I am an Okinawan-American dancer, choreographer, costume designer, and educator based in New York City. My work draws on improvisation, archival materials, and interdisciplinary collaboration to create performance-based practices that examine power, authorship, and interpretation in contemporary Western dance.
My choreography has been presented by the Kitchen, The Chocolate Factory, Danspace Project, Gibney Dance, ISSUE Project Room, Movement Research, and Roulette. I have held artist residencies at the Chocolate Factory, the Kitchen, Center for Performance Research and Abrons Arts Center (2022), Lower Manhattan Cultural Center and ArtCake (2021), and Movement Research Van Lier Emerging Artist of Color Fellow (2018) and Gibney Dance (2015). As part of my residency at CPR, artist Jesi Cook and I recently co-organized a performance marathon fundraiser for Red Canary Song, an organizing collective for Asian & migrant sex workers. I teach improvisation through AUNTS/Classclassclass, Gibney Dance, freeskewl, and Pageant. I have received funding support from NYSCA, Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and Mertz Gilmore Foundation.
I am currently dancing in projects by Kim Brandt, Jesi Cook, and Melinda Ring, and I have danced for dear artists Milka Djordjevich, Simone Forti, Niall Jones, Gwendolyn Knapp, Ella Dawn W-S, Juli Brandano, and Alexa West at museums, galleries, and theaters including the Chocolate Factory, Danspace Project, Guggenheim Museum, the New Museum, MoMA, MoMA PS1, Pioneer Works, New York Live Arts, MCA Chicago and REDCAT. I’ve recently costumed dances for Emma Judkins, Amelia Heintzelman, and Jesi Cook. :)
Contact: ayano.elson@gmail.com