Vangeline Theater's MAN WOMAN Announced as 2025 National Dance Project Finalist

Vangeline Theater proudly has announced that Man Woman has been chosen as a 2025 National Dance Project Finalist presented by New England Foundation for the Arts. Man Woman is a duet about love articulated through the language of Butoh and is one of 40 collaborative, accessible, and provocative new dance projects to be awarded as a finalist. In July, the NDP Advisors will reconvene virtually to determine the 20 new dance projects that will receive an NDP Production Grant and the 20 new dance projects that will receive an NDP Finalist Award. To learn more visit https://www.nefa.org/news/2025-national-dance-project-finalists

Man Woman is a 60-minute interdisciplinary Butoh duet about the search for intimacy and the complexities of human connection. Choreographed and performed by acclaimed Butoh artists Akihito Ichihara (Japan) and Vangeline (U.S.), the work draws inspiration from the seminal 1960 photo book Man and Woman by Japanese photographer Eikoh Hosoe, which featured Tatsumi Hijikata-the founder of Butoh-and his wife, Motofuji.

Man Woman uses these black-and-white photographs-saturated with ink and emotion-as both structure and departure point. Rather than reproducing the past, the dancers pass through a sequence of iconic poses from the book without physical contact, generating dynamic tension through negative space. Through a sequence of intimate, ceremonial vignettes, the dancers orbit one another-shedding layers and enacting rituals. The choreography becomes a meditation on longing, desire, and connection-culminating in a single, final touch. The piece invites audiences into a visually rich, emotionally resonant space-one that transcends language and cultural boundaries.

In homage to the legacy of Butoh and its disruptive origins, this work resists conventional binaries-male/female, East/West. Ichihara brings the precision and gravitas of Sankai Juku's "classical" Butoh lineage, while Vangeline, informed by jazz, burlesque, and two decades of Butoh pedagogy and performance, brings contemporary nuance. Their collaboration is a rare cross-cultural encounter between two master practitioners at the height of their artistic maturity.

Central to the aesthetic of Man Woman are the fantastical costumes by Machine Dazzle, a visionary queer artist whose work pushes the boundaries between performance, sculpture, and fashion. Machine's concept-"Butoh Maximalism"-challenges minimalist assumptions by enveloping the dancers in lush, campy, baroque textures. Imagine creatures from an otherworldly Versailles stumbling through a forest-half human, half mythical. As the piece progresses, layers of costume are gradually removed, revealing the iconic Butoh white underneath. This symbolic unveiling strips away artifice to reveal essence, mirroring the performers' emotional exposure.

The recorded score by Ray Barragan-Sweeten bridges centuries and sensibilities. Built from aleatoric compositions and re-sampled classical works (such as a reversed fragment of Bach), and drawing from the legacies of Pauline Oliveros and Elaine Summers, the music guides the dancers' internal states, emphasizing timbre over melody and creating a soundscape that moves between stillness and intensity.

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. The Vangeline Theater/New York Butoh Institute is dedicated to advancing Butoh in the 21st century, with a particular emphasis on education, social justice, research, and archiving.

The Vangeline Theater/New York Butoh Institute reaches out to the New York and international community by offering public Butoh classes, workshops, and performances through collaborations with international and national Butoh artists. Our socially conscious performances tie together butoh and activism; our work addresses issues of gender inequality and social justice. Our yearly New York Butoh Institute Festival elevates the visibility of women in butoh, and our festival Queer Butoh gives a voice to LGBTQIA+ butoh artists.

Ray Barragan-Sweeten is a visual artist & sound maker based in New York and Rhode Island. He has has exhibited, performed, and screened works at Centre Pompidou, Parish Museum, City Center NY, Microscope Gallery, Next Festival at BAM, and Cica Museum, and has taught at Guggenheim Museum.

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. This program was supported in parts by the Japan Foundation New York.