Vangeline Theater/ New York Butoh Institute is proud to present
in collaboration with Howl Arts
Queer Butoh 2020 (VIRTUAL)
Available on Vimeo.com/vangeline
and Howlarts.org
June 22-28, 2020
Free
Dedicated to the loving memory of Brian Butterick
READ THE NEW YORK TIMES FEATURE ABOUT QUEER BUTOH 2020 BY CASSIDY GEORGE - 6/21/2020
In celebration of Pride 2020, Vangeline Theater/ New York Butoh Institute is proud to present Queer Butoh 2020 (ONLINE) in collaboration with Howl Arts.
This year, we are proud to virtually present the works of Mee Ae, Dustin Maxwell, Davey Mitchell, and Scoop Slone.
At its origin, the introduction of Butoh in Japan was widely controversial. The first homoerotic butoh performance, Kinjiki (Forbidden Colors) created by Tatsumi Hijikata in 1958, caused controversy amongst its spectators.
“Butoh is essentially the dance of the marginalized, and the LGBTQ population is still largely marginalized in the world,” says Vangeline, curator of this series. “This year, despite obvious challenges, it is particularly important to find ways to celebrate our LGBTQ artists for the 50th-anniversary celebration of Pride.”
PLEASE BE ADVISED THAT QUEER BUTOH 2020 CONTAINS NUDITY AND MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR ALL AUDIENCES.
Mee Ae by Jari Poulin.
Me Ae in Swoon
Filmed by Lauren Stefanelli (PEGASYS Media Center) at Community School of Music & Arts (CSMA) on December 13th, 2019.
Choreographed and Performed by Mee Ae
Music by Sheenah Ko; Costume by Mee Ae
Length of video: 4:40
A few words from the artist:
Swoon sprung from feelings of desire woven through with shame, as is so often the case due to internalized feelings of wrongness for my attraction to women. By expressing through movement what feels so inexpressible otherwise, these feelings were transmuted into the purifying core desire I have for dance. As a result, this piece came to represent a commitment ceremony of sorts between dance and I.
Mee Ae is a Butoh-inspired Dancer and Choreographer. She graduated from Bard College in 2000 with a BA in Drama / Dance, and landed in New York City in 2001, whereupon she was awarded a full scholarship to study at Peridance Capezio Center. In 2004 she began her training in Butoh with Vangeline, and her performance career with Vangeline Theater. Since then, she has performed throughout Europe, Canada, and the United States with Big Art Group, Desert Sin, Proto-type Theater, Caravan Stage Barge, Jenni Hong, Abigail Levine, Malinda Allen, Insect Ark, Theo Kogan, Mike Gordon, Jamie Lidell, Rob Roth, Timothy Saccenti, Lee Walton, and Yael Kanarek.
Mee Ae currently lives in Ithaca, NY, and has been the recipient of several awards from Community Arts Partnership including the Artist in Community Grant, Strategic Opportunity Stipend, and the Fellowship for Artists. Her work focuses on utilizing dance as an engine to empower and bring visibility to marginalized communities, through events such as The Arts & Mental Health, Queer Butoh, Ivy Q, We Step Into the Light, Dancing for Life, Go Go Go Variety Show, and One Out of Seven.
Dustin Maxwell by Olga Rabetskaya
In a dark forest partly illuminated: portal by Dustin Maxwell
Dustin Maxwell's multipart and multimedia work, in a dark forest partly illuminated, is a recognition and exposition of the Shadow (all that is rejected) and the Sacred that hide in plain sight. The film component of the work, dark forest: portal, represents an inlet on the wellspring of materiality. It is a mesmerizing invitation to dive below the surface and to be with the whole.
Filmed and edited by: Dustin Maxwell
Choreographed by: Dustin Maxwell
Performed by: Dustin Maxwell
Music by: Dustin Maxwell
Length: 7:04
Dustin Maxwell is a movement-based visual artist currently living in New York City. He was born queer into a Mormon family of eight in Albuquerque, New Mexico where he took his first ballet class at the age of three. As a teenager he studied modern dance and Barbara Clark's somatic approach with his teacher, Joanne Emmons. In 2005 he relocated to Minneapolis, Minnesota where he spent a decade studying dance and performing locally and internationally. He began studying butoh with Gadu Doushin in early 2012. His work is sourced from ritual and sensitizing practices and aims to preserve those elements within "finished" works. Otherness, sexuality, spirituality, death and the magic of being are themes central to his art and life. His dances and performance installations have been presented in theaters, galleries, basements, alleyways and countrysides in Minnesota, New York and Germany. He holds a B.A. in Dance from the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. He is a 2019 Jerome Hill Artist Fellow and was nominated for a 2015 Sage Award for Outstanding Performer.
