Ping Chong and Company creates works of theater and art that reveal beauty, invention, precision, and a commitment to social justice.

Founded by Ping Chong, Ping Chong and Company is a welcoming home and site of experimentation for multigenerational artists. The company creates original interdisciplinary, community-specific work; and cultivates artistry through training and education programs.


Ping Chong and Company announces two presentations by 2020/2021 Creative Fellows in residence with the company: 

Process memoir 6: thenowlater (HEART), PROPHECY by 

Johnnie Cruise Mercer/TheREDprojectNYC and 

Jaime Sunwoo and Johnnie Cruise Mercer are Creative Fellows in residence with Ping Chong and Company for the 2020/2021 season. As part of their Fellowship, PCC has supported the generation of a new work by each artist, which we will present in June 2021.

Nearly 50 years ago, when Ping Chong started making performance work, he created an artistic home by establishing Ping Chong and Company. This artistic home has been a place of mentorship and creativity for many artists over the years; and we deepen this commitment through the Creative Fellowship. The Fellowship engages artists to learn from the body of PCC’s work and methodologies; and receive mentorship and guidance on their career and creative goals. These new projects are generated from research and engagement with the Ping Chong and Company production archive.

Johnnie Cruise Mercer and Jaime Sunwoo have been in creative conversation with each other, and with the company over the course of the Fellowship. Their weekly conversation can be viewed every Friday at 1pm on @pingchongco’s Instagram Live, and each month they share artistic reflections on the @pingchongco Instagram and Facebook pages.

, PCC will broadcast a panel event with the Fellows who will discuss their projects and the Fellowship.

We are so excited to be sharing this new work from the Creative Fellows and hope you can join us in June! Save the date and stay tuned for more details about registration.

Process memoir 6: thenowlater (HEART), PROPHECY


Johnnie Cruise Mercer/TheREDprojectNYC
Sunday, June 27th, 11am – 2pm
Outdoor community event at East 11th Street, between 2nd and 3rd Avenue

Johnnie Cruise Mercer/TheREDprojectNYC will facilitate a charted quest inspired by the question, “What is the distance of love?”

 is a celebration of East Village performance history, taking whomever it carries through time, in reflection together, during Pride Weekend!

This outdoor community event will include opportunities to draw, feel, listen, digest, and exhale in a collaboratively facilitated future-making session. The session will conclude with a live performance and participation in the creation of a new music video of “Cloud 9” by The Illustrious Blacks! 

. This event is a part of NYC Open Streets.


Johnnie Cruise Mercer is a queer-black think-maker, freelance-performer, educator and social entrepreneur based in New York City. As the Company Director of Johnnie Cruise Mercer/TheREDprojectNYC, his processes/work has been shared and/or hosted by 92Y Harkness Dance Center, Gibney: Agnes Varis Performing Arts Center, Dixon Place, Danspace Project Inc, The Fusebox Festival, Mana Contemporary, The NADA Conference, Abrons Arts Center, and most recently at The Clarice Performing Arts Center's The BlackLight Summit. Johnnie is currently a 2020-2021 Artist in Residence at Brooklyn Arts Exchange, and New Dance Alliance (through their Black Artists Space to Create Residency curated by Angie Pittman). Follow him (and his company) on Instagram to find out more about his current projects, and works: @jcruisem/@jcm_redprojectnyc


Written and directed by Jaime Sunwoo.
Tuesday, June 29th, 7pm
Online screening and conversation with the artists

 is a short film that examines the perception of color throughout the history of Western art, culture, and science as a subtext for how we perceive race. 

 critiques how white institutional gatekeepers often use people of color as accessories to justify oppressive systems. The script is sourced from found texts, primarily from David Batchelor’s books 

, which explores the fear of color and the glorification of white in Western art.


Jaime Sunwoo is a Korean American multidisciplinary artist from Brooklyn, New York working in visual art, theater, film, and public art. Her works connect personal narratives to global histories through surreal storytelling. She studied art at Yale University, and was a fellow for The Laundromat Project for socially engaged art. Her project 

 has received awards from Queens Council on the Arts, Asian Women Giving Circle, NYC Women's Fund, Brooklyn Arts Fund, and The Jim Henson Foundation. She is currently a Ping Chong and Company Creative Fellow. More at 

2021 Creative Fellowship Presentations 

Welcome to our new website! We are excited today to launch our new online home base and graphic identity.  

We began work on our new website and logo over a year ago, before we shifted to working remotely due to the Covid-19 pandemic. During the entire time we've been working on the site, we have seen shifts in how we create and collaborate. We've launched 

new online works engaging a multigenerational cohort of artists

started a new season of our Secret Histories in-school programming

 online. While the past year looked very different from what used to be our "normal" - working in cozy quarters out of our offices at 47 Great Jones Street - all of this has confirmed to us the possibilities and importance of how we connect to each other and create online. 

Our new website is a convergence of past, present, and future. The heart of this website, which is reflective of the heart of our company's mission, is the body of original work generated by Founding Artistic Director Ping Chong and our community of affiliated artists. We aim to create a holistic and welcoming home where artists can experiment and create. This site documents and shares this work, and associated training and education programs, that come from this charge. 

