N U E
Vangeline Theater/ New York Butoh Institute
in collaboration with Howl! Arts and photographer Javi Alvarez
presents
N U E
Thursday, December 7, 2023
at Howl Arts, 250 Bowery Street, NYC
6:30 pm–9 pm
Performance at 7:30 pm
Free admission
Howl! Arts is pleased to partner with Vangeline Theater/New York Butoh Institute and visionary photographer Javi Alvarez to present an exclusive preview of their photographic project, N U E, with a special performance by Vangeline at 7:30 PM on December 7th at Howl! Arts/Howl! Archive, 250 Bowery, 2nd Floor.
N U E consists of a series of exquisite nude photographs of Butoh artist Vangeline captured in nature and the studio by Javi Alvarez. An exclusive selection of large prints will remain on display at the gallery through December 16, 2023. Special Gallery hours: 12-6 PM through December 16.
Vangeline will perform an excerpt of her celebrated solo Eternity 123, which traces the symbolic journey of women's liberation across time. With this piece, Vangeline also celebrates the impact of women on the art form butoh, exploring the link between women, butoh, and “Cabaret.”
N U E derives its name from the French word for nude and refers to the divine. With this collaboration, Alvarez and Vangeline explore the divine feminine prevalent within nature and the female form. With this photographic study, Butoh becomes a conduit for this sensual, ecstatic, and sacred energy.
“Vangeline’s work as an artist and advocate for women’s rights is inspiring,” said Alvarez. “The way she stands in fierce authenticity with equal parts of kindness and strength has given room for an intimate collaboration that shows delicate and powerful femininity.”
“Butoh has always had a privileged relationship with photography,” echoed Vangeline. “The art form was launched in Japan in the early 60s thanks to a stunning book of photographs by Eikoh Hosoe. Live performances can be so ephemeral. But Javi‘s work has captured the great intimacy and vulnerability behind Butoh. We are both excited to share these images with the world and build on our collaboration.”
A series of legacy, limited edition co-signed prints will be exclusively available during this exhibition, pre-book release. The photographs will be on display at the gallery until December 16, 2023. NUE will culminate in 2024 with a book launch and exhibition of Alvarez’s pictures of Vangeline.
For those not living in New York but interested in ordering early-release prints, visit javialvarez.pixieset.com or contact hello@javialvarez.com
Vangeline in Eternity 123-photo by Brian Kwon
About the Artists
Javier Alvarez was born in Costa Rica in 1984 and now lives and works in New York. With an academic background in economics, he began his artistic journey following an informal but expressive path. A collector, cinematographer, explorer, and visionary, Alvarez doesn't take photographs — he experiments, letting the gestures transform his intuitions into works. New, uncommon, and alternative elements become pretexts for expressing oneself, in balance with concept, people, and light. Constantly challenging the rules, his work finds infinite possibilities of articulation according to the spaces, situations, and moods of the moment, with a modality that is never static or definitive, but always improvisational, unstable, and evolving in time. NUE is Javi’s fifth visual arts exhibit and the first one in Soho. Prior to this, his film work [with dance painter Annika Rhea] was exhibited in 2021 and 2022 during the Miami Art Basel at the Loews Hotel as part of the SCOPE Art Show’s featured artists. He has held two videography and photography exhibitions at The Box Factory Gallery in Brooklyn. For more info, visit: www.javialvarez.com.
Photo by Catherine Smith
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, which elevates the visibility of women 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. Vangeline is a 2022/2023 Gibney Dance Dance in Process residency and the winner of a 2022 National Endowment for the Arts Dance Award. She is also a 2018 NYFA/NYSCA Artist Fellow in Choreography for Elsewhere, the winner of the 2015 Gibney Dance Social Action Award and the 2019 Janet Arnold Award from the Society of Antiquaries of London. 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”). She is also featured on BBC’s podcast Deeply Human with host Dessa (episode 2 of 12: Why We Dance).
About Vangeline Theater/New York Butoh Institute
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, with a special emphasis on education, social justice, research, and archiving. For more info, visit: www.vangeline.com
Vangeline Theater programs are 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.
About Howl! Arts
Howl! Arts Inc. is a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving the past and celebrating the contemporary culture of the East Village and Lower East Side. Based in New York City’s East Village, Howl! Arts curates exhibitions and produces events that invite active participation of the community to circulate ideas, generate discussion, and celebrate the fearless innovators who continue to influence new generations. The organization encompasses dynamic cultural spaces and community-centered programming. For more info, visit: https://www.howlarts.org/
Howl! Arts / Howl! Archive
250 Bowery, 2nd Floor, New York, NY 10012
Tel: +1-212-500-6804
Special Gallery hours: 12-6 PM through December 16, 2023.
ALT TEXT:
Close-up portrait of a caucasian woman (Vangeline). She is photographed upside down, lying on her back, her arms underneath her body. She is looking straight into the camera, her chin pointing up. There are strands of hair on her face, and her long black hair seems to be moving toward the camera. She appears to be nude, and you can see her bare shoulders.
A photo of a landscaped garden in ruins with a beautiful large tree in the center. A woman (Vangeline) is nude, lying on her back, and seems to be suspended in front of the tree on a small pedestal several feet above the ground. Her limbs are hanging and seem to be an extension of the tree's sinuous branches. Her long black hair is flowing towards the ground.
Photo in a forest of an out-of-focus female nude (Vangeline) lying on the ground with her arms above her head, as though sleeping. Her feet are only in focus, and you can see dirt on her bare legs and feet. Vegetation seems to have grown around her body while she was sleeping.
A caucasian woman, Vangeline, is posing profile, bathed in a blue light in a short camisole. Her legs are bare. She is looking up, and her left arm is raised in a pin-up position above her head.
Portrait of photographer Javi Alvarez. He is looking intently into the camera, his arms crossed. He is wearing several rings on his fingers. On his right forearm, one can see the tattoo of a negative (strip or sheet of transparent plastic film).