Image by Michael Blase
Davey Mitchell in Diary of a Mad Swan
Choreographed and Performed by Davey Mitchell
Costume by Davey Mitchell
Filmed by on November 9, 2016, for Queer Butoh 2016 at Howl Arts
Music: Bolero by Maurice Ravel and Tempus Vernum by Enya
Length: 9 minutes
A few words from the artist:
"There is no place like HOME", is the phrase that comes to mind when I think of Butoh. "Home" in the sense of finding one's self - completeness of being; and within that being is your journey - your life experiences - struggles and accomplishments, happiness, and sorrow. As a mature dancer, Butoh has graciously accepted me with all the baggage that I carry from my journey and has allowed me to spill my guts of grief to orgasmic glories. It has taught me the power of stillness and given me a voice of balance where my masculine and feminine energies can speak my truth!.”
Davey Mitchell
An expressionist of the arts in New York City for over 30 years, Davey began his dance training at the Alvin Ailey Dance School in the 1980s. Through the span of his dance career with various dance companies, highlights include performances at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, The Duke Theater, PS. 122, The Riverside Church and Adelphi University to name a few. Now as a solo performer, he continues to showcase his work as a guest artist in collaboration with choreographers and special events. For more info www.artbydavey.com
Scoop Slone by Joan Greenfield
Scoop Slone in Fragments
A being exists alone in the primal future past. Through It’s locality It pieces together memories of It’s forgotten identity in a reclamation of It’s Self.
Filmed and edited by Eleanor Kipping at Five Myles Gallery, Brooklyn on Feb 1, 2020
Choreographed and Performed by Scoop Slone
Soundscapes by Scoop Slone
Engineers: Mark Unthank and MP Kuo “There is a land” by You Man
Costumes and Installation by Scoop Slone
Scoop Slone assembled from rubber bands, cable ties, paper straws, speaker cable, pom poms, and wood
Length: 25:25
Scoop Slone's creative practice explores identity, self-awareness, and self-actualization through performance, sculpture, and installation. Employing nonorganic modern materials that reference folk and primal tradition(s), Scoop investigates meaning and constancy as experienced through the solitude of alter ego, Geometrica 222. Character development draws on repetition, meditation, shamanism, sound, and phonation while referencing personal narratives, and genderfuck drag.
Scoop began an artistic career singing for Portland Opera and switched personas jumping into the NYC rock opera scene. Praised by NY Times for "gamely vocal stylings,” Scoop becomes known for vocal and character morphing in all genres of media/theatrical performance. An introduction to Butoh in 2018, coupled with costume/object fabrication, commenced a new artistic trajectory in Scoop’s artistic process and the public personification of Geometrica 222. July 2019 HEREarts debuted Future Perfect, with Scoop's first Butoh performance exhibit and installation. Fragments is the second incarnation of that work in progress.
Howl! Happening
Gallery | Performance Space | Archive
Like the neighborhood in which it was born and the Howl! Festival that began it all, Howl! Happening is a space of untamed creativity. Howl! Happening curates exhibitions and stages live events that showcase the historical legacy and contemporary culture of the East Village and Lower East Side. It is also dedicated to preserving the archives of artists who spent their creative lives working in this vibrant community and houses the Estates of artist Arturo Vega and the beloved performance artist, Tom Murrin aka “The Alien Comic.” The history of the East Village is still being written. The mix of rock and roll, social justice, art and performance, community activism, gay rights and culture, immigrants, fashion, and nightlife are even more relevant now and Howl! Happening aims to shine a light on artists from the past in the place where their art came alive and where they played and worked. Howl! Happening is an Arturo Vega Project. Visit howlarts.org
VANGELINE THEATER/ NEW YORK BUTOH INSTITUTE aims to preserve the legacy and integrity of Japanese Butoh while carrying the art form well into the future. The unique art of Butoh originated in post- World War II Japan as a reaction to the loss of identity caused by the westernization of Japanese culture, as well as a realization that ancient Japanese performing traditions no longer spoke to a contemporary audience. One of the major developments in contemporary dance in the latter half of the 20th century, Butoh combines dance, theater, improvisation and influences of Japanese traditional performing arts to create a unique performing art form that is both controversial and universal in its expression. The Vangeline Theater is home to the New York Butoh Institute, dedicated to the advancement of Butoh in the 21st century. www.vangeline.com
Publicity by Michelle Tabnick.
This program was supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and in parts by Dance/NYC Coronavirus Dance Relief Fund.