Artists

  • PuSh

    Jaha Koo is a South Korean composer and theatre artist. Working in the realm where disciplines overlap, he incorporates video, music, text and installation into his works of performance. Jaha Koo’s key achievements include the Hamartia Trilogy, of which Lolling and Rolling is a part, and the EP Copper and Oyster.

    Events

  • rice & beans theatre is a Vancouver-based theatre company founded in 2010 by Pedro Chamale and Derek Chan. We provide a platform for the creation, development and production of boundary-pushing theatre by artists of colour or otherwise marginalized theatre-makers, as well as support to fellow artists by providing dramaturgy, direction, and mentorship. We are dedicated to facilitating original Canadian work that is accessible, honest, uncompromising and personal. In addition to Vancouver, we have also produced original work for audiences in Toronto, Richmond, Nanaimo and Victoria. In 2018, rice & beans was nominated for a Dora Award for its production of 食盡天下/A Taste of Empire with Cahoots Theatre in Toronto. In 2019, its production of Chicken Girl was nominated for 3 Jessies in Vancouver and in 2022, its production of Yellow Objects won a Jessie Innovation Award.

    Events

  • PuSh

    Chimerik 似不像 is a multi-award-winning interdisciplinary company consisting of artists from underrepresented groups and disciplines (film/video, new media, VJ, XR, projection & lighting design, experimental music, visual arts, contemporary dance/theatre performance and spirituality). They have collaborated on over 500 multi-disciplinary projects internationally and worked with influential corporations such as NIKE, Microsoft, BenQ and Google, yet, they’re actively empowering underrepresented communities.

    Events

  • PuSh

    Andrea Peña & Artists is recognized for the creation of critical, alternative and spatial
    universes that rupture our notions of a sensible humanity. Interested in the depth of human
    individuality that breaches from a personal disposition as a bi-cultural artist, Peña’s
    approach is known for its difficult choreography as a highly intricate, vulnerable and somatic
    raw physicality that engages in deep encounters between the physical body and a highly
    conceptual research approach. With a background in industrial design her work borrows
    from visual art practices and spatial qualities of creative making, questioning the body as a
    material whom exists relationship to space and time.

    Events

  • PuSh

    The Companies Focus (created by Julie Tenret) and Chaliwaté (consisting of Sandrine Heyraud and Sicaire Durieux) gathered around the collective writing of Dimanche. For a long time, the two companies had been following and appreciating the work of the other. It became apparent that they had a similar approach, a shared taste for unusual, visual, artisanal and poetic forms of theatre. The three artists decided to pool their talents to create a new form of writing combining gestural theatre, object theatre, puppetry, acting and video. This project is a continuation of their respective research. Since 2016, they have worked meticulously to create a unique, visual and poetic language that draws its inspiration from everyday life, the intimate, the “infra-ordinary”, to tap into the universal.

    Events

  • PuSh

    Born in Uruguay, Bettina Szabo is a dancer and choreographer who has been living in Montreal since 2007. She graduated from the Montreal School of Contemporary Dance in 2013 and obtained her BFA in Choreography at Concordia University in 2017. She participated in many workshops with renowned artists such as Marie Chouinard, Dave St Pierre, Hildegard De Vyust and Guy Cools. As a dancer, Bettina is interested in collaborative processes based on somatic explorations. Her creations are interdisciplinary marked by a profound collaboration with music and visual arts. She created Noir=+(2014) Sequelles (2016) Habitat (2020-2021) and is currently working on Cuña and Zeruki. Her work has been presented in Geneva, Lyon, Vienna, Montreal, Toronto, Mantes La Jolie, Ramallah and Bilbao.

    Events

  • PuSh

    Ray Young is an award winning trans-disciplinary performance artist, theatre maker, director and writer. Their practice exists at the boundaries of activism, queerness, race and neuro-diversity, holding space for those at the intersection of multiple identities, through collaboration and resistance to traditional form. In recent years Ray’s work has focussed on using their art to foster notions of rest, care and recovery, and what it means to both create and receive art as a neurodivergent person, considering a slower pace, and stepping outside of the capitalist ideologies of production. They are keen to explore how to build a practice that is more holistic both in terms of the whole self, and in drawing together art, nature and technology. Their work has been presented widely across the UK and internationally – including Portland, Geneva, Mexico City, Skopje and Vienna.

