Control and abandon are difficult for any dancer to navigate, but Ching Ching Wong masters both in a single movement
-Nancy Wozny for Dance Magazine, “25 to Watch”
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DANCE MAGAZINE |JUNE 2024
whyidance Dance Magazine, Choreographer Ching Ching Wong on Finding a Home in Dance
August 4, 1991. Whittier, California. My family had recently immigrated from the Philippines, it was my third birthday, and I declared “I WANT TO DANCE.” My desire to dance began on that day, it continues today, and with certainty it will be part of my tomorrows.
I dance because dance is home. Home as I have built it, home as it feels, and home where I find the people I love and who love me. Through dance I have tasted freedom, instinct, abandon, and trust. I have learned how to make mistakes, how to fail, how to collaborate, how to be disappointed, how to work hard, how to be proud of both myself and of others. This home has raised me and it has shaped the woman I am. I have found my voice. Dance has shown me that magic is real and this life we have is singular and spectacular.
From dancer to teacher to choreographer to stager to rehearsal director, my relationship to dance continues to evolve. Dance is woven into my being; it is how I see and traverse the world. I am dancing when I catch the train, when I hold your hand, when I am at my sewing machine, when I am grieving, crying, laughing, when the sun streams through the windows, and when the moon is full. I have learned through dance that everything matters, everyone matters, and everything is dancing with one another.
Even within the beauty and bliss, many times in my career I have lost myself. I have questioned, “Is this life in dance worth it?” “What am I giving up?” When these questions bubble up and begin to take over, I remind myself to return to where it all began. I return to the barre, I plié, and the reason why I dance comes to me. I am home. There is a pact embedded in the piano notes that we are in this together and that I belong here. To belong may be the greatest feeling in the world. More and more often these days, I am gaining opportunities to tell you, you belong here too.
Dance Magazine | OCtober 2024
Season Preview: 28 Must-See Shows in 2024–25
Ching Ching Wong’s latest work for Louisville Ballet is a celebration of the city’s creativity and spirit, says the Filipino-born choreographer. Titled after Louisville’s area code and danced to music by city native Jack Harlow, 502 swirls together onstage dirt, mirror balls, pointe shoes, and a cast of 40 dancers. “The mirror balls are manufactured locally and symbolize how we cast our light as far and wide as possible,” says Wong, “yet a part of us always returns home to the soil from which we come.”
p: Steve Sucato
Voice Tribune | OCtober 2024
HEr Energy Shines
Wong’s interaction with the dancers during the artistic process is a highlight of the documentary. Her energy shines. “We had nine days, and we created a ballet to the music of Jack Harlow. It feels like a miracle!” Wong said.
One dancer said he knew Wong was the right person for the task: “If anyone can marry ballet, contemporary dance and modern dance with Jack Harlow’s music, it would definitely be Ching Ching,” dancer Daniel Scofield said.
“She’s a whole vibe in herself,” said dancer Leigh Anne Albrechta in the documentary. “She is so thoughtful, and creative, and precise, and doesn’t mind when it’s messy. To a classical ballet artist, we tend to want perfection, and she is able to strip all of us down from that and really build from the bottom-up to everybody’s strengths.”
p: Kat Sellers
POINTE MAGAZINE | OCtober 2024
Louisville Ballet and Jack Harlow Team Up for Ching Ching Wong’s 502
With Harlow’s support, choreographer Ching Ching Wong was enlisted to create the 25-minute, 40-dancer work titled 502 (after the Louisville area code). In Wong’s words, “It’s about the hometown hero in all of us.”
Here, Wong pulls back the curtain on what audiences can expect from the genre-bending collaboration.
p: Kat Sellers
Ballets Jazz Montréal | September 2022
BALLETS JAZZ MONTRÉAL IS THRILLED TO WELCOME OUR NEW REHEARSAL DIRECTORS
Ballets Jazz Montréal is thrilled to welcome the new Rehearsal Directors for our 2022-2023 season - Andrew Murdock and Ching Ching Wong.
p: Will Bowers
Backhausdance | Fall 2022
Ching Ching Wong Premieres New work ‘Fate & Fantasy’ with backhausdance
p + v: Adrien Padilla
NEW YORK TIMES | THE COUNTER | AUGUST 2021
“I call it Seed to stage”: At world renowned dance space, Jacob’s pillow CHOREOGRAPHER adam weinert is teaching his dancers how to farm
p: jesse hirsch
adam weinert, brandon washington, cynthia knoppe at Jacob’s Pillow Garden
Dance Magazine | March 2021
NO Theater? No Problem. Dancers Are Making The World Their Stage
The Red Carpet by Nancy Wozny
When Ching Ching Wong took her first steps wearing only socks on the brilliant red carpet that had been laid down in a parking lot for a PARA.MAR Dance Theatre performance of kiss., she could feel bits of gravel beneath it. "It was like mini mountains under my feet," remembers Wong. Determined to create a danceable surface, artistic director Stephanie Martinez, rehearsal director Noelle Kayser and the whole PARA.MAR team spent hours sweeping the area and filling holes with sand. "The next day for the performance it made such a huge difference," Wong says.
