Ping Chong + Company To Present UNDESIRABLE ELEMENTS FESTIVAL at La Mama E.T.C., 10/18 - 11/4

Since 1992, under the rubric of its UNDESIRABLE ELEMENTS series, the beloved Ping Chong + Company has created nearly 50 deeply moving Theater Productions that give voice to specific communities. In the creation of each piece, local participants testify to their real lives and experiences, often for the first time. Scripts are based on interviews with these participants, who then tell their stories in the final production. Celebrating the 20th anniversary of the initiative, the company will offer a festival of these works-including CRY FOR PEACE: VOICES FROM THE CONGO; SECRET SURVIVORS , featuring adult survivors of child sexual abuse; and INSIDE/OUT… VOICES FROM THE DISABILITY COMMUNITY - running from October 18 through November 4 at La Mama E.T.C. The programming will also include panel discussions, live streams of performances, and the screening of a new documentary entitled Secret Survivors: Using Theater to Break the Silence.

Performances of CRY FOR PEACE: VOICES FROM THE CONGO will take place October 18th, 19th and 20th at 7:30 pm, and October 21st at 2:30 pm. Performances of SECRET SURVIVORS will be held October 25th, 26th and 27th at 7:30 pm, and October 28th at 2:30 pm INSIDE/OUT… VOICES FROM THE DISABILITY COMMUNITY will play November 1st, 2 and 3 at 7:30 pm, and November 4th at 2:30 pm.

All shows will take place at La MaMa's Ellen Stewart Theatre (66 East 4th Street). Tickets are $20 and can be purchased by calling 212.475.7710 or visiting www.lamama.org.

Conceived by Ping Chong, who has for decades garnered international acclaim for theater and installations exploring intersections of race, culture, history, art, media and technology, UNDESIRABLE ELEMENTS is an open framework that can be brought to any community and tailored to suit the needs and issues facing that community. Each production is made with a host organization based in the local community, with local participants testifying to their real lives and experiences.

The development process includes an extended community residency during which Ping Chong and Associate Director Sara Zatz conduct intensive interviews with potential participants and get to know the issues and concerns facing that community. Typically, Ping Chong + Company will interview up to twenty-five individuals and select five to seven of them, assembling a group that represents a diversity of voices on the issues facing that particular community.

Ping Chong, with Zatz or another collaborator, writes a script that adapts and theatricalizes the interviews, weaving cast members' individual experiences together in a chronological narrative touching on both political and personal experiences. The interviewees themselves, many of whom have never before spoken publicly, perform the script. The resulting production is a chamber piece of personal testimonies.

When audience members come together to experience an Undesirable Elements production, they form a community through an exchange with the performers and with each other. They bring their experiences into their respective communities, broadening the dialogue and understanding generated by the theatrical event.

In the UNDESIRABLE ELEMENTS FESTIVAL at La MaMa, Ping Chong + Company will perform three highlights of the series to date:

CRY FOR PEACE: VOICES FROM THE CONGO, a new production, two years in the making, will have its New York premiere at La MaMa following a world premiere at Syracuse Stage September 14-23, 2012. Ping Chong + Company is creating Cry for Peace with refugees from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who are seeking to rebuild community in their adopted home of Syracuse, NY. Approximately 200 refugees from the ongoing wars in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) based in Syracuse, NY represent twelve different tribes sharing a violent past. Commissioned by Syracuse University and co-written by Syracuse Stage's Kyle Bass, CRY FOR PEACE: VOICES FROM THE CONGO is specifically designed as a replicable international model for reconciliation work with Congolese refugee communities in the U.S.

SECRET SURVIVORS uses the personal narratives of adult survivors of child sexual abuse to show that this violence is an epidemic, to represent the diverse ways this violence occurs, and to grapple with the many reasons why most survivors remain silent. Written and directed by Ping Chong + Company Associate Director Sara Zatz, in partnership with Project Coordinator and survivor Amita Swadhin, Secret Survivors had a workshop presentation in Spring 2010 and was presented as a full performance at El Museo del Barrio in March 2011.

