PuSh International Performing Arts Festival announces 20th edition with genre-spanning lineup
Programming includes world premieres from Chimerik 似不像 and rice & beans theatre, BOGOTÁ by Andrea Peña & Artists, and beyond
All That Remains. Photo by Christoffer Brekne
Compagnie Marie Chouinard’s The Rite of Spring. Photo by Sylvie-Ann Paré
PUSH INTERNATIONAL PERFORMING Arts Festival will fete its 20th edition in the new year with a just-announced lineup that ranges from a blue-neon-bathed Vietnamese rap and dance performance to a live cooking demonstration that explores the effects of colonialism in the Philippines.
During the festival’s run from January 23 to February 9, audiences will have the chance to witness more than 25 presentations from 13 different countries, including three world premieres and eight Canadian debuts. At the program launch tonight, artistic director Gabrielle Martin summarized the wide-ranging lineup as “audacious live art”.
Programming launches at the Fox Cabaret with a late-night opening bash beginning at 9 pm. Germany-based Swiss-American DJ Dovecake will get the party started with beats that evoke Berlin’s legendary nightlife scene—think everything from Turkish funk to R&B house. Special surprises and guest performances are in store, including an appearance by Taiwanese performance artist Su PinWen.
The History of Korean Western Theatre. Photo by Leontien Allemeersch
Among this year’s multimedia offerings is All That Remains, an environmentally driven melding of dance, installation, and sound performance from the mind of Italian-born, Denmark-based choreographer Mirko Guido taking place at SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts. There’s also the world premiere of Inner Sublimity from Chimerik 似不像, which intersects Eastern and Western philosophy through dance and projections at the Vancouver Art Gallery.
The History of Korean Western Theatre marks the return of South Korean artist Jaha Koo to the PuSh Festival; his documentary-theatre examination of cultural suppression, produced with Belgium’s CAMPO arts centre, is the third in a trilogy that includes earlier PuSh audience hits Lolling and Rolling and Cuckoo (the latter a performance with a rice cooker).
Over at the Scotiabank Dance Centre, Petrikor Danse’s Habitat is a bioluminescence-infused solo about a search for home by Uruguay-born, Montreal-based choreographer Bettina Szabo, presented with Inner Fish Theatre Society and Latincouver.
Elsewhere, Gabriel Dharmoo stages Bijuriya at the Annex, the work examining the intersections between queerness and brownness in a copresentation by Music on Main and the Indian Summer Festival. At the Scotiabank Dance Centre, A Wake of Vultures presents SEEING DOUBLE, a theatrical homage to eerie late-night double features with psychological sound-and-image blitz Walking at Night by Myself and cyberpunk odyssey K BODY AND MIND.
Dimanche. Photo by Mihaela Bodlovic
Innovative theatre works include Dimanche by Belgium’s Focus & Chaliwaté, which sees humanity struck by devastating natural disasters, co-presented with The Cultch at the Vancouver Playhouse. Géométrie de vies (The Geometry of Lives), from Collectif d’Art-d’Art and the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Studios Kabako, is a narrative poem of two young people facing displacement that’s copresented with Vancouver Poetry House at Performance Works. The U.K.’s Tim Etchells is back with L’addition, created with French performance duo Bert and Nasi, co-presented with Alliance Française Vancouver in association with Here & Now Productions.
And the fest presents the world premiere of Theatre Conspiracy and Pandemic Theatre’s SWIM, created by Vancouver’s Jivesh Parasram, Tom Arthur Davis, Gavan Cheema, and David Mesiha; the immersive, audio-based representation of refugee crossings is co-presented with Touchstone Theatre and The Cultch. Lasa ng Imperyo (A Taste of Empire) from rice & beans theatre, marks another world premiere, in a Tagalog fusion of theatre and gastronomy co-presented with Boca del Lupo at the NEST. In it, theatre artist Carmela Sison reimagines Jovanni Sy’s Taste of Empire via a cooking demonstration of rellenong bangus, or stuffed milkfish; Marcus Youssef directs.
