Vangeline Theater/ New York Butoh Institute
and The Brick Theater
present
Queer Butoh 2025
June 25-28, 2025
“…queer themes and imagery have been recurring, if not instrumental, in Butoh. The concepts of otherness and ambiguity, particularly with respect to gender identity and sexuality, permeate its narratives. Drag, androgyny and fluidity are staple elements.” – Cassidy George, The New York Times
Vangeline Theater/ New York Butoh Institute, in collaboration with The Brick, presents the ninth annual Queer Butoh from Wednesday, June 25 - Saturday, June 28, 2025 at 8pm at The Brick, 579 Metropolitan Avenue, Brooklyn. Tickets start at $25.
The shows will feature Ama (Cambodia/France), Alice Baldock (UK), Quentin Chaveriat (Belgium), and Juan Manuel (Mexico) June 25-28; Surface Area Dance Theater (UK) on June 25 +26 only; and River Luna and New York Butoh institute on June 27 + 28 only.
Queer Butoh Festival 2025
Embodied Visions: Painting, Dance, and Radical Transformation
This year’s Queer Butoh Festival invites audiences into a space where the painted image meets the moving body, and where adversity is not only acknowledged but danced through and transcended.
Spanning intimate solos, collaborative rituals, and lush visual worlds, the 2025 edition draws inspiration from the brushstrokes of artists like Nerys Johnson, Leonora Carrington, and Shahryar Shahamat, whose works ignite new choreographic forms. In Down Amongst the Plants, painterly textures are transposed into motion; Leonora channels surrealist imagery into a queer, mythic dance of resistance; while Human on Human merges the visceral expressiveness of Butoh with the immediacy of live painting, creating a raw, evolving canvas of movement and color.
But beyond aesthetics, this year’s festival underscores Butoh’s radical potential as a tool for survival and reinvention. Whether confronting personal illness, political oppression, or the fragmented self, these performances reclaim the body as a site of healing and defiance. Works like They Who Invite and Dove of Dawn honor the cycles of destruction and rebirth central to Butoh’s origins—offering audiences visceral, transformative encounters.
Ama in Dove of Dawn—photo by Zarina-Rondón
Down Among the Plants- photo by Nick Singleton
Down Amongst the Plants is inspired by the life and work of Welsh artist Nerys Johnson (1942-2001). Johnson's exploration of movement and transformation began with her studies of the similarities between human and plant forms. In the last two years of her life, she developed a specific compositional style, creating a series of small, brightly coloured watercolours. Vangeline, from the New York Butoh Institute, was invited by Surface Area Dance theatre and North East Museums in the UK to visit the Nerys Johnson archive. In response to the archive, Vangeline choreographed a dance-for-camera piece, which Vangeline has since adapted into a live performance by Surface Area Dance Theatre.
Leonora by Quentin Chaveriat is a performance inspired by butoh dance and based on the story "Down Under" by surrealist painter and writer Leonora Carrington, that describes in detail her psychiatric internment in a Spanish institution following the arrest of her lover Max Ernst as an opponent of the Nazi regime. As a queer metamorphosis, Quentin is transformed during the performance into a fantastical Leonora and plunges into his hallucinations to inhabit a madness that is not only a delirium, but also the refusal of a specific political context (the rise of fascism) and a resilience in relation to an alienating psychiatric system.
Dove Of Dawn by Ama: A delicate journey of a shadow collapsing through its spine, falling into the dark night of the soul, into death, only to be reborn with a breath. Slowly embracing its wounds, it rises like a sensual lotus, finding its wings. This Butoh piece explores resilience, individuation, and freedom, where shadow and light intertwine, inviting the full embrace of one’s being through the transformative power of movement.
Fruit of My Woman by Alice Baldock: In response to the suffocating pressures of 'straight time' (to get married, to have children, etc), a woman blurs the boundary between human, non-human, and celestial. Inspired by the short-story by Han Kang of the same name.
CHON by Juan Manuel is a piece inspired by the main elements that make up organic life on Earth. It shows, stage by stage, the materialization of life and the changes in matter that are part of any living being on this planet.
