The Runner and Dear Laila invite critical engagement at this year's PuSh International Performing Arts Festival

One piece highlights a dilemma between impulse and socially imposed morals, while the other offers perspective on forced displacement

SPONSORED POST BY PuSh International Performing Arts Festival

Christopher Morris as Jacob in The Runner. Photo by Dylan Hewlett.

Art reflects the world and the times in which we live. At its best, it’s an essential cultural force that builds empathy and understanding. The PuSh International Performing Arts Festival aims to bring folks together while inspiring them to have complex and nuanced conversations. This year’s programming from January 18 to February 4 challenges audiences not only to think differently, but to feel differently, on both an individual and group basis.

The festival experience is defined by how each piece sits in conversation with another, all sharing a sense of cultural urgency. PuSh’s invitation for critical engagement is particularly prominent with the presentation of The Runner from January 24 to 26 at the SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, and Dear Laila from January 20 to February 3 at The Fishbowl on Granville Island.

The Runner by Canadian playwright Christopher Morris is a story about triage that’s set in Israel. It unpacks one character’s dilemma between humanist impulse and socially imposed morals, as he advocates for seeing all human life as equal. In Episode 2 of the PuSh Play podcast, Morris frames The Runner as “an offer for discussion”. The piece’s examination of the polarizing tensions and conflicting ideologies within its protagonist exposes the racism of dehumanization and explores the complexities and limitations of empathy and kindness.

Dear Laila. Photo by Mohab Mohamed

Presented parallel to The Runner, Dear Laila is an intimate and interactive installation that offers an autobiographical perspective on the forced displacement of Palestinians through the story of one family. Basel Zaraa, the artist behind the project, centred the work on a miniature model of his destroyed family home in Yarmouk camp, and three stories that represent the three generations who lived in the house. In Episode 8 of the PuSh Play podcast, Zaraa describes Dear Laila as “a way for me to face and express and understand the trauma that we live with.” He invites audience members to connect with this story of a “family, like many families of our communities, who are stuck in a loop of losses.”

These works form a part of the wider 2024 festival ecology, and each plays an integral role in a balanced lineup that has been curated with care. Collectively, the performances and multimedia experiences of this year’s festival offer opportunities for self-reflection, better understanding of others’ experiences, and dialogue—actions which can offer building blocks for meaningful political change.

Post sponsored by PuSh International Performing Arts Festival.