Circles and orbits

February 03, 2010

by PuSh Festival Executive Director Norman Armour

Time does indeed move in circles and orbits.

For the first incarnation of PuSh eight years ago, co-founder Katrina Dunn and I chose to present a show entitled Shadows. This was our very first year, our first attempt to realize something that at that time was only an instinct, a desire, a vague idea in the process of being imagined. PuSh wasn’t even a “festival” yet. We had chosen to refrain from using the “f” word until we were absolutely sure it was one, and we could deliver on the expectations that go along with being a festival.

Shadows had been recommended to us by two colleagues in Toronto who themselves were venturing in risky territory with a festival of their own called Six Stages. It’s important to understand that Six Stages was a major inspiration for Katrina and I. Here was a festival with only six shows, and yet it embraced so much of what we believed might be the necessary ingredients for a successful festival back here in Vancouver: curated, interdisciplinary, a combination of local, national and international work, and founded on partnerships of one kind or another.

The artist behind the creation and performance of Shadows? No other than William Yang. So it’s fitting that for the final week of the 6th annual PuSh International Performing Arts Festival we open with William’s latest work China. It’s also fitting that I have beside my desk at the PuSh office (have had since that presentation of Shadows in January 2003), several photographs taken in the Roundhouse exhibition hall including this one of myself and Katrina with William and his composer/collaborator Colin:

Here at PuSh, we are honoured to have the opportunity to bring one of this Festival’s most treasured artists. We invite you attend a performance of William Yang’s China and learn why.