Podcasts

PuSh Play: New Episodes for 2024

On the stage, in the rehearsal studio, and now: in your podcast library! PuSh Play, our freshly-pressed podcast, is now online. Join Gabrielle Martin, PuSh’s Director of Programming, in conversation with PuSh artists who are pushing boundaries and playing with form.

New episodes weekly, wherever you listen to podcasts!

Season 2 (2024)

Gabrielle Martin chats with Sylvain Émard of Sylvain Émard Danse.

Listen to the trailer:

Listen to the episode:

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Amazon Music

Access the episode transcript here.

Show Notes

Gabrielle and Sylvain discuss:

How did your relationship with PuSh begin?
What was the impact and legacy of the show, Le Grand Continental?
How do you organize and prepare for a truly large project like Le Grand Continental?
How does line dancing fit into the origins and creation of the show?
How does a challenging project translate into a rewarding production for creators, crew and audiences?
What is the result of the fusion of popular and contemporary art?
How do you succeed in having the right representation of the community in the cast?
How is the context of PuSh and Vancouver significant to the work when brought to that community?
Why was the interaction of people in each cast of Le Grand Continental like a dream in its encapsulation of the world?
How has your artistic practice evolved over the past ten years?
Reconnecting with the sheer pleasure of dancing
What happens when the spectator is in the choreography, not outside?

About Sylvain Émard

A prolific and internationally respected artist, Sylvain Émard created his own dance company Sylvain Émard Danse in 1990, quickly establishing a reputation for a very original style. Highly theatrical at first, his work soon evolved into a more formal approach to dance. Ever since Ozone, Ozone (1987), his first solo, up to Rhapsodie (2022), he has been exploring the territory of human nature through the force and strength of the body. His repertoire now includes over thirty original pieces that have had a resounding impact all over the world.

Renowned for his refined style and precise movement, his presentation in 2009 of Le Grand Continental® at the Festival TransAmériques must have come to some as a surprise. Inspired by line dancing, this unique piece has featured 3,000 non-dancers in several performances across Canada, the United States, Mexico, South Korea, New Zealand, Chile, Germany and Austria, attracting some 125,000 spectators. In September 2017, Le Super Méga Continental boasted 375 dancers in Montréal to celebrate the city’s 375th anniversary in a monumental fashion.

Sylvain Émard’s unique style has led to invitations to work as guest choreographer in theatre, opera and cinema. These collaborations include his joining forces with Robert Lepage in 2005 to work on the opera 1984 by Lorin Maazel, presented namely at Covent Garden in London and at La Scala in Milan. At the behest of theater director René-Richard Cyr, Sylvain Émard is creating the choreographies for the musical Demain matin, Montréal m’attend at Théâtre du Nouveau Monde.

Sylvain Émard has received numerous prestigious awards, such as the Jean A. Chalmers Choreographic Award (1996). He is also co-founder of the Circuit-Est centre chorégraphique.

Land Acknowledgement

This conversation was recorded on the traditional territory of the Kanien’kehà:ka, a place which has long served as a site of meeting and exchange amongst many First Nations including the Kanien’kehá:ka of the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, Huron/Wendat, Abenaki, and Anishinaabeg.

It is our duty to establish right relations with the people on whose territories we live and work, and with the land itself.

Gabrielle Martin chats with Josh Martin, Artistic Co-Director of Company 605.

Listen to the trailer:

Listen to the episode:

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Amazon Music

Access the episode transcript here.

