Ayano Elson is an Okinawan-American dancer and choreographer based in New York City. She uses improvisation, imagination, and collaboration to make research-based scores, musical compositions, and site-specific dances. Ayano has performed her work at Abrons Arts Center, 411 Kent, the Chocolate Factory, Gibney Dance, ISSUE Project Room, 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). Her works-in-process were supported by AUNTS, Seoul Dance Center, Knockdown Center, Movement Research at the Judson Church. She has received funding support from Foundation for Contemporary Arts and Mertz Gilmore Foundation. As a dancer, she’s performed in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago in works by Laurie Berg, Kim Brandt, Jesi Cook, Milka Djordjevich, devynn emory, Simone Forti, Niall Jones, Haegue Yang, and Kyli Kleven at venues including the Chocolate Factory, Dia: Beacon, Danspace Project, Guggenheim Museum, the Kitchen, MoMA, MoMA PS1, New York Live Arts, MCA Chicago, Pioneer Works, Roulette and REDCAT. ayanoelson.com

Iris McCloughan is a performance maker and writer. Working between and across disciplines, their work considers the queer trans body, its social and discursive constructions, and its expansive potential. Iris’s performance works have been presented in New York (PAGEANT, BAX, The Poetry Project, Ars Nova, Movement Research at the Judson Church), Philadelphia (The Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia Contemporary, FringeArts), Chicago (Links Hall, ACRE Projects), Detroit (Public Pool), Los Angeles (PURE O), and elsewhere. Recent direction includes Joan Jonas and Eiko Otake’s collaborative performance Drawing in Circles WHY? (Danspace Project/Castelli Gallery) and Alex Tatarsky’s Sad Boys in Harpy Land (Playwrights Horizons). Iris is a past winner of the Stanley Kunitz Memorial Prize from American Poetry Review, and was named a finalist in nonfiction for Best of the Net 2020. They are the author of three poetry chapbooks, including Triptych (greying ghost, 2022) and Bones to Peaches (Seven Kitchens Press, 2021). Iris’s writing has appeared in American Poetry Review, Prelude, Tupelo Quarterly, juked, jubilat, Gertrude, Denver Quarterly, and Queen Mob’s Teahouse, among many others. Iris has held residencies through Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, The Chocolate Factory Theater, JACK Brooklyn, BEAM Center, Ars Nova, The Orchard Project, and the Downtown Brooklyn Partnership. Iris has collaborated with many other artists and writers, including Eiko Otake, Joan Jonas, Mike Lala, Toby Altman, Alex Tatarsky, Jessie Young, Doug LeCours, Beth Gill, and Julie Mayo.