PuSh Announces Rally Lineup & Reduced 2021 Program Due to Coronavirus

January 04, 2021

All-digital PuSh Rally provides a global platform for vital conversation and idea exchange about the future of live performance

Vancouver, BC – The PuSh International Performing Arts Festival (PuSh) announces the lineup for the newly formed PuSh Rally, January 28 to February 6, 2021, a free online series designed to respond directly to this deeply uncertain moment in our cultural sector by connecting PuSh audiences, artists, and industry leaders in Vancouver and around the globe in vital and meaningful dialogue. Due to a number of artist withdrawals as a result of the continued unpredictability of the pandemic and provincial health and safety regulations, PuSh will not be proceeding with the 2021 Festival as planned. However, audiences will still have an opportunity to experience originally scheduled PuSh Festival Partner Presentations this winter.

“The heart of PuSh has always been community, collaboration, and partnerships. And while the challenges presented by the pandemic mean that we have had to cancel much of the original 2021 program, we continue to invest in the work of our partners and artists who were slated to be a part of the Festival,” says Jason Dubois, Managing Director. “This will see PuSh co-presenting partner presentations, and providing online experiences to connect artists and audiences. We also know the PuSh Rally – which will ask tough, but essential questions at a critical time within our organization and for our cultural community at large – will be of interest to the PuSh audience.”

The PuSh Rally, curated by two of Vancouver’s most celebrated theatre artists, Theatre Replacement’s Maiko Yamamoto and Neworld Theatre’s Marcus Youssef, will provide a global platform for meaningful discourse and idea exchange about the challenges and possibilities inherent in conflict, and the future of live performance. The Rally will include a variety of artist encounters and conversations, international artist presentations, and surprise performances from some of the world’s finest artists, thought leaders, and change makers.

“As we contemplate the possible end of the pandemic and being together again, the PuSh Rally leans into what long-time PuSh partner Erin Boberg, Co-Director of the Portland Institute of Contemporary Art, calls this “season of reckonings,” says Marcus Youssef, PuSh Rally Co-Curator. “The Rally’s all-digital platform will offer Vancouver audiences an unprecedented opportunity to hear directly from some of the best-known and most provocative artists and thinkers, from New York to East Van to Sydney, Iqaluit, and Berlin.”

Adds Rally Co-Curator Maiko Yamamoto: “We’re thrilled to present playwright, novelist, social historian and world-renowned AIDS activist Sarah Schulman, best-selling writer and playwright Carmen Aguirre, Inuk creator-performer Laakuluk Williamson Bathory, Pulitzer Prize winner Jackie Sibblies Drury, grunt gallery director Vanessa Kwan, and Canadian theatre icon Ravi Jain, among many others.”