The new site features an extensive and robust 

 documenting 115 works (and growing). You can search and browse the Production Archive in multiple ways, including by Theme, Place, Year, and also, importantly, Discipline, as this new site highlights the highly interdisciplinary nature of PCC's body of work. Throughout the site various photo thumbnail selections from the Production Archive will pop up randomly, offering up a point of entry and discovery into the body of work. 

 for researchers, scholars, students who wish to dig deeper; longer form writing on ongoing initiatives and projects under 

 for designing the new website and graphic identity and to 

 , the developer, for building the site. And a special shout out to Irisdelia Garcia, Olivia Xing, and Shaila Schmidt for the research and coordination effort that went into the new site.  

This is just the beginning. Over time, we are going to keep adding new content, and expanding on the site. We will be posting latest news and more details about our upcoming 

Tell us what you think! Have fun exploring and drop us a line on our social media (@pingchongco) or send an email to info@pingchong.org to share your thoughts. 

A new website & logo! 

Happy Spring from PCC! We have a lot of exciting online and outdoor in-person offerings coming up in May and June.

To celebrate the launch of our new website and online archive of interdisciplinary works, we are hosting a virtual screening of two short filmed dance works by Ping Chong: 

 (2017), followed by a conversation between Ping Chong and PCC Board Member Kim Chan on 

In addition to the productions we will be presenting this Spring, our education program is in underway and in full swing at five NYC public schools and we also launched a new Creative Aging program thanks to the support of the Catalyzing Creative Aging Program. This spring, Ping is also shooting a new video work, 

x, a new adaptation of the staged music theatre work 

Check back for more details on specific dates, times and event registration information!

22 Square Miles of Soul: Voices of Orange

 is a new documentary theatre production which will premiere virtually at 

 in May 2021. Part of Ping Chong and Company’s 

eries, the piece features the real life experiences of local individuals who grew up in Orange, New Jersey. Bearing witness to the different social, political, and economic forces that shaped the community over the course of the last century, and juxtaposing personal impact, resistance, and resilience in the face of historic disinvestment, 

2.2 Square Miles of Soul: Voices of Orange

 fosters a strong sense of community pride, and deeper understanding between and among Orange and surrounding communities.

is a filmed virtual theater work, sharing real-life stories of six New York City teenagers, ages 16-19, during the year 2020. This new work in the 

series focuses on the voices and experiences of Black and POC teens from across New York City reflecting on their early lives prior to 2020, and the significance of a year of growing up during a global pandemic and renewed calls for racial justice. 

 is written and directed by Sara Zatz and Kirya Traber (co-creators of Generation NYZ), with visual direction by Richard Louissaint. It is commissioned by the

. Generation Rise will preview in June 2021, followed by an online premiere by the New Victory in Fall 2021.

Creative Fellowship Presentation: Process memoir 6: thenowlater (Heart)

, is a free outdoor community dance event curated as an ode to unconditional love, deeper listening, and spiritual freedom. Company members will lead attendees through self-guided movements while futuristic Go-Go music duo 

 will provide music, in celebration of East Village performance history and Pride Weekend. Johnnie Cruise Mercer and theredprojectnyc will be organizing outdoor events throughout the month of June in collaboration with PCC, New Dance Alliance, and Brooklyn Arts Exchange. The community dance event will take place outdoors on June 27th, at East 11th Street, 11am-2pm, between 2nd and 3rd Avenues, as part of NYC Open Streets. 

 is a short film that examines our perception of color in science, art, and culture as a subtext for how we perceive race. 

 critiques how institutional gatekeepers often use people of color as accessories to justify oppressive systems The script is sourced from found texts, and inspired by David Batchelor’s book 

, which explores the Western art world’s fear of color and glorification of the color white. A free one-time virtual screening and Q&A with the artists, organized by PCC, will take place on Tuesday, June 29th at 7pm.

Spring 2021 Happenings at PCC 

To celebrate the launch of our new website and online archive of interdisciplinary works, PCC will be hosting a virtual screening of two short filmed dance works by Ping Chong: 

Choreography figures heavily in many of Ping Chong's theater works, but these two filmed performances are rare examples of pure dance works.  Following the screening, Ping Chong and PCC Board Member Kim Chan, who has worked as a dance curator and producer and was formerly on the Bessies Committee, will be in conversation about the interdisciplinary nature of Ping Chong's body of work and the importance of engaging archival works. 

Kim Chan is the Deputy Director at National Sawdust. She has worked extensively in New York City and Washington, D.C. as an arts worker in multiple art forms and aesthetic traditions including poetry, music, theater, dance, arts education, and literature. She served on the New York Dance and Performance Awards Bessies Committee for six years and was a dance curator for 18 years at Washington Performing Arts in D.C. She is a board member for Ping Chong + Company and Pick-Up Performance Co(s). She has also served on the board at APAP, La Pocha Nostra, and Dance Place. Prior to joining National Sawdust, she produced the PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature for PEN America and worked at the Paul Taylor Dance Foundation, Harlem School of the Arts, and APAP.

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