Show Notes

Gabrielle and Josh discuss:

Collision between separate people, bodies and ideas
How did the relationship with PuSh begin?
What does it mean to be in the middle zone between emerging and landed as an artistic group?
How do collect work together, like different tracks in an album, instead of streamline on a singular vision?
What was PuShOFF (now Hold on Let Go) and how did that process work?
How do we show what Vancouver is and what’s happening beneath the surface?
Making a piece of choreography that is in constant repetition
How do you cope with the difficulty of consistency and structured improvisation?
What does it mean to find the true core of a work?
Bringing together different approaches and interpretations
It’s crucial to feel that we can put ourselves in relationship to the rest of the world

About Josh Martin

Originally from Alberta, Josh Martin is a diversely trained dance artist with a career-to-date that has led him across North America and Europe, studying and performing in many genres along the way. As a performer and collaborator, he has worked with many other dance companies and independent choreographers such as Wen Wei Wang (Wen Wei Dance), Tiffany Tregarthen and David Raymond (Out Innerspace Dance Theatre), Dana Gingras (Animals of Distinction), Serge Bennathan (Les Productions Figlio), Amber Funk Barton (the response.), Vanessa Goodman (Action at a Distance), Justine A. Chambers, Helen Walkley, Martha Carter, Karen Jamieson, and as a past company member of Le Groupe Dance Lab in Ottawa under the direction of Peter Boneham. Josh’s independent work has been presented in Vancouver, Victoria, Calgary, Moncton, St. Johns, and through the National Arts Centre in Ottawa; as well as in the USA, Japan, and throughout Germany (Winning 1st Prize for Choreography at the Internatonal SoloTanz Festival in Stuttgart). Off the stage, he serves as Vice-Chair of The Dance Centre’s Board of Directors and Chair of its Artistic Advisory Committee. Josh was the recipient of Vancouver’s 2013 Mayor’s Arts Award – Emerging Dance Category.

Land Acknowledgement

This conversation was recorded on the unceded, stolen and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish Peoples: the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), colonially known as Vancouver.

It is our duty to establish right relations with the people on whose territories we live and work, and with the land itself.

Gabrielle Martin chats with Vancouver-based playwright, artistic director and author Marcus Youssef.

Listen to the trailer:

Listen to the episode:

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Amazon Music

Access the episode transcript here.

Show Notes

Gabrielle and Marcus discuss:

Questions of difference, belonging and dissent
Dismantling systems of oppression
Crime and Punishment in 2005
How did your relationship with PuSh start?
How to bring vastly different perspectives, styles, forms, organizations, communities, agendas, etc. together in a united festival of theatre
How to grow a “scene” like PuSh has become?
Why discussing the piece, “My Name is Rachel Corrie”, is difficult today
How has social media changed the reception of theatre and the shaping of controversy?
How did PuSh create the place for complicated, provocative work?
How did the process of “Winners and Losers” unfold?
What was your own trajectory in the theatre?
Choosing collaboration over competition in the Vancouver indie scene

About Marcus Youssef

Marcus’ dozen or so plays, some of which were co-written with friends and colleagues, include Winners and Losers, Leftovers, Jabber, How Has My Love Affected You?, Ali & Ali and the aXes of Evil, Everyone, 3299: Forms in Order, Adrift, Peter Panties, Chloe’s Choice and A Line in the Sand. Though widely varied in terms of style and content, they often some way investigate fundamental questions of difference or “otherness.” They have been performed at theatres and festivals (and school gyms) across Canada, the US, Australia and Europe, including: the Dublin Theatre Festival, Soho Rep (Off-Broadway), Festival Trans Ameriques, PuSh Festival (four times), Foreign Affairs (Berlin), the Brighton Festival (UK), LOKAL (Reykjavik), the Vancouver Art Gallery, Canadian Stage, Wooly Mammoth and the Kennedy Centre (Washington, DC), Tarragon, Factory, the Caravan Farm Theatre, the Arts Club, the Citadel, Noorderzon (Netherlands), Ca Foscari (Venice), Brno Festival (Czech), Aarhus Festival (Denmark), On the Boards (Seattle) the Magnetic North Festival (five times), and many others.

Marcus’ work has been translated into multiple languages and is published by both Talonbooks and Playwrights Canada Press. He is the recipient of more than a dozen national and international awards, including the Chalmer’s Canadian Play Award, the Rio-Tinto Alcan Performing Arts Award, the Seattle Times Footlight Award, the Vancouver Critics’ Innovation Award (three times), a Governor General’s Award nomination, as well as multiple local awards and nominations in Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal. He has been playwright in residence at the Banff Centre, the National Theatre School, Neworld, and Touchstone Theatre. Currently Marcus is an editorial advisor to Canadian Theatre Review, Senior Playwright in Residence at the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity, and a Canadian Fellow to the International Society of Performing Arts.