De glace (From Ice). Photo by Jonathan Lorange
Toronto-based artist Clayton Lee delves into his childhood obsession with pro-wrestler Bill Goldberg to examine the evolution of his sexual and romantic history in The Goldberg Variations at the Waterfront Theatre. And De glace (From Ice) by L’eau du bain pulls inspiration from Nordic literature to tell the tale of two girls’ friendship, copresented with Théâtre la Seizième and Vancouver International Children’s Festival at the Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre.
Brazilian theatre artist Renata Carvalho challenges perceptions of gender non-conforming and transfeminine people in her solo theatre work Transpofagic Manifesto at the Waterfront Theatre, copresented with Latincouver. Later on in the fest at the SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, Carvalho will host a film retrospective of six titles that spotlight Brazilian queer cinema. There’s another film offering at the Goldcorp on this year’s PuSh lineup, too; filmmaker Lizzie Borden screens her pioneering 1983 feminist sci-fi film Born in Flames with a Q&A afterward.
Renata Carvalho in Transpofagic Manifesto. Photo by Danilo Galvão
The realm of dance brings a host of exciting performances to the festival. Dances for a Small Stage returns to Please! Beverage Co. for a showcase of 10 experimental short works by femme and nonbinary artists, while the aforementioned BOGOTÁ—a visceral exploration of transmutation and resurrection inspired by Colombia’s political and spiritual heritage within the post-colonial era—hits the Vancouver Playhouse, co-presented by New Works in partnership with the Vancouver Latin American Cultural Centre. For folks in the Fraser Valley, Montreal’s Compagnie Marie Chouinard will tour two works, Prelude to the Afternoon of the Faun and The Rite of Spring, to the HUB International Theatre at the Chilliwack Cultural Centre.
A couple more pieces combine both dance and theatre. BLUE NÉON by Montreal’s Châu Kim-Sanh sees the soloist deliver Vietnamese rap vocals against an imagined Saigon nightscape in a copresentation with plastic orchid factory at Left of Main; and U.K. artist Ray Young’s OUT challenges the status quo by reclaiming a queer future in a co-presentation with the frank theatre company at Performance Works. Young and the frank theatre are teaming up again for THIRST TRAP, a unique immersive sound piece about the climate that audiences can experience from the comfort of their own bathtubs.
BOGOTÁ. Photo by Félixe Godbout Delavaud
The frank theatre company is also bringing back its annual QT Cabaret to Club PuSh at the Fox Cabaret, a celebratory night curated by Fay Nass and Anais West that combines a dance party and a variety show with 2SLGBTQIA+ artists. Then there’s Van Vogue Jam’s Dune Wars Kiki Ball at The Birdhouse, with an extravagant runway that promises everything from extraterrestrial hair sculptures to metallic-robot-chic looks to sandworm couture.
This year’s PuSh International Performing Arts Festival will see the return of the conference-style Industry Series from January 28 to February 2. Residencies this time around include contortion-inspired somatic practitioner Andréane Leclerc of Nadère arts vivants and a VIVO Media Arts Centre co-presentation of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Joseph K. Kasau Wa Mambwe with Sweden’s Majula Drammeh and Thabiaso Kubheka Persson. Plus, local artists who are partnered up with national and international dramaturgs will have access to free artistic consultations thanks to a partnership with Playwrights Theatre Centre and Festival TransAmériques.
OUT. Photo by Rosie Powell
There’s also the launch of the Elevate Program, which will allow a cohort of racialized youth to receive mentorship from local professional creatives, presented by PuSh with event-planning co-op Symposia and Solid State Community Industries. A series of workshops, conversations, and performance viewings will be hosted over the coming months, leading up to the young artists producing a July 2025 showcase event.
Early-bird PuSh Festival passes are now on sale via the event site here, and single tickets will be up for grabs as of November 21. 
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