2017 PuSh post-show conversations: An extension of Critical Ideas
January 16, 2017
One of the keys to programming a successful PuSh Assembly is to facilitate as many opportunities to engage in dialogue—whether you’re an artist, presenter, Festival volunteer or audience member.
PuSh post-show conversations (i.e. talkbacks) are right in the moment: after the show, sweat still on the artists’ brows; moderated by Vancouver-based dance, theatre and performance makers.
This year, I see the post-show conversations as an extension of our PuSh Assembly Ideas series. I worked with Peter Dickinson, curator of the Critical Ideas discussions, and director of SFU’s Institute for Performance Studies, to put together a team of writers/facilitators who each have an independent performance practice alongside a keen interest in critical dialogue.
We invited Alana Gerecke, Alexa Mardon, and Robert Leveroos to join us. We will each be facilitating between two to four of the shows listed below. I’m so humbled and honoured to be in the company of a powerhouse group of thinkers and makers who share a passion for contemporary performance practice. You can learn more about each of them below.
Our objectives are quite simple, to facilitate lively dialogue with our Festival artists and audience, but also to take it a step further to come together each week during the course of the Festival to discuss what we’ve seen; both individual shows as discrete entities, but the PuSh program as a whole.
Ultimately, I’m interested in exploring how this can support not only critical dialogue and writing in the contemporary performing arts, but how we might include our “hardcore” audience members—those who purchase our Four- and Six-Show Passes and industry packs—to have these conversations with us.
As with most things at PuSh, it’s a bit of an experiment, and I hope you will join us! And if you have any questions, please email me.
—Joyce Rosario, Associate Curator
PuSh post-show conversation schedule
January 17 Macbeth
January 19 Sweat Baby Sweat
January 20 By Heart
January 25 Portraits in Motion
January 25-29 Concord Floral
January 26 As I Lay Dying
January 27 The City and The City
January 31 Backstage in Biscuit Land
February 1 Mouthpiece
February 2 Wallflower
February 3 Folk-s, will you still love me tomorrow?
As mentioned, we will be meeting each Friday for our week-in-review and open discussion:
January 20
12:30–2:00PM
Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre, SFU’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts
(right before Critical Ideas: Adaptation in Performance)
January 27
12:30–2:00PM
Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre, SFU’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts
(right before Critical Ideas: Curation at the Crossroads of Performance and Visual Art)
February 3
January 27
12:30–2:00PM
Djavad Mowafaghian World Art Centre, SFU’s Goldcorp Centre for the Arts
(right after Critical Ideas: Home, Memory, Land)
About the facilitators
Peter Dickinson
Former PuSh board president, Peter Dickinson writes the must-read critical blog Performance, Place & Politics. He is director of SFU’s new Institute for Performance Studies, professor in English and School for the Contemporary Arts and an associate in the Department of Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies. His play Long Division, premiered in a Pi Theatre production at the Gateway Theatre last year and will have a run in Vancouver this spring as well.
Alana Gerecke
Alana is a dancer and improviser, movement facilitator and performance scholar whose research examines flash mobs, social choreography and the politics of moving together. She is currently Banting Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Theatre and Performance Studies at York University. Her SFU PhD dissertation explores the social and spatial politics of site-based dances set in public spaces throughout Vancouver.
Alexa Solveig Mardon
Alexa is a dance artist and writer living on the unceded territories of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh Nations whose work investigates expanded notions of dance. She has performed work by Deanna Peters, Action at a Distance, Chick Snipper, Rob Kitsos, the response, Emmalena Fredriksson and Katie Devries and has published with ISSUE Magazine, Line, Room Magazine, The Dance Centre and The Dance Current.
Robert Leveroos
An insatiable tinkerer, Robert Leveroos makes work incorporating live art, animation and handmade objects and also collaborates as an actor and scenographer. His books include A Lion in the Bedroom and Adrift/À la derive, produced with support from Minnesota Centre for Book Arts. A recipient of the CD Nelson Graduate Fellowship, he is pursuing an MFA in Interdisciplinary Studies at SFU. He trained with The Children’s Theatre Company in Minneapolis and studied acting at The National Theatre School.