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Lafayette’s current artist-in-residence Ping Chong will present his acclaimed performance piece Undesirable Elements at the WilliamsCenter for the Arts 8 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 14.
Tickets are $12 and can be purchased at the box office by calling (610) 330-5009.
Chong, a theater director, choreographer, and video and installation artist, has become well known for his articulate and compelling presentations on American society and dynamic interplay of diverse voices and cultural pluralism among its peoples and communities. He delivered this year’s Convocation address during the Class of 2010’s New Student Orientation.
Chong’s epic oral history theater project Undesirable Elements is an ongoing series of works exploring the effects of history, culture, and ethnicity on the lives of individuals living in a particular community. The first Undesirable Elements evolved from a 1992 site-specific gallery installation, commissioned by New York City’s Artist Space. The piece, entitled A Facility for the Channeling and Containment of Undesirable Elements, presented a place for contemplation on the implications of being the “other” in America.
Since that first production, Chong has interviewed hundreds of people about their experiences of being born into one culture but living in another, either by choice or circumstance. He has shaped the reflections of these individuals to create over 30 different Undesirable Elements unique to each community he has worked in. The cast members of Undesirable Elements are real people sharing their personal experiences.
Chong then brought the idea of being the “other” to the visual arts and created the original Testimonial for the TransCulture show of the 1995 Venice Biennale.
Chong’s site-specific installation Testimonial IIwas on display at the Williams Center Gallery from Sept. 1-Oct. 15. An artist’s talk and reception were held Oct. 13 in the WilliamsCenter.
Through excerpts of filmed interviews, Testimonial II presented the continuing tensions of a multicultural society that has not yet come to terms with itself. The piece was the result of collaboration with visual artist and graphic designer Tony Jannetti.
Testimonial II was the second site-specific, multi-media installation Chong has done at Lafayette. In the Absence of Memory was mounted in spring 1989 to coincide with a performance of Kind Ness, written and directed by Chong.
Chongis 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, and two “Bessie” Awards for Sustained Creative Achievement and for Outstanding Creative Achievement.
Chong held the Wynton Chair at the University of Minnesota in 1994 and was a Bellagio Fellow in 1998. He has received an honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts from CornishCollege and honorary Doctorate of Human Letters from KentStateUniversity. Since 1972 he has created over 50 works for the stage, which have been presented at major venues all over the world.
In addition to his work in the theater, Chong has also worked successfully in the visual arts. In 1985, he created an environmental installation for MIT’s Albert and VeraListVisualArtsCenter for the inauguration of its new media arts building. In 1988, he created a trio of outdoor multi-media installations called Plage Concrete for the Three Rivers Arts Festival in Pittsburgh. The video installation Tempus Fugit was first shown in 1990 at the Haggerty Museum of Art at MarquetteUniversity.