By Patrick Hickey Jr.
Review Fix chats with “Queer Button” curator Vangeline about this exciting new exhibition at the Brick Theater.
About Vangeline:
| Vangeline (Curator) 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, 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. 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 as well as 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;” 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 Humanwith host Dessa (episode 2 of 12:Why We Dance) www.vangeline.com |
About Queer Butoh:
| Vangeline Theater/ New York Butoh Institute collaborates with The Brick Theater to present the seventh annual Queer Butoh, with performances from June 28-30, 2023 at 8pm at The Brick, 579 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn. Tickets are $25 and available for purchase at https://ci.ovationtix.com/122/production/1163537. The shows will feature Abby Howard and Lela Besom (Arkansas) in Doll House; Scoop Slone in Origin (New York); Kori Koolman in Har Addam (New York/Israel); Yazmin Gonzalez & Andres Mauricio Sepulvda in Posturas (New York) and Tino Z. Mayers (New York) in Afro Child Soldier King. The running time is approximately two hours with an intermission. For more information, visit https://www.bricktheater.com/event/queer-butoh-2023/2023-06-28/. |
Review Fix: What is it about Butoh that makes it the right medium for showcasing these very powerful themes such as gender, race, sexuality, power, freedom, in the pieces for Queer Butoh?
Vangeline: Historically, The first Butoh piece, Kinjiki (Forbidden Colors), was centered on a homoerotic scene between Tatsumi Hijikata and Yoshito Ohno. Since then, such themes have had a privileged place in Butoh. By itself, the art form digs deep into the body, beyond the body, into universality, and transcends gender identity and identity, period.
Review Fix: Butoh is a Japanese dance form? Give our readers an understanding of its origins?
Vangeline: This is a quote from my website so I wrote this description.
Butoh is an avant-garde art form born in Japan in the 1950’s. Butoh developed at the height of the Japanese Counter Culture Movement and was influenced by surrealism, neo dada, French mime techniques, ballet, flamenco, Neue Tanz (German Expressionist dance) as well as French and European literature. Developed by Tatsumi Hijikata and Ohno Kazuo, in collaboration with other artists such as Yoshito Ohno, Akira Kasai and others, butoh split into two forms of dance, one choreographed, the other, improvised. Under Tatsumi Hijikata’s guidance, in the late 60’s early 70’s, butoh reached a new stage, marked by the entrance of female dancers on the butoh scene. Female butoh dancers such as Yoko Ashikawa, Natsu Nakajima, Saga Kobayashi profoundly influenced the course of the art form and its development. Hijikata developed a strictly choreographed method, while Kazuo Ohno, who preferred improvisation, performed well into his 90’s all over the world and favored an expansive, spiritual approach to butoh.
Butoh was born at a tumultuous time in Japan’s history. Today, there are numerous butoh expressions, and the art form ranges from a minimalist expression, to the grotesque and theatrical. The most renown Butoh group worldwide is Sankai Juku who is based in Paris. Although butoh is commonly known for its controversial topics, the “choreographed method” devised by Tatsumi Hijikata represents a revolution in the world of dance. Butoh dancers are expected not only to learn movements, but they also work like method actors; each movement is informed by notations (scripted directions). Surrealist techniques are used to generate movements layered with emotions and sensations. Butoh represents a shift from the conscious to the subconscious, and each movement, even when it is choreographed, comes from within and must be authentic.
Review Fix: I read that somewhere that Butoh is called the dance of darkness. Please explain that to our readers.
Vangeline:Also quoted from my website.
Butoh comes from “Ankoku Butoh” and means “Dance of Utter Darkness”. The founder of Butoh, Tatsumi Hijikata, wrote: “The utter darkness exists throughout the world, doesn’t it? To think is the dark”. With this statement, Hijikata pointed out that all human beings carry an unconscious side. Although it is tempting to stereotype butoh, “Darkness” in butoh refers to what is hidden from our awareness, our unconsciousness, and does not have Judeo-Christian connotations.
