The Slowest Wave

Vangeline Theater –The Slowest Wave

60 minutes with no intermission

Choreographed by Vangeline for the Vangeline Theater

Music by Ray Sweeten

The Slowest Wave is a solo Butoh work choreographed and performed by Vangeline, with an original score by Ray Sweeten. This repertory work highlights Vangeline’s sculptural approach to Butoh, where stillness shapes the body into a living landscape. Her choreography resists softness, instead creating unexpected angular forms—triangles, arches, cranes—that transform the female body into architecture and living landscape. These geometries feel both ancient and futuristic: they suspend time and evoke a world slightly out of sync with the present. This temporal dissonance is mirrored by the costuming and soundscape, which hint at a posthuman aesthetic.

The Slowest Wave is a performance that uses the slow, meticulous movements of Butoh to convey deeper reflections on time, transformation, and the stillness of being. It encapsulates Vangeline’s ability to meld contemporary movement with Butoh while exploring profound, universal themes.

An award-winning project combining butoh and neuroscience supported by a 2022 National Endowment for the Arts Dance Award, The Slowest Wave explores the thematic of waves as a symbol of femininity and female sensuality. This piece was developed in 2022 and 2023 in collaboration with neuroscientists and composer Ray Sweeten. During a Gibney Dance Artist residency, Vangeline choreographed a 60-minute ensemble butoh piece uniquely informed by the protocol being established for a scientific pilot study researching the impact of butoh on brain activity.

Vangeline’s performance of The Slowest Wave also challenges traditional views of Butoh by introducing sensuality as a contemplative, empowering, and healing exploration of the body. Through slow, deliberate movements, she redefines sensuality as something intimate, tender, and connected to both the body’s internal rhythm and the surrounding environment, rather than simply an external spectacle of sexualized or grotesque imagery.

The Slowest Wave was recently featured in the New York Times.

Lrean more about this science project at https://www.vangeline.com/research