15th PuSh festival offers another impressive lineup of unique performances
One of the top cultural events of every new year, the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival showcases cutting-edge performances from artists across the globe.
This year is no exception, with 26 works from 24 companies representing 13 countries.
Six of these are world premieres, 11 are Canadian premieres and there are more than 150 performances.
That is more than double the number of shows that graced local stages for the 2005 inaugural PuSh fest, co-founded by Norman Armour (Rumble Theatre) and Katrina Dunn in 2003.
With every year, the event gained in importance as a means for thought-provoking works that don’t come from the mainstream to get the audience they deserved. Given that festival audience size has gone from 7,744 in 2005 to more than 17,500 in 2018, it seems there is hunger for challenging, rewarding, high-calibre creations.
Highlights of this year will include the Dora Award-winning dub poet and actor D’Bi Young Anitafrika, whose Blood.claat amazed Vancouver audiences in 2008 and 2010, with a new piece: Word Sound Have Powah.
Dance company Machinenoisey has a world premiere for its Fragile Forms, and composer Joelysa Pankanea’s latest piece Bicycle Thieves is a live musical and voice accompaniment to the neorealist film by Italian director Vittorio De Sica. International highlights include Australia’s Dancenorth with Attractor, a show with eight dancers and music, including from Indonesian band Senyawa. And the renowned Taiwanese choreographer Liu Kuan-Hsiang offers a tribute to his late mother, titled Kids.
Among the new developments in 2019 will be an expanded Club PuSh, where some of the most experimental shows are featured in multiple locations. Club PuSH will host both the opening and closing parties.
The PuSh Film Series is expanding too so that cinematic works that relate in some way to the festival program can be featured.
The complete festival guide is available at pushfestival.ca.