Enter to WIN two tickets to Joe Papp in Five Acts on Monday, May 6 at 7PM and two DOXA Documentary Film Festival memberships. Contest closes at noon on May 2.

About the film
Born with what both friends and enemies describe as an “instinctual drive towards trouble,” Joe Papp virtually invented much of modern American theatre. In the words of one of the many artists, playwrights, and actors that he mentored, he was an “Art Rocky,” someone who enjoyed the fight to make art available and accessible for everyone, regardless of colour, class or privilege... read more on the DOXA Documentary Film Festival website

THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED.

Erin Brubacher—a multidisciplinary and relational creator who has lived in 10 cities over 10 years, working mostly in performance and photography—is the recipient of the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival Scholarship for the New Aesthetics Performance Initiative.

New Aesthetics (July 22nd-August 2nd, 2013), produced by Theatre Replacement, is a two-week intensive, bringing the world’s top performance makers to Vancouver and inviting them to shake up our expectations, invoke change, confirm suspicions and invigorate our practices as makers and artists. It is designed to be a centre of creative exchange and artistic rejuvenation for established artists. Click here to read more.

Other scholarships awarded include:
Jacob Zimmer (New Aesthetics Scholarship made possible by individual donations)
Shannon Stewart (Community Partner Scholarship)
Evan Webber (Theatre Replacement Scholarship)

Congratulations to Michael Stevenson who will be the recipient of an honorary doctorate from SFU this coming fall. Michael was a founding member of the PuSh Festival Leaders Council, and just this past year moved into the role of Vice President of Internal Communications on the board of directors.

Michael Stevenson, political scientist and president emeritus of Simon Fraser University, led an ambitious program of organizational change and development at SFU that included a $500-million expansion of campus facilities. The degree of Doctor of Laws,  honoris causa , will be conferred on Dr. Stevenson on Thursday, October 10 at the 2:30 pm ceremony.

Read more about the other recipients on the SFU website

We are pleased to announce that beginning this spring, Joyce Rosario will be joining the staff of the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival as the Festival’s Associate Curator. Working as a collaborative partner to Executive Director Norman Armour, Joyce will oversee the coordination of community engagement, outreach and various curatorial initiatives.

About Joyce
Joyce Rosario has been active in the performing arts in Vancouver for the past 10 years and joins the team at PuSh after three years as Executive Director of New Works, an organization that provides management support to artists and projects in the performing arts, and produces several public performance series featuring dance from a wide variety of cultural traditions. She has also curated and produced three editions of PushOFF in collaboration with Kris Nelson at Antonym. Joyce continues to serve on various boards and committees, including CanDance, Koerner Foundation and as a member of the Steering Committee of the Canada Council’s Dance Mapping Study. She has been involved in professional development initiatives such as the Emerging Arts Professional Network and CAPACOA’s The Succession Plan. From 2007 to 2010, Joyce was Executive Director for Made in BC – Dance on Tour, a regional dance presenter network dedicated to increasing audience reach and touring opportunities for contemporary dance in British Columbia. Previously, she worked with battery opera as company manager as administrator for the Dancing on the Edge Festival. She served a one-year term on the BC Arts Council board in 1998 through a provincial ‘Youth on Boards’ initiative. Joyce is a graduate of UBC Theatre Production/Design Program.

The PuSh Festival is excited to be a community partner, along with DD Kugler and Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts, on Theatre Replacement‘s newest education program for artists: The New Aesthetics Performance Intensive!

What is New Aesthetics?
New Aesthetics (July 22nd-August 2nd, 2013) is a two-week intensive, bringing the world’s top performance makers to Vancouver and inviting them to shake up our expectations, invoke change, confirm suspicions and invigorate our practices as makers and artists. It is designed to be a centre of creative exchange and artistic rejuvenation for established artists. The program will provide local, national and international practicing artists with a chance to work and learn with peers and instructors who actively push performance boundaries and constantly evolve their modes of creation.

Scholarship Information
March 1st DEADLINE
Through generous community support, Theatre Replacement is excited to give an artist without the financial ability, the opportunity to experience the New Aesthetics Performance Intensive.

Register for New Aesthetics here or email anne-sophie@theatrereplacement.org with your CV and Letter of Intent with “Scholarship Consideration” in the subject line to be considered for the full tuition scholarship! Recipients will be chosen based on financial need and their letters of intent and will be notified of their scholarship by April 15, 2013. Note that participants need a minimum of 5 years professional experience to participate.

Click here to visit the New Aesthetics website

Instructors: Crystal Pite, Pol Heyvaert, James Long, Maiko Bae Yamamoto

Photo: Juan Saez

Feedback from blind/partially sighted guides:

“Firstly I would like to say how much I enjoyed these few days spent with you all, the training workshop plus this last weekend. In retrospect, I got a lot out of it as the whole project forced me to expand my mind and think in a different way!! As you could probably tell, I’m far more black and white kind of a person, more practical and not so artsy, (my Physio training),so I had to stretch my own boundary which isn’t a bad thing to do every now and then!!

