Butoh: the Search for Dignity

In October 2026, Vangeline led a five-day Butoh workshop in Berlin, bringing together participants with different backgrounds and levels of experience. For some, it was their first encounter with Butoh; others were returning to deepen their practice.In this episode of our podcast, six participants share their personal experiences and reflections on the workshop.Their stories touch on grief, healing, self-discovery, and the profound experience of reconnecting with the body. Through their own words, we discover how Butoh can open unexpected doors to our inner lives and transform the way we experience ourselves and the world around us.We invite you to listen to their stories in this episode 15 of this podcast.Featuring: Béatrice Venet, Celia Hickey, Josephin Mue, Anitta Anderson, Francesco Pascarella, and Verena Oestreicher.This workshop was hosted by Schott Acting studio and the videos and photos are from Berlin and the workshop at Dock 11 Eden studio.Special thanks to all participants.www.vangeline.comhttps://schott-acting-studio.de/en/home-en/

Recorded on September 5, 2025, against the quiet magic of late-summer Berlin, this episode captures the culmination of a five-day Butoh workshop led by Vangeline at Schott Acting Studio.In this intimate episode, 28 participants — many stepping into Butoh for the very first time — share what they discovered in the space we created together. Their reflections return again and again to themes of pleasure, safety, intimacy, connection, dissolving trauma, and the discipline of technique as a vessel for transformation — the true heartbeat of the workshop.Thanks to the exquisite photography and meticulous documentation by Shahryar Shahamat, this episode becomes both an audio and visual documentary, inviting you to step behind the curtain and witness the evolution of the workshop.Special thanks to Shahryar for his artistry in photography, video, and sound editing, which made this episode possible. Many thanks as well to all 28 participants for their generosity in being photographed, filmed, and for sharing their voices so openly.

Listen to the conversation between dancers and audience members after an informal Butoh performance that took place on July 5th, 2025, in Soho, New York, following a 5-day Butoh workshop in New York led by Vangeline. Spectators and dancers discuss their respective experiences of Butoh. www.vangeline.com

The Body as a Vessel: Conversation with Butoh dancer Genevieve Jencson and students in Cleveland, Ohio after a 3-day Butoh workshop led by Vangeline.Recorded in Cleveland on April 27, 2025.https://www.instagram.com/genevieve_violet/

In this podcast interview recorded at Zen Mountain Monastery, Monastic Hokyu Aronson speaks with Vangeline about embodied movement and healing. Along the way, they discuss some of the deep history of butoh and how trauma-informed guidance can help students settle their nervous systems, whether they are pursuing Zen, butoh, or life itself. Although Vangeline emphasizes this approach in her teaching, and speaks widely on the benefits of butoh as a form of creative engagement, she is quick to add that butoh should not be considered a replacement for therapy, and nor should Zen practice. That said, the movement workshops she leads, explore the body as a vehicle for working with challenging emotions, accessing deeper connection, and finding freedom. The Mountains and Rivers Order (MRO) is a Western Zen Buddhist lineage established by the late John Daido Loori Roshi and dedicated to sharing the dharma as it has been passed down, generation to generation, since the time of Shakyamuni Buddha. https://zmm.org/about/about-mountains-and-rivers-order/ This episode is also available on the ZMM podcast: https://zmm.org/podcast/vangeline-butoh/

This episode was recorded on December 15, 2024. in Zipolite, Mexico, as the conclusion of a 7-day Butoh immersive retreat at the Butoh Sanctuary where Vangeline guided 18 students from all over the world to create their own Butoh piece. In this episode, you can listen to each participant's experience during our final circle. This episode is both in English and Spanish with some interpretation. To learn more about Butoh Sanctuary, visit www.butohsanctuary.org

In this episode, while in Rome, Vangeline had a conversation with dancer, performer, and visual artist Melissa Lohman, talking about the body, dance, Butoh, and the practice of Noguchi Taiso. You can follow Melissa on Instagram @melissarlohman https://www.melissalohman.com/

In this episode recorded in Denmark, I had a conversation with actress Christine Albeck Borge and Ballet dancer and choreographer Oliver Marcus Starpov, following our week-long creative research project combining Butoh, theater, and dance, with also director Liv Helm. Here is our reflection on the interaction of Butoh, dance, and theater. https://www.instagram.com/allmyfriendsaresuperheroes/ https://www.instagram.com/christinealbeck/ @livhelm

In this episode recorded during the New York Butoh Festival 2024, Butoh dancers and teachers Eugenia Vargas from Mexico, Natalia Cuellar from Chile, and Doctor Alice Baldock from Oxford University and I had a conversation about women and Butoh, Butoh in Latin America, and our relationship to Butoh as women. Get to know these extraordinary women who play a very important role in advancing the art form in the world. Read their biographies here: https://www.vangeline.com/calendar-of-upcoming-events/2024/10/14/panel-discussion-women-latin-america-and-butoh

In this episode, you can listen to the Q&A after Vangeline's performance of the Slowest Wave in Singapore, organized by the butoh artist XUE and the Singapore Butoh Collective. During the Q&A, Xue, the audience, and Vangeline talk about topics such as the difficulty in describing Butoh, Butoh and neuroscience, The Slowest Wave, and the present and future of Butoh in Singapore. This episode was recorded on September 1st, 2024. Check them out: https://sgbutoh.co/ A couple of corrections: The first Butoh performance was Kinjiki, or Forbidden Ciolors, not Forbidden Flowers. Also, The two women neuroscientists who collaborated on the Slowest Wave, neuroscientists Sadye Paez and Constantina Theofanopoulou, dance flamenco, not tango. If you want to learn more about the Slowest Wave, read here: https://www.vangeline.com/research