International collaboration: New York butoh icon Vangeline joins Santiago Cumplido for the world premiere of EGREGOR
BUTOH ARTIST VANGELINE JOINS EGREGOR IN MEXICO CITY
Sept 25–Oct 19, 2025 · Capilla Gótica, Instituto Cultural Helénico (CDMX)
A world premiere bridging Mexico City’s avant-garde and New York’s experimental dance scene
Santiago Cumplido presents Vangeline in EGREGOR: The Sensory Ritual of the Future from September 25-October 19, 2025 at New City Center Capilla Gótica, Instituto Cultural Helénico, Mexico City. Tickets start at $650 MXN and can be purchased here.
“Together we created it, now he destroys us.” EGREGOR comes to life with these words. The new transdisciplinary spectacle envisioned by Mexican artist and creative director Santiago Cumplido is an immersive performance that fuses experimental dance, baroque opera, and cutting‑edge stage technology inside one of Mexico City’s most emblematic venues: the Capilla Gótica (Gothic Chapel) at the Instituto Cultural Helénico.
New York’s own butoh icon Vangeline joins Santiago for the world premiere of EGREGOR in Mexico City this fall. This international collaboration bridges Mexico City’s avant-garde with New York’s experimental dance scene. Cumplido says, “I am always in search of true stage magic. When I met Vangeline, I knew she was a stage wizard that has the ability to stop time. Ever since then we’ve both known the time to co-create would come. That time is now.”
More than theater, EGREGOR is a ritual of the future; a sensory experience that confronts audiences with a dystopian vision of Mexico: a landscape where humanity dissolves into its digital reflection, giving life to an entity born from the collective unconscious. Through butoh and neoclassical dance, acrobatics, live music, and immersive projections, the work becomes a portal that invites viewers to question their relationship with technology and artificial intelligence.
Historia (ES)
Un umbral entre lo humano y lo poshumano, EGREGOR es un espectáculo inmersivo y transdisciplinario creado por el artista y director Santiago Cumplido. En la emblemática Capilla Gótica del Instituto Cultural Helénico, la obra mezcla danza experimental, ópera barroca y tecnología escénica de vanguardia para dar vida a un ritual del futuro.
La Gran Noticia
La ícono del butoh en Nueva York, Vangeline (Vangeline Theater / New York Butoh Institute)—descrita por The New York Times como “una fuerza de la naturaleza”—fue invitada por Cumplido para unirse al elenco en este estreno mundial. Esta esperada colaboración internacional conecta la vanguardia de la CDMX con la escena experimental neoyorquina, marcando la primera temporada completa de Vangeline en la Ciudad de México.
Season Details
Run: September 25–October 19, 2025
Schedule: Thursdays–Sundays (23 performances + immersive tastings)
Venue: Capilla Gótica, Instituto Cultural Helénico, Mexico City
Tickets: From $650 MXN (Back Orquesta) to $2,500 MXN (Elite with experiential cocktail)
Official site & tickets: www.egregoroficial.com
Official Instagram: @egregormovimienton
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Director, composer, and countertenor Santiago Cumplido trained in Morelia, London, Barcelona, and The Hague, building an international career across opera, dance, film, and performance. He has directed works in Europe, Asia, and the Americas and founded Creaturas Anónimas, a creative laboratory expanding the limits of live performance. With EGREGOR, Cumplido self‑produces a full season in Mexico City for the first time, staging a vision that merges the ancestral and the futuristic.
Vangeline is a New York–based teacher, choreographer, and dancer specializing in Japanese Butoh. As the artistic director of the Vangeline Theater/New York Butoh Institute, she is widely recognized for her rigorous, research-driven approach to Butoh and for expanding the form’s relevance in the 21st century. Her work actively champions diversity and inclusion within the field, creating space for historically underrepresented voices. She carries forward the legacy of Butoh while infusing it with contemporary relevance—through activism, research, and performance.
Through her all-female dance company, Vangeline creates socially engaged, innovative choreographic works that unite Butoh with activism. She is the founder of both the New York Butoh Institute Festival, which uplifts the work of women in Butoh, and Queer Butoh, a festival centering LGBTQ+ voices within the form. She is also the visionary behind The Dream a Dream Project, an award-winning program now in its 18th year that brings Butoh to incarcerated individuals in correctional facilities across New York State.
At the heart of Vangeline’s philosophy is the belief that Butoh can be a tool for both personal and collective transformation. Her work reflects a deep commitment to integrating the many dimensions of the human experience—beauty and darkness alike—and reintegrating society’s marginalized voices.
Vangeline’s choreography has been presented internationally in Chile, Germany, Italy, France, Finland, Denmark, the UK, Mexico, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. She is the recipient of a 2022 National Endowment for the Arts Dance Award for her groundbreaking project The Slowest Wave, which explores the intersection of Butoh and neuroscience. She was also a 2022–2023 Gibney Dance in Process resident artist, a 2018 NYFA/NYSCA Fellow in Choreography for Elsewhere, and the winner of the 2015 Gibney Dance Social Action Award and the 2019 Janet Arnold Award from the Society of Antiquaries of London.
Her work has been supported by institutions including the National Endowment for the Arts, Japan Foundation, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, New York State Council on the Arts, and the Asian American Arts Alliance.
Her work has been widely acclaimed, both nationally and internationally, with critics praising its power, precision, and emotional resonance. Reviews have appeared in publications including the New York Times (“captivating”) and the Los Angeles Times (“moves with the clockwork deliberation of a practiced Japanese Butoh artist”), to name just a few.
Widely regarded as an authority in her field, Vangeline has taught at Princeton University (Princeton Atelier), Cornell, NYU, Brooklyn College, CUNY, Sarah Lawrence, and Duke University.
Her work extends to film as well, including a starring role opposite James Franco and Winona Ryder in Jay Anania’s feature film The Letter (Lionsgate, 2012). She has also been commissioned by Grammy Award–winning artists Esperanza Spalding, Skrillex, and David J. (Bauhaus).
Vangeline is the author of the critically acclaimed book Butoh: Cradling Empty Space, which delves into the connection between Butoh and neuroscience. She led the first-ever scientific study measuring the effects of Butoh on the brain (The Slowest Wave). Her work has been profiled in CNN’s Great Big Story (“Learning to Dance with Your Demons”), featured on the BBC’s Deeply Human podcast (with host Dessa), and explored in her own podcast Butoh Musing with Vangeline.
She is currently developing MAN WOMAN, a new Butoh duet in collaboration with Akihito Ichihara of the world-renowned Butoh company Sankai Juku.
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, and the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and the New York State Legislature. www.vangeline.com