They Who Invite by River Luna: The 13th century Zen master Dōgen Zenji wrote, “In birth there is nothing but birth, and in death there is nothing but death. Accordingly, when birth comes, face and actualize birth, and when death comes, face and actualize death. Do not avoid them or desire them.” He also wrote, “Know that there are innumerable beings in yourself, where there is birth and there is death.” They Who Invite are the Japanese deities Izanami and Izanagi; among their stories, is a tale of a descent into the underworld. This piece is dedicated to River’s son, Kirby.
Human on Human--New York Butoh Institute. Choreographed by Vangeline and inspired by the eponymous work by Iranian Painter Shahryar Shahamat. Featuring Ever Bussey, Lila Klatz, Catherine Winger, Robyn Wong, Eric Lichtenstein, and Shahryar Shahamat, Human on Human transforms the stage into a living artwork, fusing Butoh with the act of painting in real time.
About the Artists
Surface Area Dance Theatre in a projection of Nerys Johson painting - Photo by Nick Singleton
Surface Area Dance Theatre (SADT) is a dynamic award-winning inclusive arts company based in the North East of England. We champion accessibility in the arts and actively engage with our local and broader communities. As a proud Disability Confident Employer, we are committed to fostering an environment that celebrates diversity and ensures the full inclusion of individuals with disabilities. Through our intersectional approach, we are making a significant impact on the cultural landscape both in the UK and internationally. At SADT, we prioritise the vibrant integration of sign language, D/deaf culture, and combined arts into our work. We understand that these elements not only enrich artistic expression but also promote understanding among diverse audiences. Our strategic partnerships with esteemed organizations like the British Council, the Barbican, and the New York Butoh Institute expand our reach and amplify our voice on a global platform. Our diverse and highly skilled team consists of artists and professionals who are unwavering in their commitment to inclusivity. We actively empower D/deaf and marginalised artists and communities by providing them with essential resources, mentorship, and meaningful opportunities to thrive in the arts.
Surface Area team of dancers:
Chris Fonseca. Born and raised in the heart of southeast London, Chris Fonseca is a multidisciplinary artist excelling as a dance artist, choreographer, actor, and co-artistic director for Fuse Theatre CIC. Chris has amassed over 10 years of experience in the creative industry. Chris's journey in the arts began at a young age, drawing inspiration from his teenage years and the vibrant cultural landscape of music and dance. Over the years, he has honed his craft, developing a distinctive style that blends various artistic disciplines. His work not only entertains but also pushes boundaries, challenging perceptions and encouraging dialogue within the art and dance community. His impressive repertoire includes notable appearances with major brands and platforms such as Smirnoff, Samsung, MTV, BBC: The Greatest Dancer, Stormzy x Rockstar Energy, MNEK ft Sleepwalkrs, Xbox and more.
Annie Dearnley (they/she) is a multidisciplinary artist who creates binary-melting experiences with autobiographical beginnings, weaving together dance, physical theatre, music, and poetry. Annie’s 10- year career in the arts has been shaped by constant collaborations, making and sharing work internationally. Annie’s love for dance is tied to her processual experiencing of gender, as she moves to discover new ways of being a body with others. Annie’s recent projects include: ‘letting’, a dance solo in which they become a baby snake, showing fangs to transphobic oppressions; and ‘Give or Take', a full-length live-art performance with Emilia Nurmukhamet that offers a queer and decolonial critique of transactions in relationships. Annie is also a Registered Dance Movement Psychotherapist (ADMP UK). Working within Adult Mental Health services, she uses creative expression to support the integration of aspects of self that are difficult to put into words, living a queer ethic of care that celebrates difference and challenges norms. Annie uplifts underrepresented queer artists through their work producing, and performing with Bold Mellon Collective, regularly organising and hosting live music and live-art events across London, championing queer community care and an activistic celebration of one another.
Ashling McCann is a movement and sound artist based in Newcastle, England. She loves using creativity to create connections and play between people and she performs with Surface Area Dance Theatre, Fertile Ground, Worldbeaters Music, Meta4 Dance Company and Puppets with Guts. Her experimental sound project Sonic Shapes project has been developed through a Creative Summer Residency, Dance City and a Creative UK Residency at The Old School Gallery, Alnmouth. This has led to creating live, site-specific soundscapes using whole body movement across the UK.