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  • PuSh

    Clayton Lee is a Canadian curator, producer, and performance artist. He is currently the Artistic Director of Fierce Festival in Birmingham, UK and, as part of the Living Room Collective, will be representing Canada at the 2025 Venice Biennale of Architecture.

    Events

  • PuSh

    CHÂU Kim-Sanh (she/her) is a choreographer-dancer, filmmaker, and cultural worker. Her stage creations have been presented at the MAI, Tangente, l’Arsenal, l’Écart (Canada), Krossing-Over (Vietnam), Performance Curator Initiatives (Philippines), and SIDance (Korea), among others. In 2023, she collaborated as a dancer with Ariane Dessaulles, Erin Hill, and compagnies Katie Ward, Carpe Diem /Emmanuel Jouthe. Châu has created her compagy MIDLAND in 2024, after 6 years with the company EQUIVOC’. She is also the artistic director of Studio 303 (Montreal) and holds two Master’s degrees in dance (2021) and finance (2011).

    Events

  • PuSh

    Renata Carvalho is the founder of Monart (National Movement of Trans Artists) and of the “Trans Representativity Manifesto”, which aims to include travesti/trans bodies in the spaces of art creation and calls for a break from the practice of Trans Fake/cisgender artists playing trans/travesti characters. As a transpologist (trans anthropologist), Renata has studied the travesti/trans body since 2007 when she became a volunteer prevention agent for STIs, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and hepatitis. As a prevention agent, she worked with travestis and transsexuals in prostitution–it was the same year of her travesti perception. Renata Carvalho places her travesti body as subject and object of research, debating/denouncing the absence of these bodies in art spaces.

  • PuSh

    CAMPO is a Belgium based arts centre with a diverse programme, ranging from theatre, dance and performance to festivals, neighbourhood kitchens and debates. They create performances which tour internationally, and support artists throughout their artistic process. CAMPO is like a toolbox for artists, a house that covers the whole spectrum of performing arts: research & development, production, touring & presentation.

    Events

  • PuSh

    The Compagnie Marie Chouinard has been welcomed on the international stage for over thirty years. The company’s performers brilliantly deliver the bold and unique works created by Marie Chouinard. Choreographic art is also explored across multiple platforms: interactive multimedia, cinema, photography, drawing, performance, and writing.

  • PuSh

    Mirko Guido (b. Italy) is a choreographer based in Aarhus, Denmark, and currently an in-house artist at Bora Bora – Dance and Visual Theatre. He holds a Master’s degree in New Performative Practices from DOCH/Stockholm University of the Arts, which deepened his exploration of contemporary choreography and interdisciplinary performance. A former dancer with the Cullberg Ballet, Mirko’s work spans theatres, art galleries, museums, and public spaces. His choreographic projects integrate an advanced physical practice with carefully curated visual, material, and spatial elements, all framed by intellectual rigor. Each piece serves as a philosophical exploration, negotiating the boundaries between body and space, identity and existence, and the intimate and the social. Mirko’s work has been presented at venues across Europe, with support from renowned artistic centers such as Summer Studios Rosas, Work Space Brussels, Uferstudios Berlin, and PACT Zollverein.

    Events

  • PuSh

    Whether on a frozen lake or in a long-term care facility, L’eau du bain travels to create, venturing outside the black box to explore new landscapes and characters. Based in Chelsea in the Outaouais region of Quebec, the company takes its raw material from reality and shapes it into enveloping universes in which fictional plots emerge and vanish. L’eau du bain’s installations and stage works enlist a theatrical and digital language in which sound and light are designed to connect with the inner self of the spectator, whether adult or child. With each creation, new rules of play are drawn up and new machines are invented. Their collective writing for the stage, which intertwines sound, play, light, and music from the outset, results in experimental theatre unlike anything else in Quebec and Canada. The company’s artists work with people of all ages and from all walks of life, embracing differences and breaking out of familiar territory. The experiences offered by L’eau du bain are more sensory than narrative, making them highly accessible.

    Events

  • PuSh

    Tim Etchells is an artist and a writer based in the UK whose work shifts between performance, visual art and fiction. Etchells has worked in a wide variety of contexts, notably as the leader of the world-renowned Sheffield-based performance group Forced Entertainment. Etchells’ work has been shown recently at Cubitt, Hayward Gallery and Bloomberg SPACE in London, at Turner Contemporary and Compton Verney in the UK, at Witte de With, Rotterdam, Netherlands Media Art Institute (Amsterdam) and MUHKA (Antwerp). Currently Professor of Performance & Writing at Lancaster University, he was a Tate / Live Art Development Agency ‘Legacy: Thinker In Residence’ Award winner in 2008, Artist of the City of Lisbon in 2014 and he received the prestigious Spalding Gray Award in February 2016.

