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Ayano Elson + Wendell Gray II

Photo of Ayano Elson by Kayhl Cooper

A shared evening

Thursday, November 21 | 7:30PM
Friday, November 22 | 7:30PM
Saturday, November 23 | 7:30PM

Open Dress Rehearsal*
Tuesday, November 19 | 7:30PM

A shared evening of new work by two NYC-based dancers, choreographers, and educators, Ayano Elson and Wendell Gray II. Both artists have recently shown work-in-development in Danspace’s DraftWork series.

Part Song/Immortal Life by Ayano Elson draws on the community-centered participatory design text A Pattern Language (Christopher Alexander, Murray Silverstein, and Sara Ishikawa 1977). “I am dancing in the tension between public site and individual desire,” Elson writes. Performers Amelia Heintzelman, Jade Manns, and evan ray suzuki; composer Matt Evans; and musicians Leo Chang, Tristan Kasten-Krause, and Zosha Warpeha treat the space as a site of surveillance—disappearing, disguising, revealing, and tracking the body within the architecture of the church and processing sensations of seduction, communion, speculation, and violence.

Wendell Gray II has performed at Danspace in the Bessie-nominated work of Jordan Demetrius Lloyd, Tere O’Connor, and with choreographers in the contemporary experimental canon such as Miguel Gutierrez, Joanna Kotze, and Kevin Beasley. His new work in the port’s mouth is comprised of a solo assisted by a duet, performed by Gray, Jamal K. White, and Jordan Demetrius Lloyd. Gray looks to externally express interior streams of consciousness inside a Black experience. “Time happens all at once where the past invades the present to make the future…At once I am many and I’m never alone,” he explains. “Using dance as a mode of processing, remembering, and dreaming, the work swims through a multitude of embodiments: some being manifestations of the imaginary and some being messages from the ancestors.”

*About Open Dress Rehearsal: Tuesday evening’s dress rehearsal will be free with RSVP and open to the public at limited-capacity. Open dress rehearsals are a mask-required, community-minded program prioritizing our immunocompromised and low-income audiences. Staff and audiences will be required to wear masks (N95 or KN95) and performing artists (if unmasked) will be required to test for COVID-19 (rapid tests provided by Danspace Project).

View the digital program

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Ayano Elson is an Okinawan-American dancer and choreographer based in New York City. She was born in Okinawa, a small island colonized by Japan in 1879 and occupied by the United States from 1945–1972. She works with improvisation, archival materials, and interdisciplinary collaboration to make dance performances. Her choreographic practice critically investigates power and interpretation as embedded in contemporary Western dance.

Her performances have been presented by Abrons Arts Center, AUNTS, 411 Kent, CPR – Center for Performance Research, The Chocolate Factory, Danspace Project, Gibney Dance, ISSUE Project Room, Knockdown Center, Movement Research, PAGEANT, and Roulette, among others. She has held artist residencies at 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). She has received funding support from Foundation for Contemporary Arts and Mertz Gilmore Foundation. She has performed in works by Laurie Berg, Kim Brandt, Jesi Cook, Milka Djordjevich, Simone Forti, Niall Jones, and Alexa West at museums, galleries, and theaters in Chicago, Los Angeles, and NYC. ayanoelson.com

Wendell Gray II is a dance artist, choreographer, and educator currently based in Brooklyn, NY, situated on Lenapehoking land. Wendell’s artistic journey has led him to perform with choreographers and artists including Miguel Gutierrez, Tere O’Connor, Joanna Kotze, Jordan Demetrius Lloyd, Pavel Zustiak, Christal Brown, J. Bouey, and Kevin Beasley, among many others. Wendell’s original choreographic works have been shown at venues such as PAGEANT, Draftwork at Dancespace, Coffey Street Studios, Kinosaito Arts Center, Gibney, University of the Arts, Movement Research at Judson Church, Center for Performance Research, Chez Bushwick, and Bronx Academy of Arts and Dance. Wendell is a 2024-2025 Movement Research Artist-in-Residence. He has additionally been supported by residency programs, including Sighlines Dance Festival (2023), STUFFED Artist in Residence at Judson Church (2021), Work Up 6.0 Artist at Gibney (2020), and Chez Bushwick (2017). He is also currently an adjunct professor of Dance at Sarah Lawrence College and additionally been a guest teacher at New York University, University of the Arts, and Dancewave among others. Wendell is an alumnus of the University of the Arts, where he graduated with a BFA in Dance under the direction of Donna Faye Burchfield. Originally hailing from Atlanta, GA, his artistic journey has been enriched by his upbringing in the performing arts. For more, visit wenings.com