Womanspreading: Butoh Redefined

Vangeline 
"Eternity 123" 
Triskelion Arts, Brooklyn 
October 30, 2021

 --  By Tom Phillips 

Butoh queen Vangeline describes her solo "Eternity 123" as a "symbolic journey of women's liberation across time."  I tossed the program note aside and watched the show with an open mind, with which the artist proceeded to play.   

The piece begins with nothing but a dress -- a full-length, frilly see-through chiffon -- draped over a slip, revolving in the air.  In time the dancer appears behind it as a pair of feet and two sets of fiddling fingers, and proceeds to inhabit the garment.  

This is woman as clothes hanger -- seen but not heard, seen but not seen. Blackout.  

The next scene has the dancer wearing the dress, to the second movement of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony. Facing rear, she does nothing but turn her head into profile, then back, moving imperceptibly over a span of eight minutes. The music, built on a single rhythmic motif, moves majestically through a minor march and a major fantasia, ending like a wave breaking over the rocks of some desolate shore. Vangeline's sound score adds birdsongs in the background.  By the middle of the movement I scribbled excitedly in my notebook Art, Nature, and Humanity--- and felt a half-forgotten sensation creeping up from my entrails.  Mesmerized by the beauty of that half-turned face, I was falling in love!  

This is woman as ideal, semi-paralyzed on a pedestal. Blackout, reset. 

To crowd noise and the strains of the Blue Danube Waltz, the next scene has the dancer again facing rear, but with the arms in motion, rising in a super slo-mo port de bras, then twining the fingers behind the neck, then down behind the back -- until voila! off slips the frilly vest, leaving the torso and arms in just a translucent slip.  Here's a hint of burlesque, a strip-tease --- woman as object, but a fleshly object, as real as any man.  Blackout.  

By this time I was feeling like Virginia Woolf's Orlando, morphing through centuries of changing gender roles -- ready for anything in the 21st.  

Bare-legged now and sprawled on the floor, a blob of wounded flesh, Vangeline appears helpless. Will she die?  The answer comes in a metamorphosis. She begins to move in jerks and spasms, face contorted as she works her jaws as if for the first time. Slowly and steadily, her strength and control increase as she extends her limbs, pushes herself up, then balances on her hips in a flying V-shape--- hands and feet in the air, body held in place by nothing but bands of abdominal steel. Finally, she takes a quarter-turn to face the audience, and eases her body into a symmetrical shape -- knees spread, toes touching on the floor, a perfect quadrangle below the waist, spine lifted above -- balanced in meditation, eyes open, living and breathing, meeting the gaze of the audience, equal and opposite. . 

You know "Manspreading?" This is Womanspreading.  And it's here to stay.  

Next up for "Eternity 123," a US tour.  It's E-Vangelism at its best. 

-- Copyright 2021 by Tom Phillips 
Photos by Bryan Kwon