Photo by Michael Blase
Butoh: Receptivity and the Nervous System
with Vangeline
Zen Mountain Monastery
871 Plank Rd, Mt Tremper, NY 12457
May 9 - 12, 2024
In this workshop, Vangeline teaches participants to explore the link between receptivity and Butoh, as well as receptivity’s impact on the nervous system. This work focuses on relaxation techniques and the parasympathetic nervous system, supported by the technique of Noguchi Taiso. Noguchi Taiso or Noguchi gymnastics is the foundation of Butoh. Professor Noguchi developed this release technique between the 1950’s and 1970’s in Japan, in search of a method “devoid of ego or violence”.
What can we allow to blossom when we deeply release tension, and when we enter into a harmonious dialogue with gravity?
Zen practitioners often feel a real sense of support by sitting together in the zendo. We can also understand Butoh is born from exchange and communal work. Because Butoh is not about “showing” it is also not about judging what we’ve been shown. Together in movement led by acclaimed Butoh performer Vangeline, participants will experience opportunity for great opening.
Join us starting on Thursday evening for this multi-day movement retreat. Vangeline’s Butoh classes incorporate Japanese Butoh, Bio-energetics, core energetics, elements of Noguchi gymnastics, and guided imagery to offer a high-energy workshop adapted to each group’s level of physical fitness.
Vangeline draws on 20 years of experience as a Butoh teacher and dancer, and has 35 years of expertise in the field of dance. She is the author of the critically acclaimed book of non-fiction Butoh: Cradling Empty Space. 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, 15-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 Chile, Hong Kong, Germany, Denmark, France, the UK, Hong Kong, and Taiwan.
She 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 (a work that began as an artistic commission from Surface Area Dance Theatre with support from the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation and the Heritage Lottery Fund UK); 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 as an educator, choreographer, and curator has been supported by The National Endowment for the Arts, Japan Foundation, New York Department of Cultural Affairs, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York Council on the Arts, Robert Friedman Foundation, and Asian American Arts Alliance.
She is a member of the International Association for Dance Medicine. She teaches trauma-informed Butoh classes. Vangeline welcomes students with disabilities, including students with hearing impairment, and/or students who are visually impaired or wheelchair-bound students. All workshops are open level and beginners are welcome.
Please review our Coming to A Retreat webpage for more information and FAQ.
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At 8pm on Saturday evening, Vangeline will perform a new solo work, The Slowest Wave followed by a Q&A with the artist, register here for the performance only.
Here, read an interview with Tricycle magazine, and listen to the BBC in Dessa Darling’s show Deeply Human where Vangeline is featured. Vangeline’s book, BUTOH Cradling Empty Space is available online or at booksellers