Vangeline Theater/New York Butoh Institute has partnered with Howl! Arts / Howl! Archive (HA/HA) and the visionary photographer Javi Alvarez to present an exclusive preview of the photographic project NUE. The opening reception will take place on Thursday, December 7, 2023, 6:30 pm-9 pm at HA/HA, 250 Bowery St., 2nd floor, NYC, with a performance by Vangeline at 7:30 pm.
NUE consists of a series of exquisite artistic nude photographs captured by Javi Alvarez of Butoh artist Vangeline in nature and in the studio. On December 7, 2023, the project will launch with an exclusive selection of large prints on display at HA/HA and remain on display through December 16, 2023. Admission is free.
Vangeline will perform an excerpt of her celebrated solo Eternity 123, which traces the symbolic journey of women’s liberation across time. With this piece, Vangeline also celebrates the impact of women on the art form butoh, exploring the link between women, butoh, and “Cabaret.”
NUE derives its name from the French word for nude and refers to the divine. With this collaboration, Alvarez and Vangeline explore the divine feminine prevalent within nature and the female form. With this photographic study, Butoh becomes a conduit for this sensual, ecstatic, and sacred energy.
“Vangeline’s work as an artist and advocate for women’s rights is inspiring,” said Alvarez. “The way she stands in fierce authenticity with equal parts of kindness and strength has given room for an intimate collaboration that shows delicate and powerful femininity.”
“Butoh has always had a privileged relationship with photography,” echoed Vangeline. “The art form was launched in Japan in the early 60s thanks to a stunning book of photographs by Eikoh Hosoe. Live performances can be so ephemeral. But Javi‘s work has captured the great intimacy and vulnerability behind Butoh. We are both excited to share these images with the world and build on our collaboration.”
A series of legacy, limited edition co-signed prints will be exclusively available during this exhibition, pre-book release. The photographs will be on display at the gallery until December 16, 2023. NUE will culminate in 2024 with a book launch and exhibition of Alvarez’s pictures of Vangeline.
About the Artists
Javier Alvarez was born in Costa Rica in 1984, and now lives and works in New York. With an academic background in economics, hebegan his artistic journey following an informal but expressive path. A collector, cinematographer, explorer, visionary, Alvarez doesn’t take photographs — he experiments, letting the gestures transform his intuitions into works. New, uncommon, and alternative elements become pretexts for expressing oneself, in balance with concept, people and light. Constantly challenging the rules, his work finds infinite possibilities of articulation according to the spaces, situations, and moods of the moment, with a modality that is never static or definitive, but always improvisational, unstable, evolving in the time. NUE is Javi’s fifth visual arts exhibit and the first one in Soho. Prior to this, his film work [with dance painter Annika Rhea] was exhibited in 2021 and 2022 during the Miami Art Basel at the Loews Hotel as part of the SCOPE Art Show’s featured artists. He has held two videography and photography exhibitions at The Box Factory Gallery in Brooklyn. For more info, visit: www.javialvarez.com
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, 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 Human with host Dessa (episode 2 of 12: Why We Dance).
About Vangeline Theater/New York Butoh Institute
Vangeline Theater/New York Butoh Institute aims to preserve the legacy and integrity of Japanese Butoh while carrying the art form well 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.
