Ayano Elson
Control

May 2026

$15-275

rehearsal image of Control by Ayano Elson. in a studio with orange curtains and polished plywood floors, Ayano poses in the foreground wearing grey pants with orange stripes. Her arms are extended and bent. Amelia Heintzelman and evan ray suzuki are seen behind her, facing away from the camera.
rehearsal image of Control by Ayano Elson. in a studio with orange curtains and polished plywood floors, Ayano poses in the foreground wearing grey pants with orange stripes. Her arms are extended and bent. Amelia Heintzelman and evan ray suzuki are seen behind her, facing away from the camera.

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

Control emerges from research into yokai (shapeshifting entities) and henshin (transformational processes) from Okinawan folkloric traditions. Drawing on postwar Japanese cinema’s treatment of corporeal transformation and sexualized violence in films like Paradise View and Woman in the Dunes, Control brings performers and audience into a shared, occupied site where sensual memory, historical trauma, and embodied shame oscillate and intersect within the dark, heavily surveilled space of the theater.