Donate to Ayano's show at Danspace Project

Photo: Jade Manns and Amelia Heintzelman rehearsing at Danspace Project. evan ray suzuki rehearsing in Sunset Park.

I’m making a new performance called Part Song/Immortal Life, which will run from November 21–23 at Danspace Project in the historic St. Mark's Church in New York City. The evening is shared with Wendell Gray II, an artist I’ve admired for a long time. Tickets are available here.

For this performance, I am joined by collaborators old and new: dancers Amelia Heintzelman, Jade Manns, and evan ray suzuki; composer Matt Evans; musicians Leo Chang, Tristan Kasten-Krause, and Zosha Warpeha; and costume designer Kate Williams. To finalize this ambitious and challenging work, I need $3000. This $3000 goal amount will cover our final hours of rehearsal, performance fees for my collaborators, space rentals and costumes. And it puts me in a place where I can continue to make work in 2025.

If you are able to provide it, your financial support will help pay for the time and space necessary to practice our ideas in the rehearsal studio. It will help to fund the administrative labor required to choreograph and transform our dreams, text messages, and phone calls into a theatrical work. Supporting this work, as well as the artists and spaces dedicated to experimental dance, is an investment in the present and the future of a culture that is deeply woven into the history of New York. My collaborators and I are committed to the field of live performance, and we are honored and heartened by those of you willing to commit something to us.

Photo: Ayano Elson and Amelia Heintzelman performing Draftwork at Danspace Project in February 2024

If you’re able, please consider donating to my campaign. If you’re unable to donate, sharing this fundraiser with a friend or family member is extremely helpful and powerful!

About Part Song/Immortal Life

To make Part Song/Immortal Life, I’ve drowned (metaphorically) in the historical archive of Danspace Project. Danspace has been around for 50 (!!) years. Images and clips of past shows have slipped into this staging process, especially as I spend more and more time in the church. The piece addresses devotion and surveillance, disappearing and tracking a dance within the architecture of the sanctuary. Throughout this process, I’m questioning the origins and departures of different sources of inspiration on my work and my practice, and what drives me to dedicate myself to American modern dance. This re-evaluation has raised questions about the legacy of this form, what I’ve inherited from its past, the origins of its ideas, and its legibility.

Here is the New York Times preview of the show.

Photo: Ayano Elson, Matt Evans, Jade Manns and Amelia Heintzelman performing Shadows Later at PAGEANT in October 2023. Photo stills by Kayhl Cooper

About us

Ayano Elson is a dancer, choreographer, and educator based in Brooklyn, New York. She was born in Okinawa, a small island colonized by Japan in 1879 and controlled by the United States from 1945–1972. She works with improvisation, archival materials, and interdisciplinary collaboration to make dance performances.

Her choreography has been presented by The Chocolate Factory, Danspace Project, Pageant, Gibney Dance, ISSUE Project Room, Movement Research, and Roulette. She has held artist residencies at the Chocolate Factory (2025), 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). As part of her residency at CPR, artist Jesi Cook and Ayano recently co-organized a performance marathon fundraiser for Red Canary Song, an organizing collective for Asian & migrant sex workers. Her works-in-process were supported by AUNTS, Seoul Dance Center, Knockdown Center, Movement Research at the Judson Church, among others. As a dancer, she has worked with Laurie Berg, Kim Brandt, Jesi Cook, Milka Djordjevich, devynn emory, Simone Forti, Kyli Kleven, Matthew Lutz-Kinoy/Niall Jones, and Alexa West. Ayano has performed at venues including Dia: Beacon, the Chocolate Factory, Danspace Project, the Kitchen, MoMA, MoMA PS1, the New Museum, Pioneer Works, New York Live Arts, MCA Chicago, and REDCAT.

Matt Evans is a Brooklyn based composer, drummer, and producer making electro-acoustic compositions and recording projects that consider interconnectedness, human/post-human embodiment, and lessons learned from non-human teachers. His compositions draw inspiration from millennial esoterica, natural phenomena, and science fiction, and have been described as "hyperreal and phantasmal" (Wire Magazine) and "a form of chill complexity" (New York Times). Matt has presented solo projects at the Guggenheim, The Kitchen, Roulette, and 2220 Art+Archives and has released records with Moon Glyph, Whatever’s Clever, and others.

Amelia Heintzelman

Amelia Heintzelman is a performer, choreographer, and teacher. Her work has been shown at Draftwork at Danspace Project, Pageant, Movement Research at the Judson Church, Snug Harbor, Lubov Gallery, and University Settlement in NYC. Most recently, she has performed for Alexa West, Jesi Cook, Ayano Elson, and Deborah Hay. She teaches at Pageant and Movement Research. www.ameliakh.com

Jade Manns is a dancer, choreographer and co-founder of the artist-run performance space PAGEANT in New York. Her work has been shown at Draftwork at Danspace Project (NYC), Movement Research at the Judson Church (NYC), Sundays on Broadway at Weis Acres (NYC), The Brooklyn Rail, Singing in Unison (NYC), New Dance Alliance Performance Mix Festival (NYC), The Provincetown Dance Festival (Truro Center for the Arts, MA), and PAGEANT (NYC). It has been supported by the Alberta Foundation for the Arts, The NYU Production Lab and New Dance Alliance Satellite Residency.

As a performer Jade has worked with artists such as Evvie Allison, Korakrit Arunanondchai, Ayano Elson, Phoebe Berglund, Boychild, Jordan Demetrius Lloyd, Luis Lara Malvacias, Alexa West, Cherrie Yu and Rosario Zorraquin.

evan ray suzuki is a NY-based dance/performance artist and filmmaker of yonsei Japanese descent. evan creates multidisciplinary projects in a butoh-ish choreographic style, drawing on references from both internet culture and nature to capture alienation through abstraction and intimacy through fragmentation. evan’s work has been presented internationally at Umbria Factory Festival in Spoleto, Italy and at venues such as Ars Nova, Abrons Arts Center, JACK, Movement Research at the Judson Church, PAGEANT, Center for Performance Research, Trans-Pecos, WestFest (New York), Icebox Project Space (Philadelphia), and many galleries, parks, and basements. Recent projects have been supported by grants and residencies from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, Ars Nova, New Dance Alliance, and Centro Umbro di Residenze Artistiche. evan's recent credits as a performer include works by David Neumann, Mina Nishimura, Glenn Potter-Takata, and as a member of La MaMa’s Great Jones Repertory Company. evan holds a degree from Sarah Lawrence College, concentrating in Dance, Theater and Cultural Studies.

Leo Chang

bio coming soon

Tristan Krause-Krause

bio coming soon

Zosha Warpeha

bio coming soon

Kate Williams

bio coming soon

Danspace Project

Danspace Project presents new work in dance, supports a diverse range of choreographers in developing their work, encourages experimentation, and connects artists to audiences.

For 50 years, Danspace Project has supported a vital community of contemporary dance artists in an environment unlike any other in the United States. Located in the historic St. Mark’s Church in-the-Bowery, Danspace shares its facility with the Church, The Poetry Project, and New York Theatre Ballet. Danspace Project’s Commissioning Initiative has commissioned nearly 600 new works since its inception in 1994.

The community makes the dance!