Also a writer in other forms, Marcus’ essays, journalism and fiction have appeared in Vancouver Magazine, the Vancouver Sun, Grain, Ricepaper, This Magazine, CTR, the Georgia Straight, The Tyee, on numerous blogs and web magazines and many programs on CBC Radio and TV.

Also well-known in Vancouver as a cultural advocate, Marcus has been artistic director of one of the city’s best-known indie producing companies, Neworld Theatre, since 2005. He was the inaugural chair of Vancouver’s Arts and Culture Policy Council, co-chaired the Vancouver municipal political party the Coalition of Progressive Electors. In 2009, Marcus co-founded of Progress Lab 1422, a 6,000 s.f., collaboratively managed rehearsal and production hub in East Vancouver shared by Neworld and three other established independent companies.

Gabrielle Martin chats with Canadian singer-songwriter and longtime PuSh collaborator, Veda Hille.

Listen to the trailer:

Listen to the episode:

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Amazon Music

Access the episode transcript here.

Show Notes

Gabrielle and Veda discuss:

How did the relationship with PuSh begin in 2007?
How did Theatre Replacement and Neworld help with this introduction?
How does a company become a true ensemble over time?
How did Twenty Minute Musicals come to be?
How to be a theatre artist as well as a musician?
What is the cultural context of PuSh, and what is its significance to the city?
What was it like to curate Club PuSh?

About Veda Hille

Veda Hille is a Vancouver musician, composer, theatre maker, and performer. She writes songs, makes records, co-writes musicals, collaborates in devised theatre, and fulfills other interesting assignments as they arise. Veda performs in a wide of array of places, alone or with bands, ensembles, symphonies, and casts. Her career spans 30 years of working in Canada and abroad, and shows no sign of flagging.

Veda spent a few formative years in music school and art school in Vancouver, laying the groundwork for a pretty elusive sense of genre. Her first album, an independent cassette, came out in 1991. She spent the rest of that decade working primarily as a recording and touring indie art-rock artist, releasing 6 more critically revered albums and travelling extensively in North America, Europe, and the UK. In the 90s she also composed scores and played live with many dance works, as well as beginning to explore forms such as song cycles and more experimental production.

In the early aughts Veda began working in theatre in Vancouver, while still continuing to record and tour. At first she considered theatre to be a side hustle, but soon it became clear that she was spending most of her time in rehearsal halls working on devised theatre, new opera, and contemporary musicals. All that said, Veda’s albums continue to be the core of her practice; she has made more than twenty full length recordings. Some are cast recordings from theatre work, and others are collections of songs written around a theme or a time in her life.

Veda’s work circles around many recurring interests: above all she writes about the natural world, amazement and the unknown, and the intricacies of human relationships. She strives for an ecstatic connection through weird detail, the universe visible through a microscope. All fancy language aside though, Veda Hille chases down the songs that are in her head and does her best to deliver them to the world, beautifully.

Land Acknowledgement

It is our duty to establish right relations with the people on whose territories we live and work, and with the land itself.

Gabrielle Martin chats with David Pay, Artistic Director of Vancouver’s Music on Main.

Listen to the trailer:

Listen to the episode:

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Amazon Music

Access the episode transcript here.

Show Notes

Gabrielle and David discuss:

How did David’s relationship with Push start and develop over the years?
How has Vancouver changed over the years?
“Terminal City Soundscape” in 2011: how did this project get realized for PuSh?
Importance of improvisation to Music on Main’s work
Power of aesthetic beauty in conjunction with the beauty of the city
How did PuSh give Music on Main the confidence and audience to produce its kind of music?
What did it mean to produce work through Covid?
What was David’s role in past productions beyond working as curator?
What does it mean to be an artistic and creative producer of music?
How does David value the intersection of different audiences and disciplines?
How has the contemporary and classical world changed since the inception of Music on Main?
How do arts organizations collaborate as members of larger initiatives?
Designing communal spaces for creative work
Why has Music on Main continued to partner with PuSh over the years? Why does it remain interesting?
How do you properly value the composer in music?
What is the difference between multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary?

