Vangeline Theater's Page

Vangeline is a teacher, dancer, and choreographer specializing in the Japanese postwar avantgarde movement form Butoh. She is the Artistic Director of the Vangeline Theater (NYC), a dance company firmly rooted in the tradition of Japanese Butoh while carrying it into the 21st century. Vangeline's choreographic work spans performance on stage and in film and has been performed in hundreds of venues in major cities throughout the US for the past 10 years. She has received numerous positive reviews in publications such as the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and LA Weekly. Time OUT Chicago recently named Vangeline's, "one of the best Dance Visits of 2011." Her critically acclaimed choreographed works have been presented in New York at Joyce SoHo, White Wave, Here Arts Center, the New Museum, Dance Theater Workshop, PS122 Performance Space, and Abrons Arts Center to name a few. She was also the recipient of a six-month artist residency at PS 122 Performance Space ("New, New Stuff"). Vangeline recently performed the critically acclaimed role of Elizabeth Short in the Los Angeles production of 'The Chanteuse and the Devil's Muse.' directed by David J (Bauhaus). Her performance was unanimously praised by the Los Angeles press. THEATER IN LA selected her performance as one of the best 2011 performances in Los Angeles. Upcoming projects include a starring role alongside actors James Franco and Winona Ryder in the feature film by director Jay Anania, 'The Letter (2012-Lionsgate).' Vangeline was also featured in an eight-page spread in Vanity Fair Italia in August 2012, and she looks forward to her first performance at the Avignon Festival in 2013. She has taught Butoh workshops worldwide and has lectured about the history of Butoh at Cornell University, New York University, Brooklyn College, Denton University and many other cultural institutions in the United States. She also has taught an awardwinning program to incarcerated women at the Bayview Correctional Facility in New York City since 2007. Among Vangeline's teachers are the renowned Butoh masters Diego Pinon from the Butoh Ritual Mexicano theater, Yoshito Ohno, Akira Kasai, Yumiko Yoshioka, Ko Murobushi, Tetsuro Fukuhara, and Katsura Kan. Claudia la Rocco from the New York Times wrote that Vangeline is "captivating in her devotion to simple movements"; Hampton Fancher, writer of cult movie "Blade Runner",wrote that Vangeline's work is "poetry in motion"; and the Los Angeles Times wrote that" Vangeline moves with the clockwork deliberation of a practiced Japanese butoh artist".