    Bertrand Lesca and Nasi Voutas are a contemporary performance duo that met in 2015 and have since created an entire repertoire of shows in the midst of a period of national and international austerity. Their work, in turn, is stripped back and minimalist though it deals with complex ideas and emotions, lying somewhere between performance, dance and theatre. In each of their shows, they celebrate the encounter with the audience deconstructing the model of live performance. They always seek to create a sincere and intimate connection with the spectators. Their shows have a nostalgic feel of an old friendship that you didn’t know existed. Together they have performed their shows on the international stages of PuSh Festival (Canada), Festival de Otoño (Spain), Sarajevo Mess (Bosnia), Adelaide International Festival (Australia), InTeatro (Italy), Avignon Festival (France) as well as MiTsp (Brazil). In 2020, Bert and Nasi received the Forced Entertainment Award in memory of Huw Chadbourn, which celebrates the work of contemporary artists reinventing theatre and performance in new ways and for new audiences.

    Events

  • PuSh

    Carmela Sison (she/her) is a Filipina-Canadian artist living and working on the stolen territories of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish), and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh) Nations. A graduate of the University of Alberta’s BFA in Acting program, she has been working in theatre and film for 15 years. Select theatre credits include Kamila Sediego’s Homecoming (Urban Ink), Miss Bennett: Christmas in Pemberley (Arts Club), Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Merchant of Venice (Bard on the Beach), Much Ado About Nothing (Theatre Calgary), Are We There Yet?, Consent, Under Cover (Concrete Theatre), Cowboy Vs. Samurai (Chromatic Theatre). Beyond acting she has also taken on producing, arts administration, and coaching for young actors. Lasa ng Imperyo has been developed through Workshop Theatre Montreal’s Glassco Translation residency in Taddousac, Quebec and rice & beans theatre’s DBLPSK. She is so grateful for her friends’ and family’s love and support and to all the artist who have been a part of this process. Maraming salamat sa inyong lahat!

    Events

  • PuSh

    Founded in 1995, Theatre Conspiracy creates theatrical events that activate discussion on vital contemporary themes in the international conversation. The company is committed to enhancing a rich dialogue between our city, the province and the international community.

    Founded in 2009, Pandemic Theatre is a performing arts collective that creates, develops, and produces work from critical and underrepresented perspectives, that engage social and political themes.

    Events

    • SWIM (Jan 30-Feb 2)
  • PuSh

    A Wake of Vultures is an interdisciplinary collective featuring Nancy Tam, Daniel O’Shea, and Conor Wylie. Their work is marked by ritual, formal experimentation, perceptual trickery, and a mix of retro and new technologies. They blend lowbrow inspirations with high-concept ideas, creating surprising convergences and hybrid visions of the future.

  • PuSh

    Lizzie Borden (born 1950; some sources say 1958) is an American filmmaker, best known for her early independent films Born in Flames (1983) and Working Girls (1986).

    Events

  • PuSh

    Van Vogue Jam Arts Society (VVJ) is a Vancouver based non-profit organization helping to support and build the Ballroom scene within Vancouver, BC. Founded in 2017 by Ralph Escamillan, aka Up and Coming Legend OA Posh Gvasalia Basquiat, VVJ officially became a non-profit in British Columbia in November 2019. By facilitating by-donation/free and open-to-all weekly Ballroom education classes and Ballroom events, VVJ seeks to help build a culture of creativity, community, expression and accessibility and safety of Queer, Trans, Black, and People of Color (QTBIPOC) at its core.

    Events

  • PuSh

    Collectif d’Art-d’Art is a collective of young artists trained at the National Institute of Arts of Kinshasa, based at the M’eko Cultural Center located in the commune of Ngaliema in Kinshasa, a place where we have been creating and distributing since 2011. Co-directed by Michael Disanka and Christiana Tabaro, the Art-d’Art Collective advocates a state of mind open to all forms of artistic expression, which allows the souls of artists to shine through which animate each of its members, hence our credo: “the art in us, art for us, art through us.”

  • Established in 1996, the frank theatre company is a queer theatre group specializing in works that challenge Western, Eurocentric, and colonial perspectives. Using a collective approach to creation, the company uses the power of performance to subvert oppression and express the complexity of human experience. 

    Events

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