Yuko Kurahashi's The Interdisciplinary Theatre of Ping Chong: Exploring Curiosity and Otherness on Stage is the first book-length study devoted to one of the most influential figures of the US performing arts scene of the past five decades. This long-overdue analysis of Chong's oeuvre is organized around a thought-provoking paradox: despite being widely regarded as one of the pioneers of an “interdisciplinary” theater emerging at the intersection of various artistic media, Chong's work has not generated a body of research commensurate with its importance. In her introduction, Kurahashi offers several hypotheses for this case of academic “underrepresentation” (5): on the one hand, the signature interdisciplinarity of a body of work that has self-consciously and systematically resisted classification, ranging from experimental pieces to socially engaged, community-based projects; on the other hand, the breadth of Chong's engagement with identity and Otherness, incorporating but also transcending a (predictable) concern with Asian American topics. With regard to the latter, Kurahashi underscores Chong's idiosyncratic status “as an ‘avant-garde’ artist who is also an Asian American (as opposed to an Asian American avant-garde artist)” (5). Having established the inherent difficulties of her subject, Kurahashi then sets out to analyze a large selection of Chong's productions, organizing them chronologically, but also considering “the relationships and dynamics between them” (2) as well as their “focuses and styles” (10).

The first chapter provides an account of Chong's family history, first tracing the journey of his parents, Cantonese opera artists Chin Yee and Bak Lin, from the Chinese province of Guangdong to New York City, and then zooming in on his formative years in and beyond Chinatown, more specifically the impact of various educational experiences on his emerging understanding of cultural Otherness as well as his interdisciplinary interests in the visual arts and film.

Dominated by Chong's encounter with experimental artist Meredith Monk and her distinctive approach to dance, chapter 2 explores their first collaborative dance piece, Paris (1972), as well as the extensive influence of Monk's practice on Chong's early performance work, with its unique bricolage of “tableau, music, dance, striking visuals, and text in juxtaposition” (35). Importantly, Kurahashi places these early artistic projects in the larger context of the vibrant downtown arts scene of the 1970s, which exposed Chong to the innovations of Fluxus groups as well as those of dancers and choreographers Kenneth King, William Dunas, Phoebe Neville, Trisha Brown, and Daniel Nagrin (31).

Chapters 3–5 follow the development of Chong's performance vocabulary and cultural critique through 1975–1985, the first decade after the founding of his own company, Fiji Theater Company, later renamed Ping Chong and Company. What shines through in Kurahashi's close reading of selected productions is the continued relevance of Chong's early work, particularly his prescient explorations of technology and post-humanism (AM/AM: The Articulated Man, 1982), consumerism and gentrification (Nosferatu: A Symphony of Darkness, 1985), and the catastrophic legacies of colonialism (Humboldt's Current, 1977), among other topics that contemporary audiences would find as timely as ever. Of special relevance to dance scholars are the analyses of Angels of Swedenborg (1985), with its “ritualized choreography” informed by Eastern dance (70), and the lesser-known dystopian dance/theater piece The Games (1983), created with Monk and produced by the Schaubühne Theater in Berlin.

As Kurahashi argues, the 1990s marked a significant shift in Chong's approach, from allegorical experiment to more historically grounded pieces which often incorporated documentary material. Examining the colonial violence of historical encounters between Asia and the West, The East/West Quartet discussed in chapter 6 is a fitting illustration of this enhanced, even revisionist, historical consciousness and its project of excavating events that had been often overlooked or erased from mainstream historical discourse. Notably, After Sorrow (1997), co-created and performed by Muna Tseng, who also collaborated with Chong on the multimedia dance piece SlutForArt (1999), employs dance as its major artistic language, while the other works of the quartet integrate various dance traditions, such as Indonesian (Deshima, 1990) and Korean folk dances (Pojagi, 1999), as well as Chinese opera choreography (Chinoiserie, 1994). Extending this continuum of historical reflection and representation of the un(der)represented to a radically different format, the community-based series Undesirable Elements (1992–) is at the core of chapters 7 and 8. Focusing on five shows addressing diverse local and global communities, Kurahashi explains how this long-standing series has functioned as a platform for reclaiming identity, building community, and stimulating intercultural dialogue.

The final two chapters cover lesser-known territories of Chong's multifaceted work: on the one hand, the puppet theater pieces inspired by Japanese and Chinese folk stories; on the other hand, his collaborations with universities across the United States for various workshops and productions, which illustrate his “commitment to teaching through artistic activism, and to artistic activism through teaching,” in line with Paulo Freire's pedagogy (166). Of particular interest to dance scholars is Baldwin/NOW, developed in collaboration with students and faculty from the Department of Dance at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; based on the 1968 speech on civil rights given by African American writer James Baldwin to students in London, the piece is a powerful meditation on the perpetual cycle of racial violence in the United States, in its historical and contemporary manifestations. Drawing on her own interviews with the participants in some of these projects, Kurahashi highlights the contributions of such collaborations in acquainting students with Chong's process of creating devised theater while expanding their knowledge of the power dynamics embedded in any historical, sociopolitical, and cultural discourse. This exposure to Chong's “activist pedagogy” not only enhances students’ interdisciplinary artistic training, the author argues, but also offers a vehicle of “self-actualizing as active agents and critical thinkers” (167). Entitled “Future,” the book's coda zooms in on the more recent multimedia production Alaxsxa | Alaska (2017) as a distillation of the artistic legacy of the company.

Methodologically, Kurahashi draws on a wide range of sources, including published and unpublished material; video recordings of earlier works as well as her firsthand experience of attending live performances of some productions; interviews with Chong and some of his collaborators, out of which both factual details and hermeneutic insights are derived; and reviews documenting the reception of her case studies. Adding to the critical framing of the study, the author's observations are occasionally accompanied by useful references to concepts drawn from seminal figures of critical theory such as Gilles Deleuze, Michel de Certeau, and Edward Said, among others. Overall, this variety of sources and references enables Kurahashi to capture the rich diversity of Chong's artistic career through the lens of three focal points: an expansive vision devoted to exploring “cross-cultural and truly global themes” (172); a “lifelong desire to integrate the various performing and performative elements into his unique theatre” (177); and an interest in developing highly collaborative practices. However, while the study maintains a balance between analysis of content and form throughout, a more extensive engagement with the creative processes at hand, as they emerge from interviews and/or archival sources, would have deepened readers’ understanding of Chong and his company's working methods.

Bringing a significant contribution to the academic recognition of Chong's oeuvre, Kurahashi's comprehensive survey invites contemporary audiences to (re)discover the timeliness of a voice that has become indispensable for an understanding of the US performing arts scene since the 1970s. While the vast range of material examined does not lend itself to extended analyses of the productions or the various artistic media therein, the study is sure to pave the ground for more focused approaches. Thus, future research might address Chong's career-long engagement with dance and movement as one of the trademarks of an interdisciplinary practice that often “blurs the lines between text-based theater and technique-driven dance” (Nguyen Donohue Reference Nguyen Donohue and Wong2016, 195). Offering a model of how to critically engage with interdisciplinary theater in its broader cultural contexts, Kurahashi's book will attract equally interdisciplinary audiences in theater and performance studies, dance studies, and broader readerships in the field of American Studies.