Finally, a Homecoming for Ping Chong’s “Cathay”
by Cathy Barbash
Ping Chong’s Cathay: Three Tales of China will finally premiere in China in late October 2010. Almost five years ago, the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts’ month-long Festival of China commissioned Ping Chong to set a new work on the Shaanxi Folk Art Theatre’s puppetry troupe. Ping Chong worked with the company in Xi’an, and Cathay was assembled and premiered at the Seattle Rep before playing at the Festival, the New Victory Theatre in New York and at the Vienna Festival.
I knew the company from my work as consultant to the Kennedy Center for the Festival, and went on Ping Chong & Company’s board to help them try to “repatriate” the work. Ping Chong wanted to see the work performed in China, and wanted to give the production to his Xi’an colleagues as a legacy. Only now have the infrastructure and priorities of China’s culture industry evolved enough to make this a reality. The China premiere, fittingly, will be held in Xi’an, and it is hoped that it can develop into a long run that will create a steady income stream for the company.