NEW YORK CITY: Ping Chong and Company (PCC) has announced a historic evolution today at a reception at La MaMa Galleria, where it is a resident theatre. The company’s new iteration includes a renewed mission, a new co-leadership model honoring Chong’s legacy while shaping the future of socially engaged performance, and a new name: Pink Fang.
The co-leaders will be Mei Ann Teo as artistic director of new work, focusing on creating new works, and collaborating and cultivating partnerships with generative artists; Sara Zatz as artistic director of engagement, helming community engagement, education, and training, and creating new community-based work; and Jane Jung as managing director, leading producing strategy, finance, and communications. All three were previously members of the interim artistic leadership team. This three-part leadership model will co-direct and set the vision for curation, fundraising, partnership, and organizational development.
This moment marks the culmination of a three-year strategic transition period, funded by the Mellon Foundation, which began in 2022 with the concurrent retirements of Ping Chong and longtime executive director Bruce Allardice. Announced in 2023, the company’s interim artistic leadership team—which also included Nile Harris and Talvin Wilks—stewarded a process of reflection, artistic visioning, and structural redesign.
“What made this transition possible was the extraordinary depth of experience, care, and vision that the interim artistic leadership team brought to the table,” PCC board chair Amy Chin said in a statement. “Collectively, they carried decades of knowledge from within the Ping Chong Company, rooted in its artistic legacy and committed to its future. Their stewardship through this multi-year process has been nothing short of transformational, grounded in thoughtful collaboration and driven by the values that have always defined our work.”
Ping Chong personally requested that the company be renamed, recognizing that its future would be carried forward by new artists and fresh voices. The name Pink Fang is derived from one of many absurd distortions of Ping Chong’s name he has heard over the course of his career. This misnomer has been irreverently embraced by the company in an act subversively reclamation. According to the team in a statement, this name change is not a departure, but a continuation—one rooted in deep respect for the past and a radical commitment to the future.
“All things must evolve and change, and I knew the company could not grow into the next iteration with my name on it,” Ping Chong said in a statement. “I knew when I decided to retire that the future was in the hands of new artists, and I told them that all I want is for them to continue creating art that honors humanity, but how they do it is their path to make. I trust them, and I believe in the future of Pink Fang.”
According to a statement from the team, this shift is based on the understanding that Ping Chong’s legacy was never about a single name, but about expanding the boundaries of storytelling, uplifting diverse voices, and building artistic homes for those too often left out of the narrative. As part of this next chapter, the company will also serve as the steward of the Ping Chong archive, ensuring that his body of work remains accessible and influential for generations to come.
“Ping’s vision has always been one of evolution and imagination,” said the new leadership team in a joint statement. “We are deeply honored by his trust in us to carry the company forward. His call to rename the organization was a powerful act of faith—an invitation to shape a future beyond his own legacy. Pink Fang symbolizes both continuity and change: a name that holds our roots while embracing the fierce creativity and collective leadership that define our next chapter.”
Founded in 1975, Ping Chong and Company has aimed to expand the possibilities of theatre—blending multimedia, movement, and documentary storytelling to explore issues of history, identity, social justice, and global connections. The company’s new work development and artist support builds cultures of care within creative practices, builds long-term organizational and artistic partnerships, and models its values in spaces of community-building.
Pink Fang’s evolved mission is to create art at the intersection of performance, community building, and social change, rooted in the ethos and artistic legacy of Ping Chong. Pink Fang remains deeply committed to the values of artistry, connection, humanity and equity, and learning. As of 2024, its annual budget is $1.6 million.
