This event is the keynote lecture for the series New Work in the Arts & Humanities: American Classics.

Ping Chong is an internationally acclaimed interdisciplinary artist and pioneer in the use of media in the theater. The recipient of a 2014 National Medal of Arts award, since 1972 Ping Chong has created over 100 works for the stage which have been presented at major theatres and festivals worldwide including the Brooklyn Academy of Music’s Next Wave Festival, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and the RomaEuropa Festival to name a few. His work encompasses puppetry, dance, documentary theatre and multimedia spectacle and has explored subjects ranging from the Black Lives Matter Movement to modernization in China to the experiences of Muslim youth in post -9/11 America. Throughout, the common thread is a unifying commitment to artistic innovation and social responsibility.

In this lecture with media, Ping Chong will discuss his career in relation to the evolving political and cultural movements of the last five decades. He will show excerpts from two recent works BEYOND SACRED: Voices of Muslim Identity (2015) and COLLIDESCOPE 2.0: Adventures in Pre and Post Racial America (2016) as well as take questions from the audience.

Ping Chong is the Mary Miss Artist in Residence at the American Academy in Rome in the fall 2016. Hou Hanru is the Artistic Director of the MAXXI.

The event will be held in English.

The 2016–17 Conversations/Conversazioni series is sponsored by the Helen Frankenthaler Foundation.