Meet the 2018 PuSh Youth Academy!

November 23, 2017

We’ve thrilled to have a new team of all-stars for the 2018 PuSh Youth Academy. The Youth Academy is made up of professionally-minded, performing arts aficionados who hope to pursue a life and career in the field. They experience, examine and engage in the professional contemporary performing arts community through workshops, discussions and shows, leading up to and during the PuSh Festival in January.

Ariel Martz-Oberlander

I am theatre artist, teacher, writer and community organizer. My practice seeks to give permission to take global issues personally. If I were to create a show for PuSh, it would have a live waterfall on stage.

Buhlebenkosi Chinhara

That’s my full name but most people call me B (for obvious reasons). I moved to Canada from Zimbabwe in 2012 to do my undergrad at SFU and am currently doing my second post-secondary stint at BCIT in radio arts and entertainment with the intention of working in media and being a content creator. If I were to curate a show for PuSh, it would likely be a multi-media performance that incorporates experimental music, contemporary dance and image or video projection.

CJ McGillivray

I am an interdisciplinary artist with a passion for sound design, musical composition, playwriting and acting. I am interested in curating stories that amplify oppressed or underrepresented voices and art that explores unconventional storytelling techniques.

Danielle Long

I am a first year student in the contemporary dance program Modus Operandi. If I had the opportunity to create a show for PuSh it would be a work that uses dance to convey the intricacy and importance of human interactions/connections in one’s life. Throughout the show I would want to create a tangible version of the movement being performed with the help of a couple cans of paint!

Joshua Ongcol

I am a Dubai-born Filipino dance artist who currently resides in Vancouver. I trained in various street dance forms such as: hip hop and breaking, popping, locking, house, waacking and vogue. I later became a student of the Modus Operandi contemporary training program. If I could program for PuSh Festival it would be to challenge binary perceptions of gender expression especially in the lens of street dance and Filipino culture through video projection, audio, and my repertoire of street dance movement.

Laurel A. Trueman

I am a young, passionate Vancouver screen/stage actor who loves all forms of theatre, dance, music, acrobatics due to the accepting fun and invigorating environments. I plan to pursue a career in these disciplines and have had some great experiences with the Vancouver Fringe Festival, the RHYTAG project and many others! If I were to curate a PuSh show, it would be a musical theatre performance with a theme of nostalgia represented in a giddy and juvenile way. Audience participation would be a must.

Matthew Moir

I study in gender, race, sexuality, and social justice at UBC, where my passion for storytelling has greatly evolved into short films and writing. Growing up in Ontario, I was an active member of Kitchener-Waterloo’s theatre community. If I were to curate a show for PuSh, I would seek to highlight local and underrepresented voices to collaborate over the creation of an immersive theatre experience that would explore narratives of gentrification through space and memory.

Marie-Pascale Lafrenière

I am feminist multidisciplinary artist from Gatineau, Quebec. I explore the question of female representation and gender embodiment through performance, photography and video-art. If I were to curate a show for PuSh, I would focus on diversity and reach out to community-oriented artists.

Montserrat Videla

I am a Latina multidisciplinary artist currently studying and working in Vancouver, BC. I predominantly work as an actor and performance creator. I want to feel/see/hear/taste/touch power, damage, and femininity on stage.

Quin (Q)

I am a self-/community-taught multi-disciplinary artist living, learning, and dying on the traditional, ancestral, unceded Coast Salish territories of the Musqueam, Tsleil-Waututh, and Squamish peoples. My work centres disability justice, crip activism, sex work, and queer liberation—along with all that meets at such topics’ intersection—and is a self-proclaimed survivor, failure, and begin-againer. If I were to curate a show for PuSh, it would feature youth across the spectrum of disability engaging in multimedia performance art.