I thought that all of you organizers did a superb job in getting over to us what you wanted out of us and you looked after us so beautifully, so many little details, (food and drinks, dogs, warm/dry clothing) and all very much appreciated.

Chatting with some of the other volunteers last night [at the closing potluck] was also great and some of it was quite revealing! What a sweet and great crowd they were too and so nice of them to come and mingle with us; I really enjoyed my conversations with the few I was lucky enough to spend some time with.” – Rosamund van Leeuwen

“I have nothing but positive things to say about the project.

Being a creative soul myself I thought it was an exciting endeavor and hope to take part in any future events. I enjoyed sharing with the various participants how I move through the world which I personally take for granted. The icing on the cake was the dance at the end which was unique and phenomenal experience. I also made some good and hopefully lifetime friends as a result.

Overall it was a growth in my spiritual evolution.” – Alberto Heide

Feedback from guides:

“I was scared my first guiding experience but my guest was happy and on my second and third experience I had more fun – even letting the blindfolded person free walk. I relished the opportunity.” – David C. Jones

“THANK YOU for all YOU have done to make *Do You See What I Mean?* in Vancouver a very special event! Not only was the whole project perfectly organised, but most important of all you made me (and probably many of the other volunteers) feel very much part of the show. In addition I was very impressed by how friendly and good-humoured you and all the others people were during the whole time (even when things didn’t go as planned...)!” – Katharina Pfenningstorf

“DYSWIM was an incredible experience, and I feel like all of you became a family to me.

Thanks again for putting this all together and let me know of any events you do in the future.” – Olga Abeleva

“Thank you very much for the opportunity to participate with Do You See What I Mean? I enjoyed every minute of being involved with this project, from accidentally bumping my audience member into strangers on my first walk, to watching the audience members’ initial reactions to being lead around ‘differently’ by the dancers, and in the end hearing how the 2.5 hour walk affected them, each in a very different way.

On Saturday, my last walk, my audience member chose not to meet me face-to-face. I was perfectly fine with it, and the more I think about it the more I realize how insightful her decision was. She had a very specific experience that day, and wanted to keep me a part of it just as I was, a voice and a body, no face. My other two audience members were eager to take off their blindfolds and meet me, so this last experience put a nice perspective on the performance as a whole, and showed me how enriching it truly was for me. My favorite part of the performance though was the dancers portion, as I was captivated each time I walked into the studio.  I recently started dancing myself, so it was wonderful seeing a different kind of dancing experience, one that has a hold of me even a week later.” – Madeleine Armour

“Thank you team! It was an absolute joy to work on this project. Martin, Martial, Ruthie, and Donna greeted us everyday that we were working with a great big smile on their faces. They made me feel very appreciated and their organization was extremely impressive. I made some unforgettable connections and experiences with the audience members that I guided on the walk. It made me very proud to know that theatre like this exists; giving audiences different experiences and a shift in perspective that will stay with them for many years to come.” – Marcela Caceres

Feedback from homes:

“Thank you for including me in this project – it was very interesting and I enjoyed meeting so many people without having to leave my home.” – Karenza T. Wall

We asked our staff and board what memories they’re leaving with this year. Here’s one response.

First, there’s my favourite show. Testament has continued to resonate with me since their opening night with its clever deconstruction of King Lear brought down to the personal level. Both my parents are gone, so for me it was cathartic. But I thought every baby boomer should see that show!

But another thing that will stick with me is the trip home via bus and seabus from the David Carr talk at CapU. A young woman and I sprinted to the bus and began talking on that ride to the Seabus, and continued onto the Seabus. Though she was out of town and had missed much of the festival, she was making up for lost time, doing Do You See What I Mean?, Carr and I, Malvolio in a couple of days. She was a UBC grad in art history, working at an established South Granville gallery. It reminded me that the one-time invisible wall (or separate silos, as we used to say) between the performing and visual arts – which frustrated us in the 90s when I chaired the Alliance for Arts and Culture – is really evaporating, with a little PuSh.

Ellie O’Day

PuSh Festival publcist

Do you have something to say? Did a PuSh Festival show resonate with you and change how you think about the world or your art practice? We’d love to hear about it. Email sara@pushfestival.ca with your story. 

Looking for a post-PuShFest push? Check out this show:

battery opera performance + Par B.L.eux (Vancouver/Montreal)
Body-Scan: Sweet Gyre
Premiere
Thursday-Saturday February 14-16, 8pm
Post-show artist talkback February 15

Body-Scan: Sweet Gyre is choreographed and performed by Montreal’s Benoît Lachambre and battery opera’s Su-Feh Lee, two exceptional artists renowned for pushing the boundaries of contemporary dance with work that is fearless, intellectually rigorous and absorbing. Following on from their 2008 ensemble piece Body-Scan, this new duet explores the human body as a porous conduit through which our personal and collective history, memory and desires pass, and features images by New York photographer Robert Flynt and live music by Juno Award-winning musician and composer Jesse Zubot.
www.batteryopera.com www.parbleux.qc.ca
Duration: TBA

Buy tickets online

The ninth annual PuSh International Performing Arts Festival took place in Vancouver January 15– February 3, and proved an artistic, critical and popular success.

