The Necessity of Live Art: PuSh Festival's Gabrielle Martin on programming with need in mind

Director of programming cites empathy, communion, and renewed international presence at event, January 19 to February 5, 2023

SPONSORED POST BY Push international Performing Arts Festival

Coloured Swan 3: Harriet’s reMix captures Moya Michael’s unique brand of Afrofuturism at the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. Photo by Danny Williams

PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, director of programming, Gabrielle Martin has released a curatorial statement that asserts the necessity of live art.

As PuSh prepares for the Festival that runs at venues across the Lower Mainland from January 19 to February 5, Martin poses the question, “Is art essential?”

“Over the course of recent crises, the necessity of art has been questioned,” she writes in the statement posted at pushfestival.ca. “These are works we need to face challenging truths with empathy, embodiment, and communion… They are works we need for radical presence and listening… They are works we need to inspire us to overcome…”

She continues by addressing the prevalence of the solo form in this year’s programming. “It reflects an imposed austerity born of a faltering globalized market, and its impact on live arts production,” she describes. “It has a gift for confronting us with the individual stories behind social and political ideologies.” 

Martin recently saw the world premiere of her new production Throe with Corporeal Imago (Ci), which explores our interdependence in an inhospitable world. The inclusion of this subject matter in both her curation of PuSh’s programming and the creation of Throe as a producer, dramaturg, and choreographer demonstrates the importance of works that go deeper than spectacle.

“In a time of increasingly visible impacts of climate change, of war, and of the rise of fascism, the future weighs heavy with uncertainty,” she states. “Several works leave us hopeful for tomorrow.” 

Read Gabrielle Martin’s full curatorial statement, see the full lineup of programming, and purchase tickets and Passes at pushfestival.ca.