Jesse Salaman is a non-binary dance artist based in Newcastle Upon Tyne. They work with their body, noise and materials to share their queering with the world, creating fantasy landscapes that explore queer-time, disruption and alternative storytellings.
Quentin Chaveriat is an art historian and multidisciplinary artist based in Brussels (Belgium) and graduated in acting from the Conservatory of Mons. He completed his training by going to Japan to study Butoh with Master Seiji Tanaka. Since then, he has produced performances with the Sombre Compagnie, including Memento: la pluie, presented in the Netherlands, France, and Japan, as well as La tentation de Saint-Antoine, a piece created in collaboration with the Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium inspired by a Salvador Dali painting. As an artist, he enjoys exploring the relationship between fine arts and dance, and also performs hybrid drag/butoh acts in cabarets, such as Memento. In 2020, during the pandemic, his slow-walking performance, half-naked in the streets of Brussels, with the words « No culture, no future » painted in blood on his chest brought him notoriety. Since then, he has been politically engaged and defines himself as a queer artist. He works under the theatrical direction of Fabrice Murgia or Clément Thirion and dances for famous Belgian companies such as Mossoux-Bonté and t.r.a.n.s.i.t.s.c.a.p.e. He is currently working on a dance-theater performance called Tombe la neige sur Saïgon (Snow falling on Saigon), that questions his relationship with Vietnam. Together with some friends, he created the RAVIE collective. In 2023, they took over the direction of the Théâtre de la Vie, an important theater dedicated to emerging artists. It’s the first collective experience of directing an important cultural center in Belgium.
Ama in Dove of Dawn—photo by Zarina-Rondón
Ama is a French-Cambodian dancer, poet, dance art therapist, and movement facilitator, devoted to exploring the transformative and healing power of movement. For her, dance is a ritual of life, an act of psychomagic, a language through which the body unveils its deepest truths. Rooted in the wisdom of Butoh, Jungian psychology, and Taoist philosophy, Ama navigates the delicate interplay between shadow and light, weaving movement as a path to self-discovery and liberation. Her artistic practice unfolds at the crossroads of the visible and invisible, the conscious and unconscious, the personal and the intercultural. She sees the body as an uncharted landscape, one where authenticity and empowerment emerge through movement. With a deep curiosity about the body's expressive and restorative potential, she guides individuals toward wholeness, inviting them to embrace metamorphosis and reclaim their narratives. Through the creation of sacred spaces, she allows the body to become both a vessel for exploration and a poetic sanctuary, where emotions, memories, and the unconscious rise to the surface, finding shape and voice. Her experience spans psychiatric institutions, work with refugees, and support for disabled individuals. She is certified in Dance Art Therapy (EMVC®) and Neurodance, Trauma & Resilience (CENA Center for Studies in Applied Neurosciences & MOV Institute). Additionally, she is a certified Ecstatic & Conscious Dance facilitator (Heart of the Dance) and practitioner of aquatic bodywork (Aguahara and Janzu).
Alice Baldock—photo by Adriana Alizondo
Alice Baldock is a sometimes-historian, sometimes-dancer based in Oxford, UK. Her dance and academic work are deeply interconnected, and focus around a study of women butoh dancers. She researches the body-of-knowledge that Japanese women dancers co-produced in the early post-war period, and how the dance that produced, butoh, circulated transnationally at the end of the 20th Century. In doing so, she uncovers how and why these ideas about the body - that involved a complete eradication of hierarchies of gender, ability, and class, became so popular in Japan and then across the world. Her work takes a queer feminist approach to such histories. Alice trained in ballet and contemporary dance from the age of three, and in 2021 started to practice butoh in Tokyo with that late Nakajima Natsu. Since then, her practice has shifted to incorporate butoh. In Japan, she appeared in Nakajima Natsu’s Yume no yume, oku no oku, nokori no hi (April 2022), and performed a solo piece, ‘Mizu/ Water’ in butoh company Mutekisha’s Kokkyounaki Karada (July 2022). She is part of the performance art collective BEIMA in Oxford, who perform durational and site-specific work, and a member of the London Butoh Dance Company, whose most recent performance was ‘Of Mirrors and Shadows’, a queer interpretation of Plato’s ‘Myth of Aristophanes’.
