About & History
The PuSh Festival works on the unceded and traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ first nations, primarily in the territory that was the seasonal and ancestral village of K’emk’emeláy. We want to express our deep gratitude for those who have cared for this land from time immemorial. As a settler organization on this territory we are striving to build reciprocal relationships with our Host Nations and the Indigenous Urban Communities of artists and audiences on this territory and beyond.
In 2003, co-founders Norman Armour and Katrina Dunn envisioned a vibrant, mid-winter event series where Vancouver artists could forge relationships and opportunities with the rest of Canada and beyond. They saw the potential benefits of a dynamic interplay between disparate disciplines, between arts patrons, and between the city’s venues and creative communities.
For more than two decades, the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival has been a leading contemporary performing arts festival in Canada, presenting audacious, innovative works of live performance by visionary local, national, and international artists. Curated, multidisciplinary, and international in scope, PuSh presents formally inventive and critically engaged work that challenges conventions of artistic expression and expands our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
Our artistic vision is to create new possibilities for how we encounter performance and one another. We position the Festival as a site of connection—cultivating artistic kinship and intercultural exchange through live performance, community engagement, and professional development. At the core of this work is a commitment to accessibility as equity design: integrating approaches that support a range of lived experiences, while foregrounding audience experience through rigorous and thoughtful dramaturgy.
A cornerstone of the Festival is the PuSh Industry Series, Western Canada’s leading international performing arts gathering. Each year, it convenes 200+ artists and arts workers for professional exchange, relationship-building, and market development alongside the artistic program. More than a marketplace, the Industry Series is a space for dialogue, research, and connection—where ideas are tested, relationships are formed, and the future of live performance is actively shaped.
Vision
We envision a society fully engaged in empathy and the arts, and activated by a festival that expands our sense of the world.
Mission
The PuSh Festival creates new possibilities for artistic expression and how we relate to one another. We present a performing arts festival that challenges our assumptions, facilitates deeper understanding, inspires the imagination, and fosters meaningful connections.
Values
Inter-cultural connection:
We connect locally and globally across cultures and contexts to promote collaboration, creative and political stimulation, knowledge transmission, and empathy.
Transformative experiences:
We curate culturally urgent and rigorously realized performing arts to create transformative audience experiences.
Innovation & experimentation:
We celebrate creative risk with artistic programming that pushes the possibility of live art, and organizational practices that are adaptive and forward thinking.
Social justice:
In our operations and programming, we use our power and privilege to challenge systemic inequities and to amplify the voices of those who are, or who have been historically, marginalized.
Care & reciprocity:
We engage with people as humans first, nurturing connections built on mutual respect, dignity, and understanding. We strive for sustainable and reciprocal relationships.
Accountability:
Recognizing that innovation carries risk and that we will make mistakes, we foster a culture of psychological safety, continuous learning and accountability.