After analyzing data collected from Vangeline Theater dancers at Houston University in January 2023, performing the Slowest Wave, a team of neuroscientists was able to determine that Butoh to be performed in the Slowest Brain wave activity, or infra slow (slowest) brain wave.
“My team has analyzed the first 15 min of the performance and found the infra slow (slowest) brain rhythms during the performance for Vangeline’s EEG data,” said scientist Jose ‘Pepe’ Contreras-Vidal. “This is the first time infra slow rhythms have been found during an active task (usually it is under rest conditions). We have also localized the brain areas involved in the generation of the rythms, and characterized them. We are now processing the other dancers. After this, we will have content for a follow quantitative paper.”
This is a monumental finding both for the field of Butoh, and for science. Neural oscillations, or brainwaves, are rhythmic or repetitive patterns of neural activity in the central nervous system. measuring just a few millionths of a volt. There are five widely recognized brain waves, and the main frequencies of human EEG waves; Gamma (concentration); Beta (active, logical thinking); Alpha (very relaxed); Theta (deeply relaxed, inward focus); and Delta (or Infra slow rythms was up to now only thought to occur during sleep, now documented to be found in Butoh during an active task.
“At Vangeline Theater , we are extremely proud to be at the forefront of this pioneering study, and to have co-produced and spearheaded this research,” said Artistic Director Vangeline.
“This project took ten long years and many setbacks before it saw the light of day; today, we are enjoying this news and are looking forward to more findings to come.
Our performance The Slowest Wave rightly deserved its title; this first step will lead to more discoveries, shedding light on this life-changing art form, and informing more scientific studies on dance, mobility, and consciousness. I am very grateful to our team of scientists Sadye Paez and Constantina Theofanopoulou, neuro engineer Jose ‘Pepe’ Contreras-Vidal, and his team at Houston University; and to the Vangeline Theater dancers Azumi Oe, Margherita Tisato, Kelsey Strauch and Sindy Butz, who braved really challenging conditions to take part in this incredible adventure.”
A scientific paper will be published soon summarizing these findings.
More information at https://www.vangeline.com/research
Vangeline will perform the Slowest Wave on November 23rd at Bowes Museum in the UK, presented by Surface Area Dance Theatre. Tickets for the event can be purchased here https://theslowestwave.eventbrite.co.uk
Biographies
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 firmly believes that Butoh can be an instrument of personal and collective transformation in the 21st century. This transformation comes from holding a mirror to each other and integrating our many facets–the beautiful and the ugly; and from reintegrating the forgotten of our society into our midst.
Her choreographed work has been performed in Chile, Hong Kong, Germany, Italy, Denmark, France, Finland, Mexico, the UK, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. 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 (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.
Vangeline’s performances have 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.
Widely regarded as an expert in her field, Vangeline has taught at Cornell University, New York University, Brooklyn College, CUNY, Sarah Lawrence, Duke University, and Princeton University (Princeton Atelier). 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).
In recent years, she has been commissioned by triple 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”). Her work is the subject of CNN’s “Great Big Story” "Learning to Dance with your Demons.” She is also featured on BBC’s podcast Deeply Human with host Dessa (episode 2 of 12: Why We Dance).
