VSA arts News

World Premiere of Inside/Out... voices from the disability community at the Kennedy Center

VSA arts Commissions New Work by Acclaimed Director Ping Chong

WASHINGTON, June 18 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Seven remarkable individuals...seven remarkable stories. VSA arts has commissioned Ping Chong & Company to create the world premiere of Inside/Out...voices from the disability community, a performance piece about disability in America, from June 27-29 at the Kennedy Center. First-hand experiences from the disability community are explored in this new production as part of Ping Chong & Company's ongoing series of oral-history theater works. Exploring issues of culture and identity in America, powerful personal histories are interwoven into a script that is performed by the participants themselves, giving voice to stories that frequently go unheard.

"VSA arts is committed to changing perceptions about people with disabilities," said Soula Antoniou, president of VSA arts. "Inside/Out is the latest in a series of a new body of work that VSA arts has commissioned in the visual and performing arts. This production sheds light on the disability experience and shatters stereotypes."

Participants ranging in age from 23-65 were selected for their personal experience with disability:

— Josh Hecht is a rising New York director whose mother had multiple sclerosis.

— Monique Holt, performing artist, is an adjunct theater professor at Gallaudet University.

— Christopher Imbrosciano is a young actor with cerebral palsy who apprenticed at the Williamstown Theatre Festival.

— Zazel-Chavah O'Garra is a dancer (Alvin Ailey), cover model (Essence), and disability advocate who is a brain tumor survivor.

— Vivian Cary Jenkins is a former healthcare administrator who became legally blind later in life.

— Matthew S. Joffe is an actor as well as director of the Office for Students with Disabilities at a New York community college. He was born with Moebius Syndrome.

— Blair Wing has her MFA in acting from Ohio State University. She was paralyzed in a car accident at the age of 18.

VSA arts works with cultural institutions and arts organizations to initiate programs and new works. Commissioned, funded, and produced by VSA arts, Inside/Out is the latest in a series of inclusive, accessible, and high-profile performing arts commissions by VSA arts. Recent commissions include Nobody's Perfect, a joint world premiere with the Kennedy Center (October-November 2007), and The Farthest Earth from Thee by Liz Lerman Dance Exchange (June 2007).

Ping Chong is recognized as one of the country's most significant theater artists, having created more than fifty multidisciplinary works for the stage, including Humboldt's Current (Obie Award, 1977), A.M./A.M. - The Articulated Man (Villager Award, 1982), Nosferatu (Maharam Design Award, 1985), Kind Ness (USA Playwrights' Award, 1988), and Brightness (two 1990 Bessie Awards). He is a 2008 recipient of the Urban Artist Initiative/NYC Fellowship for artists of color. In 2006, he was awarded a USA Artist Fellowship in recognition of his contribution to American arts and culture, and in 2000 he received an OBIE Award for Sustained Achievement.

Performances are at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, June 27, and Saturday, June 28, and at 2 p.m. on Sunday, June 29. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased through the Kennedy Center's Box Office at (800) 444-1324 or TTY (202) 416-8524, or online at www.kennedy-center.org. Discounts available.

For more information about the performance and to hear audio clips from the performers, please visit http://www.vsarts.org.

About VSA arts

VSA arts is an international nonprofit organization founded in 1974 by Ambassador Jean Kennedy Smith to create a society where people with disabilities learn through, participate in, and enjoy the arts. VSA arts provides educators, parents, and artists with resources and the tools to support arts programming in schools and communities. VSA arts showcases the accomplishments of artists with disabilities and promotes increased access to the arts for people with disabilities. Each year millions of people participate in VSA arts programs through a nationwide network of affiliates and in 55 countries around the world. VSA arts is an affiliate of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. For more information, please visit www.vsarts.org

About Ping Chong & Company

Ping Chong & Company was founded in 1975 to create and tour innovative works of theater and art that explore the intersection of race, history, culture, and technology in the modern world. The New York based not-for-profit company has produced more than 50 works by Ping Chong and his collaborators, toured widely in the United States and throughout the world, and received numerous honors and awards. Inside/Out is part of an ongoing series of community-specific, interview-based theater works known as the Undesirable Elements series, created by theatrical innovator Ping Chong. Undesirable Elements examines issues of race, class, culture, and identity in the lives of individuals. Since 1992, Ping Chong & Company has made more than three dozen productions in the series, in communities around the United States and abroad. For more information, please visit www.undesirableelements.org. Please visit www.pingchong.org for additional information about Ping Chong & Company activities.