Rebellious Bodies
International Butoh Dance Festival 2023
with partners
NPO Dance Archive Network and Surface Area Dance Theatre
presents
Vangeline in Hijikata Mon Amour
Friday, November 3, 2023
7:30pm
Rebellious Bodies: International Butoh Dance Festival 2023 presents performances by Vangeline. Performances will take place on Friday, November 3, 2023 at Rich Mix London, 35-47 Bethnal Grn Rd., London E1 6LA, UK.
Hijikata Mon amour is an homage to the founder of Butoh Tatsumi Hijikata, created in 2019 in celebration of Butoh’s 60th anniversary. Vangeline performs in an exact replica of Tatsumi Hijikata’s 1968 costume (Hijikata and the Japanese: Revolt of the Body) recreated by Todd Thomas. The piece premiered October 24 through October 26, 2019, at the New York Butoh Institute Festival at Theater for the New City and received critical acclaim from the New York Press.
Performance Schedule:
Rich Mix London
35-47 Bethnal Grn Rd., London E1 6LA, UK
Friday, November 3, 2023, XXX [Time]
Tickets start at £20. For more info https://richmix.org.uk/events/double-bill-vangeline-mitsuyo-uesugi/
About Rebellious Bodies:
Rebellious Bodies is a brand-new festival set up to re-introduce butoh to a UK audience. The festival brings together the world’s best butoh performers, butoh-inspired performers and butoh experimentalists to share their rich decades of experience through exclusive, potentially once-in-a-lifetime showing of rare works that have never been seen before in the UK.www.rebelliousbodiesfestival.com
About Vangeline:
Vangeline is a teacher, dancer, and choreographer specializing in Japanese Butoh. She is the artistic director of the Vangeline Theater/New York Butoh Institute (New York), a dance company firmly rooted in the tradition of Japanese butoh while carrying it into the twenty-first century.
With her all-female dance company, Vangeline’s socially conscious performances tie together butoh and activism. Vangeline is the founder of the New York Butoh Institute Festival, elevating women's visibility in butoh, and the festival Queer Butoh. She pioneered the award-winning, 17-year running program The Dream a Dream Project, which brings butoh dance to incarcerated men and women at correctional facilities across New York State. Her choreographed work has been performed in France, Singapore, Chile, Germany, Denmark, France, Finland, the UK, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
Vangeline is a 2022/2023 Gibney Dance Artist in Residence and the winner of a 2022 National Endowment for the Arts Dance Award. She is also a 2018 NYFA/NYSCA Artist Fellow in Choreography, the winner of the 2015 Gibney Dance Social Action Award, as well as the 2019 Janet Arnold Award from the Society of Antiquaries of London.
Her work has been heralded in publications such as the New York Times (“captivating”) and Los Angeles Times (“moves with the clockwork deliberation of a practiced Japanese Butoh artist”), to name a few.
Film projects include a starring role alongside actors James Franco and Winona Ryder in the feature film by director Jay Anania, 'The Letter" (2012-Lionsgate). She has been commissioned by Grammy Award-winning artists Esperanza Spalding, Skrillex, and David J. (Bauhaus). She is the author of the critically acclaimed book: Butoh: Cradling Empty Space, which explores the intersection of butoh and neuroscience. She pioneered the first neuroscientific study of Butoh (“The Slowest Wave”). www.vangeline.com
Workshop with Vangeline in the UK
Butoh, Sensuality, and the Nervous System
Drawing from her own background as a burlesque/vaudeville and butoh dancer, Vangeline teaches a workshop that explores the link between sensuality and Butoh, as well as receptivity and its impact on the nervous system. This workshop will also draw from the techniques of Noguchi Taiso. No dance experience is necessary; this is an all-level class, and beginners are welcome. Some experience with mindfulness or somatic practice can be helpful. This workshop is trauma-informed.
*Participants will have free access to Vangeline’s online lecture on the topic as a companion to the workshop.
London
November 5, 2023 at Rich Mix–1pm-4pm
https://www.rebelliousbodiesfestival.com/vangeline
Photos of Vangeline by Matthew Placek. She is wearing a recreation of Tatsumi Hijikata's 1968 costume of Revolt of the Flesh, recreated by Todd Thomas.
Photo of Vangeline teaching at the Zen Mountain Monastery by Yusen Gilman.
Photo of Tatsumi Hijikata's costume by Matthew Placek, courtesy of the Tatsumi Hijikata Archive
To learn more about the recreation of Tatsumi Hijikata's costume, click here: https://www.vangeline.com/news/2019/12/7/the-recreation-of-tatsumi-hijikatas-1968-costume
ALT TEXT:
Vangeline is wearing a long, ruffled red satin costume with a long, billowing skirt. She is looking at the ground, her arms outstretched like a flamenco dancer. Her hair is dark and slicked back.
Vangeline, wearing a ruffled red satin costume, cascaded to the ground. Her head is tilted to the side and bent at the waist, looking at the ground. Her arms make a right angle. Her hair is dark and slicked back.
A number of people are sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on a wooden floor in an oval-like shape. The group focused on Vangeline, who sits in the upper left of the room, is closely connected and partially lit by natural light shining from above. Her hands are in a prayer gesture.
A long, red silk costume with a ruffled top and ruffled skirt is laid on a headless mannequin. One can see a red flower made of ruffled satin at the shoulder. The skirt is wide open at the center of the legs.