Transforming an Artistic Legacy Into Practice: Year One Transition Report
Ping Chong and Company's Year One Transition Report, July 2022-June 2023 is a comprehensive look at the needs, opportunities, and challenges encountered by the company in the advent of the retirement announcements of Founder and Artistic Director Ping Chong and Executive Director Bruce Allardice. In June of 2022, we announced a three-year leadership transition and strategic plan that articulated an innovative approach rooted in exploration, experimentation, and intentional evolution of the company toward a reimagined future. Early conversations indicated that another singular artistic voice would not satisfy the potential artistic growth and need for an expanded artistic vision necessary through this transitional phase after Ping’s retirement. As a result, the voices of multiple interdisciplinary artists, producers, and administrators came together to form a 5-person transition Artistic Leadership Team (ALT) with the goal of developing and imagining an artistic future aligned with our core values and long-range objectives.
In keeping with the plan’s intentions, Year 1 has been characterized by deep learning: adaptations and adjustments to tactical elements of the original plan, reprioritization of plan pillars, and values-driven reimagination of core guiding structures.
Throughout the year, the ALT has spearheaded a more robust process of working together, and is currently actualizing how a shared vision for PCC might emerge. Our hope is that this report will fill critical gaps in knowledge production and inspire dialogue across organizations seeking to learn from our journey, where holding space for multiple perspectives, collective decision making, and relational intelligence can better inform a leadership transition that does not seek to move from one singular leader to another.