SECRET SURVIVORS garnered Ping Chong + Company a prestigious grant from the Ms. Foundation for Women to support the development of an accompanying documentary video, by filmmaker Melanie Levy, and an educational toolkit that will be distributed nationally to organizations working in the field of child sexual abuse prevention and intervention. The Ms. Foundation also engaged the company to develop a training model for five selected organizations from all over the U.S. to create additional theatrical projects in the mold of Secret Survivors across the country. The ambitious multi-year program launched with a training institute this summer and in the next 18 months, each organization will develop and present its own creative production focusing on issues of child sexual abuse within each local community.

INSIDE/OUT… VOICES FROM THE DISABILITY COMMUNITY explores first-hand experiences of the disability community, a vast group of individuals whose stories frequently go unheard. The piece weaves the cast members' individual stories with historical events in the disability rights movement. Inside/Out was originally commissioned and produced by VSA, the international organization for arts and accessibility, and made its world premiere at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in June 2008. The Washington Post called it "riveting," with a "wide streak of humor" and "theatrical snap."

INSIDE/OUT went on to play at the Times Center in Manhattan, and at the World Bank in Washington, DC. In 2011, PCC presented a multi-city tour of the work with presentations at the Roundhouse Theater of Bethesda, MD, the Amaryllis Theater of Philadelphia, PA, and the Flynn Performing Arts Center of Burlington, VT.

Ping Chong + Company was founded in 1975 to create and tour innovative works of theater and art that explore the intersection of race, history, culture and technology in the modern world. The New York–based non-profit company has produced more than 90 works by Chong and his collaborators, toured widely in the United States and throughout the world, and received numerous honors and awards. Ping Chong + Company is a 501(c) 3 organization. For more information, visit http://www.pingchong.org.

Ping Chong (Artistic Director, Creator of Undesirable Elements) is an internationally acclaimed director, playwright, video installation artist and pioneer in the use of media in the theater. His work has been presented at major festivals and institutions including The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Lincoln Center Festival, Brooklyn Academy Of Music, La MaMa E.T.C, Spoleto USA Festival, the Seattle Repertory Theatre, the New Victory Theater, the Barbican Centre, Vienna Festival and many others. His puppet theater production, Cathay: Three Tales of China, created with the Shaanxi Folk Art Theater of Xian, China, was chosen as one of the top 10 productions of the 2005 season by NY Theatre Wire, and recently had its Chinese premiere in Xi'an. In 2010, The Devil You Know premiered at La MaMa as part of the 2010 Under the Radar Festival, and Throne of Blood was presented at BAM's Next Wave Festival. Among his many honors and awards, Chong has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, a USA Artist Fellowship, two BESSIE awards and two OBIE awards, including one for sustained achievement in 2000.

Kyle Bass (Writer) is a two-time recipient of the New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship including the 2010 fellowship in playwriting. As dramaturg, Kyle collaborated with Ping Chong and Sara Zatz on Tales from the Salt City, another in the Undesirable Elements series. Kyle's writing has appeared in the journals Callaloo, Stone Canoe, and in Alchemy of the Word: Writers Talk about Writing. Kyle teaches at Syracuse University, Colgate University and in the MFA Creative Writing program at Goddard College. He holds an MFA from Goddard College.

Sara Zatz (Writer and Director) is the Associate Director of Ping Chong + Company, where she has managed the Undesirable Elements series since 2002. She has overseen the production of more than a dozen original works in the series and served as co-author with Ping Chong on ten productions. In over a decade in arts management, she has worked with the Henson International Festival of Puppet Theater, the composer Tan Dun, and Lincoln Center Festival, among others. She holds a BA from Bryn Mawr College and an M.Phil in Irish Theater Studies from Trinity College, Dublin.

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