Visionaire presented a performance directed by myself featuring renowned Butoh dancer Vangeline within Daniel Arsham’s Lunar Garden at the Gallery at Cadillac House in New York City. Butoh, a style of dance also known as ankoku butoh (“the dance of utter darkness”), originated in Japan when founders Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno searched for a visual and physical medium they’d never experienced before.
The dance-style is slow and often performed by white painted dancers in a dimly lit and empty stage. Vangeline has mastered the technique. She moved across the raked, moonlit garden in an haute couture gown while viewers experienced the zen that both Arsham’s installation and Vangeline’s haunting movements imbued. The event was free and open to the public.