Vangeline Theater/ New York Butoh Institute
In collaboration with Howl Arts
Present
Queer Butoh 2021
June 8 through 30th, 2021
available at www.vimeo.com/vangeline
Content warning: this video contains nudity
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 1959, caused controversy amongst its spectators. This year, Queer Butoh returns during Pride month as a video series featuring LGBT/Q butoh dancers from Singapore, South Africa, and Italy. The featured artists present their work and reflect on the intersection of Butoh and Queerness.
Image by Richie Duque
Available online at www.vimeo.com/vangeline after Tuesday, June 8, 2021 at 9pm: XUE (Singapore) in Flowers, performed in 2019 in Brooklyn, NY, with a live accompaniment on electric guitar by John Barrington, an improvised score integrated with ASMR style field recordings of hand-manipulated chrysanthemums. In collaboration with Mika Orotea and John Barrington.
VHS Documentation by Mika Orotea.
With an introduction by the artist (60 minutes).
Please note that this presentation contains nudity.
XUE is a surrogate for artist Sher Chew — an eponymous conductor of clandestine realities, activated through live performance informed by the art of butoh. XUE is interested in aesthetic production as intervention, cultivating an impressionistic style of world building as a form of critical resistance. XUE’s worlds are post-lingual spaces which often involve silent or disarticulate bodies routinely subject to invisible restrictions. By designing rigorous systems that provoke exhaustion, XUE is committed to unscripting the socialized body; allowing radical physical vocabularies to emerge through the body as it cedes to a state of surrender.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature.