The 7th Annual International PuSh Festival of the Performing Arts

"100% Vancouver"

The annual PuSh International Performing Arts Festival kicks off this week at various venues around Vancouver. This year is Vancouver’s 125 year birthday and PuSh celebrates it’s 7th birthday as part of the celebration.  Lots of exciting performances and events have been planned, with an eclectic mix of music, dance, theatre and other events.  And for the first time, visual artists who exhibit or publish their work will be included.

Linking performance and visual arts 100% Vancouver is a huge project by Theatre Replacement and SFU Woodwards originating in Rimini Protokoll’s Berlin company who presented last year’s Best Before. Three performances will take place in the  Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre at Simon Fraser, Woodwards (map) with a cast of 100.  This stage production will also be documented in print, with Fillip Magazine joining PuSh in photographing and interviewing the participants.  Former Sun reporter and political writer Frances Bula is one of the writers on the project.

Networld Theatre and Playwrights Theatre Centre join in a production called Podplays, a quartet of radio plays that will include audience participation using portable media players.

Peter Reder,from London England, brings his poetic map, City of Dreams, a performance which will be constructed at the Roundhouse Community Centre (map) which includes assembling hundreds of found objects accompanied by a sound scape.

From Antwerp, the Berlin Company brings a show called Bonanza about a small town in Colorado and its feuding residents.  This imaginative troupe spend two months in Nunavut and have produced Igaluit, to be performed inside a giant igloo in the Woodward’s atrium. (map)

Several of the venues of PuSh are located in the Gastown area (map). La Marea (the Tide) will be performed in 9 locations along one block of Water Street.  You can wander the block and enjoy t his performance for free.

For fans of dance, Circa, from Brisbane Australia is a circus art performance for adults.  And there’s a matinee for children of 46 Circus Acts in 45 Minutes. At the Commercial Drive Legion, Commercial Drive at Sixth Avenue (map) in Vancouver’s East End, Dances for a Small Stage 23 present contemporary dance.

During the Festival, Performance Works on Granville Island (map) becomes Club PuSh with music performances each night  And the PuSh Assembly returns, offering artists and performers a chance to participate in a market place pitching projects to producers.

PuSh International Performing Arts Festival:  January 18 – February 6 at various locations.  Information for tickets, venues and performances.

Tickets for performances vary.

Photo Credits: PuSh International Performing Arts Festival