong, his 35-year partnership with Allardice, and 30 years of the company's series of community-specific, interview-based works known as the Undesirable Elements series. The season kicked off with a sold-out run at La MaMa of Lazarus 1972-2022, a new reimagining of the production that set Chong's boundary-shattering career in motion, September 30-October 16. It continued with a presentation from PCC 2022 Creative Fellow-composer, director, improviser, and sound conceptualist JU-EHl-who presented the performance-demonstration Overhear 意聼 in November. PCC 2022 Creative Fellow, performer and director of live works of art Nile Harris, will present the lecture and solo performance Testify (the worst is yet to come) On January 19 & 22, 2023, in The Public Theater's Under the Radar Festival. In February 2023, PCC will hold an Undesirable Elements symposium.

PCC has begun to chart a second half-century building on Chong's and Allardice's vision and success. With $900,000 from the Mellon Foundation, which has provided lead funding for a $1.5 million transition budget, PCC Managing Director Jane Jung and Associate Director Sara Zatz and the organization's board and staff have begun to formalize PCC's evolution, over the last decade, from a company identified with a single artist into one that supports a new generation of interdisciplinary artists. In January 2023, the organization will announce a new artistic cohort who will help lead this multi-year process.

Over five decades, Ping Chong has sustained a prolific career as a generative artist, leading the creation of over 110 original works that span artistic disciplines. Throughout his extraordinarily long artistic partnership with Bruce Allardice, they have collaborated to achieve and hone PCC's vision of aesthetically rich, socially probing interdisciplinary theater.

"Ping Chong forged new paths in multidisciplinary artmaking and contemporary theater practice and his work continues to expand our collective understandings of identity, otherness, and being. His lasting legacy is a testament to his expansive vision, deep intellect, and imagination; all attributes that he holds humbly, generously, and honestly, shares Emil Kang, program director for Arts and Culture at the Mellon Foundation. "We are honored to support the next chapter for Ping Chong and Company as they honor the rich legacy of Ping Chong and Bruce Allardice while creating space for a new generation of creators."

Artistic Director of La MaMa Mia Yoo says, "The work of Ping Chong and Bruce Allardice has been transformative for our field. They have helped shape the legacy of La MaMa through the powerful artistry and the urgent community-engaged work we have been blessed to have on our stages. By examining the complexities of delving into Otherness and stories of the Other, ultimately the work has revealed our interconnectedness and shared humanity. Ping Chong and Company has influenced generations of artists, and their impact will reverberate for generations to come."

Artistic Producer/Founder at The Foundry Theatre Melanie Joseph says, "ART, Appetite, History, Inclusion, Fluidity, Integrity, EXCELLENCE, Respect and GRACE. Words that will ever hold the image of Ping and Bruce TOGETHER, that activated what they made, how they made it, and who they shared it with for 50 years. They're a beacon for anyone who strives to make great art, and then actually makes it. And they're a rudder for those who seek to build theaters with transparency, experiment and tremendous care, that actually operate and evolve in that way.They were all of this, and then some, for me.I'm so glad that we found one another in this roiling cauldron that is our world, and grateful to have shared reasons to climb out, and get shit done (after a wee pause for a delicious meal)."

BAM Executive Producer Emeritus Joseph V. Melillo says, "I began working with Ping Chong in 1984 within the context of BAM's annual Next Wave Festival and subsequently worked with him many times. Ping expanded my conception of what theater could be as a contemporary genre. His visionary and pioneering art has advanced our understanding of storytelling. His resourcefulness is boundless. His art is redolent of original ideas and highly imaginative techniques for delivering the inherent humanity that is the foundation of his creative artistry."

Melillo adds, "Bruce is a man of sterling integrity. He has consistently demonstrated the exemplary principles of a manager supporting an artist through the vast myriad of challenges throughout the creative process of the development and producing of new work while growing an organization for that artist and his work. He was an exceptional professional partner throughout our working together to get Ping Chong's art to its desired opening night for the originating artist, his collaborators and performers."

For more information, please visit pingchong.org.

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