She is currently developing the duet MAN WOMAN with her Butoh dance partner Akihito Ichihara from the renowned butoh company Sankai Juku. www.vangeline.com
Jose ‘Pepe’ Contreras-Vidal, PhD (Fellow IEEE, Fellow AIMBE) is Cullen Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Director of the NSF Research Center for Building Reliable Advances and Innovations in Neurotechnology (IUCRC BRAIN) at the University of Houston. He pioneered noninvasive brain-machine interfaces to exoskeletons and prosthetics to restore motor function in individuals with disabilities. His work at the nexus of art and science is opening new windows to study the neural basis of human creativity in children and adults while informing neuroaesthetics, neural interfaces, and the power of the arts (dance, music, visual art) as a modulator of brain activity. Dr. Contreras-Vidal has collaborated with many performing and visual artists to investigate the neural basis of creativity; most recently, he collaborated with Tony Brandt, a Professor of Composition and Theory at Rice University’s Shepherd School of Music and Artistic Director of the new music ensemble Musiqa, and Noble Motion Dance Company on “LiveWire,” a new ballet in which each section was inspired by a different feature of brain behavior. Two of the dancers were outfitted with EEG caps that monitored their brains during the rehearsal and performance. To celebrate the 200th anniversary of the publication of Beethoven’s Diabelli Variations, a new chamber work titled Diabelli 200, one of four winners of the 2022 Performing Arts Houston competition, will be premiered in Houston on February 25, 2023. Diabelli 200, composed by Tony Brand, reveals the inner workings of human imagination and will feature flute, clarinet, piano, percussion, violin, and cello (Musiqa) while showcasing cutting-edge mobile brain-body neurotechnology to visualize the brain in action. Dr. Contreras-Vidal edited the Springer book Mobile Brain-Body Imaging and the Neuroscience of Art, Innovation, and Creativity. He was the co-chair of the 2022 International Workshop on the Social and Neural Bases of Creative Movement held at the Wolf Trap National Center for the Performing Arts. His career development in biomedical engineering was highlighted by the journal Science. Dr. Contreras-Vidal has received many awards and honors, including being named a Senior Research Scholar by the City of Paris, France, a Fellow of the Human Frontiers Science Program, and named a member of the National Advisory Board for Medical Rehabilitation Research (NABMRR) at the National Institute of Health. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, DARPA, Industry and Philanthropy. His research has appeared in The Economist, Nature, Science, Der Spiegel, and Wall Street Journal, among others.
Constantina Theofanopoulou is an Associate Research Professor at Hunter College, City University of New York, a Visiting Associate Professor at Rockefeller University. She is interested in understanding the neurobiology of social communication, in complex human behaviors, such as speech and dance. In her trajectory so far, she has led and collaborated in studies ranging from behavioral neuroscience to comparative genomics. Her studies have been published in impactful scientific journals (e.g., Nature, Proceedings of Royal Society B) and her findings have attracted media’s interest worldwide (e.g., Science), while she has been invited to give ~60 lectures, including at Harvard Medical School and Columbia University. Dr. Theofanopoulou has received more than 20 awards for her scientific studies, including the distinction in the Forbes 2021 list of the 30 most successful scientists under the age of 30. Dr. Theofanopoulou is also actively involved in the dissemination of science to the general public and in inspirational speech (e.g., speech at the University of Yale, TED talk), as well as in the support of underrepresented minorities in science. She has served as STEM mentor in the New York Academy of Sciences, teaching Life Sciences to elementary and middle school students in underserved communities throughout NYC, and in 2021, she was voted networking coordinator at the Council of the Rockefeller Inclusive Science Initiative. Lastly, Constantina is a flamenco dancer, having performed in many solo and group shows worldwide; in 2012, she was awarded with the first prize of the Spanish Dance Society.
Sadye Paez is a Fellow at the New York University’s Center for Ballet and the Arts and a Senior Research Associate in the Neurogenetics of Language Laboratory (Erich D. Jarvis) at The Rockefeller University, studying the neurobiology and genetic basis of why humans dance. She is also currently the science communications director for the Vertebrate Genomes Project (VGP), which aims to generate near error-free reference genome assemblies of all ~70,000 living vertebrate species. Sadye’s specific research efforts with these genomic projects focus on the sixth mass extinction and conservation. Sadye’s early training as a physiotherapist and biomechanist laid the underpinnings for her current work in understanding the evolution of dance. She earned her undergraduate and master degrees at the University of Central Florida in Micro and Molecular Biology and Physiotherapy, respectively, and her PhD in Biomechanics/Human Movement Studies from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC-Chapel Hill). She was previously an Assistant Professor in Physiotherapy in the Schools of Medicine at Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill. Decolonizing science by addressing the principles, processes, and practices that shape STEM culture is Sadye’s passion. She is currently an inaugural chair of the justice, equity, diversity and inclusion committee for the EBP. She is involved with Women in Science at Rockefeller (WISeR); she has also participated in Science Saturday, a STEM festival for K-8 students and their families. Sadye is also a competitive Latin dancer.
VANGELINE THEATER/ NEW YORK BUTOH INSTITUTE aims to preserve the legacy and integrity of Japanese Butoh while carrying the art form 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. www.vangeline.com