During her stint at NW Dance Project and other companies, Wong has danced outdoors on all kinds of unforgiving surfaces. She finds she needs to shift her training to prepare for the additional demands on her body, so in addition to Pilates and daily ballet, she also does more strength and cardio workouts, including weights. "It's good to keep the bones intact."
It rained during one of the performances of kiss. "Okay, so our socks were wet. But we had nothing to complain about," Wong insists. "We are dancers, our superpower is adaptability. This is such a gift to be able to dance right now."
Dancegeist Magazine | March 2021
Dancegeist Magazine
A new take on dance media, Dancegeist Magazine fights for inclusion and letting members of our community speak for themselves. For the community, by the community. Dancegeist featured Ching Ching Wong on the cover of their March 2021 "Duality" issue. Subscribe and join them here: dancegeist.com
WHYTEBERG | January 11, 2021
WHYTEBERG PODCAST “LET’S BE FRANK”
WHYTEBERG is a Los Angeles-based contemporary dance theatre duo created by Gracie WHYTE and Laura BERG that makes colorful immersive works for non-traditional spaces, investigating the ways in which humor exists within a given circumstance.Ching Ching was guest on WHYTEBERG's PODCAST "Let's Be Frank". Subscribe to their patreon and listen in on their podcast or join their floorwork class here: patreon.com/whyteberg
Portland Dance Film Festival | October 20, 2020
“Where We're Going” wins best cinematography
Heidi Duckler Dance’s “Where We’re Going” was screened as part of the 2020 Portland Dance Film Festival, and was award Best Cinematography. The dance film was directed by Heidi Duckler and Katherine Helen, with Shimmy Boyle as the Director of Photography. It featured dancers Raymond Ejiofor, Tess Hewlett, Ryan Walker Page, Himerria Wortham, and Ching Ching Wong.
SEe CHICAGO DANCE | October 5, 2020
New company Para.Mar is more than just good dance in a parking lot
"Dancer Chase Buntrock took center stage and locked energy with Ching Ching Wong on the sidelines. Toting a black fedora, Bloom began to manipulate Wong’s faint muscle contractions from a distance. I was excited to spend an afternoon experiencing many firsts: my first outdoor performance of the year, my first parking lot ballet and my first time seeing Para.Mar, who was performing Martinez’ newest work, Kiss.”
Portland tribune | October 16, 2017
Dance Moves
"In a couple weeks, Wong will leave Portland to make her next moves in her career, having reached national-level status as a member of Northwest Dance Project. She's earned a Princess Grace Award, annually given to top professional dancers, and she's known as one of the "25 To Watch" for 2017 by Dance Magazine — not to mention countless performances and tours with Northwest Dance Project, headed by artistic director Sarah Slipper and executive director Scott Lewis."
artlandia podcast | October 2017
Adventures in Artslandia with Susannah: Sarah Slipper & Ching Ching Wong
"This week Susannah chats with Sarah Slipper & Ching Ching Wong about their Fall 2017 season opener and Ching Ching’s farewell performance with NW Dance Project."
oregon arts watch | October 19, 2017
DanceWatch: Dancer Ching Ching Wong says good-bye
"Ching Ching Wong has danced for NW Dance Project for the past seven years. When she and I sat down this past weekend to talk, we estimated that she had danced approximately 70 new dances in her seven years with the company. If you’re wondering if that’s a lot? It is. It’s a whole lot. Wong’s contribution to the company is immeasurable."
orgeon arts watch | October 19, 2015
Ching Ching Wong’s Princess PatH
"The Northwest Dance Project stalwart enters the company's "New Now Wow!" with a new crown: She's the project's fourth Princess Grace Award winner since 2010."
Dance Magazine | December 29, 2016
25 to Watch
"Control and abandon are difficult for any dancer to navigate, but NW Dance Project's Ching Ching Wong masters both in a single movement. In resident choreographer Ihsan Rustem's Yidam, half of her body dangles as if free of bones, completely unbound in some precarious, impossible position. Meanwhile her standing leg supports the gorgeous shenanigans going on in the rest of her body, her astonishing ability to have balance while being off balance galvanizing attention at every moment."
There is nothing predictable about the 2015 Princess Grace Award winner’s dancing. “I am working on not being perfect, not apologizing for anything I do onstage, to let my body go through it, and ride it like a wave,” says Wong. “I want to test my body’s physical and emotional capabilities onstage, explode even more, to dive into character. I am looking for more opportunities to be less controlled, to go beyond the boundaries of my 4′ 11 3/4″ body.” —Nancy Wozny