Review Fix: There is an activist aspect to Butoh dance? Please give our readers some insight into that.
There can be, and there has been, especially in the 60s and 70’s– Butoh was smack in the center of the counterculture movement. Activism is a personal choice, though; an art form is not an individual. So I would say that some individuals who practice Butoh view their practice as rooted in activism. Others may not. Maybe art is fundamentally political anyhow? For me, there is one aspect of the work that always seems to be political- that is how it reflects the here and now, the people around us, and the society we live in. Butoh is like a well-polished mirror, it just reflects right back at us. Another aspect of the work entirely transcends time and space and is more universal.
Review Fix: How did Butoh dance come to the United States?
Vangeline: First, through the Tamanos (Hiroko and Koichi Tamano), who settled in the Bay area in the 70s. They were Hijikata’s disciples. NYC also played an important part by bringing prominent Butoh dancers onto the dance scene starting in the 80s (such as La MaMa ETC).
Joan Lagge (Kogut Butoh) also played a very important role in Seattle starting in the early 90s.
Review Fix: How has American art and dance made use of Butoh? Is it taught the same as it is in Japan?
Vangeline: Butoh is one of the most influential, least acknowledged art forms, in my opinion, today. Its impact can be felt in the US in the worlds of dance, theatre, and experimental theatre. To give you an example, I went to see the opera.
Akhnaten with one of Sankai Juku’s dancers, Dai Matsuoka. Sankai Juku is one of the more important Butoh troupes today because of its reach worldwide. Watching the opera and seeing the Butoh influence on the work was obvious. A friend of mine actually juggled in the show and described the creative process of the choreographer, who has been influenced by Butoh. After Butoh, the performing arts world has never been the same again. Butoh has seeped into popular culture all over the US.
Review Fix: Butoh is taught differently around the world, not based on culture, but the differences depend on which branch of the lineage each teacher is trained in. In other words, who were their teacher?
Vangeline: The art form evolves into the 21st Century, whether teachers are Japanese or not.
Review Fix: Are the theories for its use changed as it has become part of American dance? Or has it not changed and remains distinctly Japanese.
Vangeline: Butoh was never “distinctly Japanese.” It was a hybrid and the result of cross-cultural pollination, to begin with. And we don’t really use the word “theories” in Butoh but techniques as it’s an embodied practice.
But like all art forms, it is living and breathing. Practitioners attempt to pass knowledge and techniques, but inevitably, since we teach through the filter of our own experience, there is a process of evolution.
Review Fix: A part of being called the dance of darkness is that Butoh deals with grotesqueries.
Vangeline: The “grotesque” aspect of Butoh is very much a Western perception and a cultural projection onto Butoh. In the 80s, some Butoh performances, not all, shocked Western spectators.
This type of Butoh became very prized because it was sensational then.
Butoh is a lot of things, and “grotesque” is just a word that describes that perception historically in the West. It can also be tender, gentle, spiritual, minimalist, vulnerable, intimate, and/or flamboyant. The list is long. We are talking about “Aesthetics” here or “Packaging.”
I would argue that the art form is not defined by its aesthetics, but they are so striking and unique sometimes that it is often the first thing people remember. However, the unique impact of Butoh does not come from grimacing or white paint. It comes from the state the dancers are in and how that state communicates to an audience. That state, ultimately, is present, deep, and vulnerable.
Review Fix: How do the pieces chosen to be shown do that?
Vangeline: Come see the show, and you will see!
Review Fix: Finally, what is the hope of Butoh dance? What does it want its audience to experience, enjoy, and take away, particularly from the pieces to be shown?
Vangeline: I cannot speak for Butoh dance at large, but as a Butoh dancer, teacher, and curator, I hope that people are moved by the work shown, provoked by it, inspired, and that this festival continues to give a platform and a voice to a diverse group of artists who are often muted or underrepresented in the more conventional dance and theater scene. We also aim at celebrating the richness and diversity of Queer culture.
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