Juan Manuel is a nature and performing arts enthusiast. He has participated in over 20 stage productions in Mexico. His interests lie in laboratory processes and interdisciplinary work that culminate in theater, music, and dance projects. His latest participation was in the 2024 National Theater Showcase held in La Paz, Baja California. He is part of the Corporal Laboratory team, which organizes and executes workshops and events related to Butoh dance, including the "First Butoh Dance Encounter in León, Guanajuato.
River Luna—photo by Shahryar Shahamat
River luna, a genderqueer non-binary transfemme, has been a student of Chinese martial arts, Zen Buddhism, and butoh for over a decade, diving deep to surface inner worlds. They are also a photographer, horror writer, woodswalker, kayaker, mermaid, and tarot reader. For the foreseeable future, they are a wandering hermit, “drifting like clouds, flowing like water.”
Human on Human by Shahryar Shahamat
New York Butoh Institute Team
Shahryar Shahamat is a multidisciplinary artist and painter, born and raised in Tehran, Iran, and based in New York City since 2010. His ongoing visual project, Human on Human, explores human expression through abstract figurative forms inspired by life and personal history. Rooted in repetition, intuition, and layered emotion, Shahryar’s work captures the complexity of the human condition. His distinct style—marked by raw gesture, textured surfaces, and imaginative forms—continues to evolve through experimentation and deep reflection.
Ever Bussey is a social researcher and creative media maker. The nature of his practice is constantly in flux but his current focus is on how to be a person. Ever also teaches social research methods to artists and designers at Parsons School of Design and New Jersey Institute of Technology.
Eric Lichtenstein is an interdisciplinary artist and educator born, raised, and based in NYC. His work is informed by a deep curiosity of the human psyche and an investigation of the symbols, archetypes, and expressions that arise from the individual and collective unconscious. Lichtenstein runs Lightstone Laboratories, an organization that facilitates experimental art-making and creative exploration through workshops and events in NYC, CDMX and Ithaca, NY. He is currently practicing the dance form Butoh with the New York Butoh Institute.
Lila Klatz is a lifelong New Yorker dedicated to researching the intersections of attachment and embodiment-- basically, how we relate. Lila has been practicing butoh for the past five years, with a background in theatremaking, choral singing, dance, and somatic practices. They have an MFA in Performance and Performance Studies from Pratt Institute, currently teach with the Relationship Abuse Prevention Program, and are a mentee of the Institute for Social Ecology.
Catherine Winger is an artist and dancer based in Brooklyn, NY. They are an aspiring dance and movement educator with an interest in improvisation, dreamwork, and collective experience. Their work is particularly informed by Contact Improvisation, Butoh, Daoist philosophy, and contemplative practices such as yoga and meditation. They are incredibly grateful for their teachers.
Born and raised in sunny Singapore, Robyn Wong (she/her) first encountered butoh over a decade ago. She is a tender creature, and believes that being, becoming, and belonging are all rad and radical. She also makes theatre, film, and prints; with love. She looks forward to witnessing you witness her.
Vangeline (curator/producer) 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. Her choreographed works have been performed in Chile, Hong Kong, Germany, Italy, Denmark, France, the UK, Italy, Singapore, Hong Kong, Mexico, 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 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. Widely regarded as an expert in her field, Vangeline has taught at Cornell University, New York University, Brooklyn College, CUNY, Sarah Lawrence, 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 featured on BBC’s podcast Deeply Human with host Dessa (episode 2 of 12: Why We Dance) and is the host of the podcast Butoh Musing With Vangeline.
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
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
This program was made possible by the New York Department of Cultural Affairs and the City Council, Surface Area Dance Theatre, and Arts Council England.
ALT TEXT:
Promotional poster for the Queer Butoh Festival 2025 featuring a collage of expressive, emotive performers in dynamic poses. The background includes black-and-white sketch-style faces, with colorful overlays highlighting each dancer. The dancers exhibit a range of intense, theatrical expressions and movements, emphasizing the raw, visceral nature of Butoh. Bold text at the top reads “QUEER BUTOH FESTIVAL 2025.”
