Ayano Elson
Control

April 23-25, 2026

$15-275

rehearsal photo (by Matt Vega) of Ayano Elson's Control. A rehearsal studio with a wall of windows and blond wood floor. In the foreground, Amelia Heintzelman, wearing a dark top and tan bottom, stands looking upward, one hand flatly extended, the other perpendicular. Behind, a performer crouches, arms extended.
rehearsal photo (by Matt Vega) of Ayano Elson's Control. A rehearsal studio with a wall of windows and blond wood floor. In the foreground, Amelia Heintzelman, wearing a dark top and tan bottom, stands looking upward, one hand flatly extended, the other perpendicular. Behind, a performer crouches, arms extended.

Performances will take place at The Chocolate Factory Theater, 38-33 24th Street, Long Island City.

Choreographer and dancer Ayano Elson returns to The Chocolate Factory Theater (following an early stage creative residency in 2025) with the premiere of Control, a deeply physical, formally minimal dance created in collaboration with performers Cayleen Del Rosario, Amelia Heintzelman, Owen Prum, and evan ray suzuki, with music by Matt Evans and performances by Evans, isa crespo pardo, and David Leon, lighting by Madeline Best, and costumes by Kate Williams.

The piece treats the dancer as a conduit into an internal psychic space shaped by accumulated desire and eroticism; inviting the viewer into a site of longing, waiting, and devastation.

Drawing on American postmodern dance, postwar slow cinema from East Asia, and Ayano’s inheritance of Okinawan performance lineages, Control unfolds through imitation, rupture, and transformation.

Developed with residency support from the Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM). Elson is a recipient of the FY2026 New York State Council on the Arts Support for Artists Grant.