Vangeline Theater/New York Butoh Institute announces Vangeline in Dance Parade New York

Vangeline Theater/New York Butoh Institute are excited to announce that The New York Butoh Institute will be in Dance Parade New York on May 17, 2025. Over 10,000 dancers will take to the streets in a dazzling display of artistic expression and cultural celebration at the 19th Annual Dance Parade and Festival. The festivities will commence with a ribbon-cutting ceremony at 11:30 AM on West 17th Street and Avenue of the Americas, featuring this year’s esteemed Grand Marshals—Danny Tenaglia, Mercedes Ellington, Funmilayo Chesney, and David Parsons—who are being honored for their outstanding accomplishments in the field of dance. Performances by renowned dance troupes, including The New York Butoh Institute, will set the stage for the vibrant procession. Starting at 12:00 PM, all dance groups will move down the Avenue of the Americas, merging traditional and contemporary styles in an extraordinary fusion of movement and music. For more information, please visit www.danceparade.org.

This year’s Butoh performance will be choreographed by Yazmin Gonzalez for The New York Butoh Institute. For more information, visit _{https://www.danceparade.org/}.

Yazmin Gonzalez began her dance education at 18, studying Egyptian Classical Belly Dance under the guidance of Maria Jammal. Upon moving to N.Y., she encountered East Coast Tribal Belly dance and became enamored with the fusion path under the tutelage of Sera Solstice and Zuleika Milan. Seeking to provoke emotional exploration through movement, she came to the New York Butoh Institute, and felt immediately engaged by the profound power of focus and deliberation that Butoh offers. She currently studies under the primary guidance of Vangeline and has been privileged to train with several Butoh masters, such as Atsushi Takenouchi, Tetsoro Fukuhara, Yumiko Yoshioka, and Joan Laage. Throughout a decade of inner diving, she has sought to transfer the arising emotions in her movement through a melding of Middle-Eastern, Latin-Fusion, and Butoh dance. Her first solo ‘Desire’ was showcased in 2019 for the N.Y. Butoh Institute festival. Yazmin has also showcased ‘Venus Invites’ for the Ritual Cabaret Festival in 2023 as well as a duet with Andres Sepulveda entitled 'Posturas' -- featured at the 2023 Queer Butoh Festival. Her latest and most cherished presentation 'Desire' made its second debut at the 2nd Excavate:Works in Progress series.

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.

Our award-winning, 18-year running program, The Dream a Dream Project, brings Butoh dance to incarcerated men and women at correctional facilities across New York State. "The Dream a Dream Project" contributes to the rehabilitation of New York's incarcerated population. Overall, our programs promote equity, diversity, and inclusion in the field of butoh.

Vangeline firmly believes that Butoh can be an instrument of personal and collective transformation in the 21st century. This transformation comes from holding a mirror to each other and integrating our many facets–the beautiful and the ugly; and from reintegrating the forgotten of our society into our midst.

Vangeline’s choreographed works have been performed in Chile, Hong Kong, Germany, Denmark, France, Italy, Singapore, the UK, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. She is a 2022/2023 Gibney Dance Dance in Process residency and the 2022 National Endowment for the Arts Dance Award winner. She is also a 2018 NYFA/NYSCA Artist Fellow in Choreography for Elsewhere, the winner of the 2015 Gibney Dance Social Action Award and the 2019 Janet Arnold Award from the Society of Antiquaries of London. Her work has been heralded in publications such as the New York Times (“captivating”) and Los Angeles Times (“moves with the clockwork deliberation of a practiced Japanese Butoh artist”) to name a few. Film projects include a starring role alongside actors James Franco and Winona Ryder in the feature film by director Jay Anania, 'The Letter" (2012-Lionsgate).

In recent years, she has been commissioned by triple Grammy Award-winning artists Esperanza Spalding, Skrillex, and David J. (Bauhaus). 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”). She is also featured on BBC’s podcast Deeply Human with host Dessa (episode 2 of 12: Why We Dance). https://www.vangeline.com

Dancefest in Tompkins Square Park

At the conclusion of the parade in Tompkins Square Park, the public can enjoy a festival featuring performances on two stages, a teaching stage, site-specific works, and a dedicated dance party area with DJs spinning an eclectic mix of genres. Five dedicated dance studios will offer free dance classes from some of New York’s most esteemed instructors. The festival is designed to be an immersive and participatory celebration of dance.

ABOUT DANCE PARADE NEW YORK

Founded in 2006, Dance Parade New York is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing dance as an expressive and unifying art form. It serves the dance community through education, performance opportunities, and artistic collaborations. Funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, the annual Dance Parade and Festival is the organization’s flagship event, celebrating the vast diversity of dance styles and cultural traditions in New York City. Team Dance Parade is thrilled to showcase 50+ styles of dance in Dance Parade Philadelphia's Inaugural event September 13, 2025.

VANGELINE THEATER/ NEW YORK BUTOH INSTITUTE aims to preserve the legacy and integrity of Japanese Butoh while carrying the art form 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. www.vangeline.com