“The 2013 PuSh Festival has surpassed all expectations,” said Executive Director Norman Armour, “and after the trials and tribulations our arts community has been through over the last year, for me it has been particularly poignant to see the Festival so triumphantly take centre stage with new audiences, new artists, new works, new partnerships, and new private and public supporters. There is nothing like a ‘good idea’—the more it plays out over time, the better it gets. And PuSh has once again proven just how good an idea it is. On behalf of the 2013 Festival team, staff and contractors, our board directors, our volunteers, our Leaders Council members, the participating artists, our organizational partners and their staff—thank you for crossing the line, for continuing to believe in PuSh and its ever-evolving vision, and for insisting unequivocally that arts and culture are at the centre of this city’s life, well-being and prosperity.”

Photo by Riz Herbosa

Overview of the 2013 PuSh Festival

•    Total attendance numbers reached over 34,000 (a 45% increase over the 2012 Festival 
attendance) with an average house capacity of 79% for performances and 44 sold out shows.
•    There were over 190 performances and events at 16 venues in Vancouver over 20 days.
•    The Festival included: an opening gala; 18 Main Series shows spanning theatre, dance, music 
and multimedia performance; two ancillary shows engaging high school and post-secondary students; a lecture; numerous artist talks; three full weeks of Club PuSh; a free film series; the PuSh Assembly; Patrons Circle donor events; pairings with Dine Out Vancouver and much more!
•    A total of 275 artists presented work from Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Japan, Scotland, Taiwan and the United States.
•    PuSh was involved in three commissions, the hosting of four artists in residence, and the local adaptation and resituating of two works from the international repertoire.
•    The Festival sold 400 PuSh passes to loyal audience members, with passes selling out by the end of December.
•    A dedicated roster of over 270 volunteers worked more than 5,200 hours in support of the Festival. (Included in this figure are the 112 volunteer guides that worked on the Do You See What I Mean? blindfolded tour who spent over 2,500 hours of volunteer time both training and leading tours.)
•    PuSh connected heavily with audiences online, engaging with 4,240 fans on Facebook and 4,327 followers on Twitter.

Photo by Liesbeth Bernaerts

“At the end of another amazing and transformative PuSh Festival, I am exactly where I want to be: exhausted but exhilarated. The work I saw (17 shows in total) was exceptional: intellectually compelling, emotionally moving, always unexpected. The people I talked to (audience members; donors and sponsors; artists and co-presenters; volunteers, staff, and fellow Board members) were filled with praise about their experiences of the Festival. In terms of the depth and quality of programming, media coverage, new audiences, fundraising targets, and community awareness, this year’s Festival PuShed through to a whole new level. In 2013, we didn’t just cross the line; we redrew the entire map of the performing arts in this city.” – Board President Peter Dickinson


I, Malvolio (presented with The Cultch) runs until February 10, and Ride the Cyclone (presented with Arts Club Theatre Company) runs until February 16. The dates for the 2014 PuSh International Performing Arts Festival are set for January 14 to February 2, 2014.

Donor Recognition Event for Supporter Level and above, January 29, 2013

The energy was palpable. Having just come out of the thought provoking and often times tense dress rehearsal of Winners and Losers, people were abuzz. As staff, donors, artists, and industry folk made their way from SFU Woodward’s through the cobbled pavement of Gastown, the staff at John Fluevog Shoes waited in anticipation to open their doors for the PuSh Festival Donor Reception.

Appetizers, drinks, and shoes abounded. Local artists rubbed shoulders with international artists and presenters. Donors were recognized. Party-goers bought shoes. The flagship store with its exposed brick interior and high glass ceilings served as a great hub to honour PuSh donors.

Norman Armour, giving an impassioned speech about the importance of local businesses working together and supporting each other, touched on something very important. He spoke about the importance of individuals and businesses banding together across all disciplines to fuel the creative Vancouver scene. He spoke about the vibrancy of the performing arts in this city and the pride that we can collectively feel as artists, staff, patrons, and donors.

It felt very fitting that the reception to honour donors, the people responsible for sustaining new opportunities and creativity, happened in historic Gastown, a place that constantly reinvents itself, at John Fluevog, a business that is known for innovation.  As people celebrated into the night, there was a distinct sense of pride in being a Vancouverite and of being part of the amazing cultural landscape.

Want to join this group of people and get in on special events like this?

Give the Festival a PuSh and join the Patrons Circle!

*please note only gifts of up to $1000.00 can be processed on the website.  Please contact the Development Department at 604.605.8284 ext. 202 if you require assistance processing your gift.

Want your own pair? Check out Fluevog.com or head down to the beautiful Gastown or Granville locations!