Slideshow of paintings inspired works in the festival
Nerys Johnson, Two Peony Buds with Chrome Yellow Leaf on Triple Ground, 26 June 1999. This near-square gouache painting features a rounded pink peony bud encircled by four leaves in shades of blue and green. To the right is a smaller, closed bud in deep burgundy and the tip of a small yellow leaf. The background is diagonally divided into three uneven sections: dark blue on the outer edges, with a dappled lilac centre. From the Nerys Johnson collection at Laing Art Gallery, gifted by the artist's estate.
Nerys Johnson, Bird of Paradise III with Purple-Turquoise Line Leaf, 19 January 2001. A landscape-format gouache painting of a vivid bird of a close-up of a bird of paradise flower in orange, blue, and purple, with a green stem. Beside the bird of paradise plant is part of a long leaf, whose colouring deepens from blue to purple. From the Nerys Johnson collection at the Laing Art Gallery, gifted by the artist's estate.
Green Tea. Leonora Carrington:
A surreal painting by Leonora Carrington depicts a dreamlike landscape with fantastical elements. In the foreground, a woman wrapped in a black-and-white cloth stands barefoot, wearing an elaborate headdress of long hair and a spiked crown. Beside her is a pink cauldron-like vessel containing six anthropomorphic roots with faces, and two spears are stuck in its side. To the right, a red and a white horse are tied to a tree, the red one rearing back with an open mouth. The background features a geometrically patterned, lush green landscape with sculpted hedges, abstract trees, and a path leading to distant hills, under a partly cloudy sky.A stylized black ink painting by Shahryar Shahamat depicting a dense crowd of abstract human figures with simple, expressive faces. The figures are arranged in a cascading, wave-like formation on a white background, their elongated bodies blending into one another. Sparse blue accents appear between some outlines, adding subtle contrast. The minimalist composition evokes themes of collectivity, identity, and anonymity.
Butoh dancer Ama mid-performance in "Dove of Dawn," captured in a moment of raw expression. Her mouth is open in a scream or cry, hair flung wildly across her face, arms flailing in an intense emotional gesture. She wears a flowing black garment, and the background is a dimly lit stage with black curtains.
A performance artist, Quentin Chaveriat, stands in partial body paint and a skin-toned dance belt, posing in front of Salvador Dalí’s surrealist painting "The Temptation of Saint Anthony" at the Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. The figure’s elongated shadow stretches across the dark gallery wall, visually interacting with the painting’s spindly-legged elephants and ethereal architecture.
Butoh dancer Ama performs in "Dove of Dawn" under a warm spotlight on a wooden stage, surrounded by darkness. She stands barefoot, wearing loose black pants with white polka dots and a sheer black top. Her posture is expressive and graceful, with one arm extended upward and the other bent across her body, eyes gently closed in introspective motion.
Butoh dancer Alice Baldock sits cross-legged on the floor, her back to the camera, during a performance of "Fruit of My Woman." In this black-and-white image, a luminous, vein-like projection snakes across her bare back, framed by a halter-style black dress. The scene is intimate and still, with a brick wall in soft focus behind her and blurred light orbs in the foreground.
Close-up portrait of Butoh dancer Juan Manuel with striking stage makeup. His face is adorned with golden and bronze reptilian-like textures, hexagonal patterns, and metallic leaf accents. His intense blue eyes gaze forward, framed by tousled brown curls and softly illuminated skin, set against a dark, blurred background.
Butoh dancer River Luna performs in "They Who Invite," crawling on hands and knees across a wooden floor against a brick wall. They wear a pale, draped garment and a haunting black-and-white bird mask that obscures their face. Their tattooed arms and body are fully visible, evoking raw intensity and transformation under dramatic lighting.
A stylized black ink painting by Shahryar Shahamat depicting a dense crowd of abstract human figures with simple, expressive faces. The figures are arranged in a cascading, wave-like formation on a white background, their elongated bodies blending into one another. Sparse blue accents appear between some outlines, adding subtle contrast. The minimalist composition evokes themes of collectivity, identity, and anonymity.