About David Pay

Dave is Music on Main’s founder and Artistic Director, earning a reputation as one of today’s leading-edge concert programmers. He is a frequent curator and speaker at conferences and festivals around the world and served as Artistic Director of ISCM World New Music Days 2017, the largest new music festival in Canada’s history.

About Music on Main

At a Music on Main concert, there’s always great musicians and interesting, engaging music. And there’s always the chance to make new friends, meet the artists, and escape from your to-do list for an hour or two.

Music on Main has produced more than 700 events featuring in excess of 1,800 musicians and 130 world premieres at Heritage Hall on Main Street, the now-closed Cellar Restaurant, the Fox Cabaret, the Jazz Club in Kitsilano, and venues throughout Metro Vancouver. The music has touched the souls of thousands of listeners, and we’ve helped artists from around the world connect with each other, and with Vancouver audiences.

In 2010 we launched the annual Modulus Festival, which “provides western Canada with one of the finest windows onto the post-classical scene” (Gramophone Magazine). In 2017, we co-hosted the ISCM World New Music Days 2017.

Our events take place in Vancouver’s most vibrant neighbourhoods. The Main Street Series happens at Heritage Hall, The Fox Cabaret, and other intimate spaces located in the heart of the Mount Pleasant neighbourhood, in East Vancouver. Other events take place in unexpected and fun venues throughout Metro Vancouver.

At Music on Main, you’re always welcome.

Land Acknowledgement

It is our duty to establish right relations with the people on whose territories we live and work, and with the land itself.

Gabrielle Martin chats with Maiko Yamamoto and James Long, co-founders of Vancouver’s Theatre Replacement.

Listen to the trailer:

Listen to the episode:

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Amazon Music

Access the episode transcript here.

Show Notes

Gabrielle, Maiko and James discuss:

How did Norman Armour support the company, which started the same year that PuSh started its first series in 2003?
How did Theatre Replacement emerge from Boca del Lupo?
What are “Chamber Works”?
How did crossing disciplines become key to the early work?
How did finding a bunch of photo albums in a back alley lead to the creation of new work (Clark and I Somewhere in Connecticut), and potentially stop it with a lawsuit?
How amorphous nostalgia and memory can be
How using found material in theatre has changed over the years
How do you frame practice when you follow impulse creatively?
How does art intersect with the city?
Do you still have nerves before a premiere?
How has Theatre Replacement grown beyond the two co-founders?
The ideas that were interesting at the beginning remain so
How will things evolve over the next 5-10 years in the city?

About Maiko Yamamoto

Maiko Yamamoto is a Vancouver-based artist who creates new, experimental and intercultural works of performance. Many of these works are built through a career-long practice of collaboration and include theatre projects, public art works, and performance installations.

In 2003, Maiko co-founded the Vancouver-based performance company, Theatre Replacement. For TR she has created over 20 new works, many of which have toured to festivals and venues around the world. These include: BIOBOXES: Artifiacting Human Experience, Yu-Fo, Train, Sexual Practices of the Japanese, Dress me up in your love, Town Choir, MINE and Best Life. She also curates and produces HOLD ON LET GO (formerly PushOFF), and in 2018 began a new project-based artist residency program for experimental makers, COLLIDER.

In addition, Maiko teaches performance and mentors artists for a range of different companies and organizations, both in Canada and abroad. She has helped artists to develop new work through programs like MAKE, a residency initiative spearheaded by 4 arts organizations in Ireland, the National Theatre School of Canada’s Acting Program, Action Hero’s You Can Be My Wingman residency, and why not theatre’s ThisGen Fellowship. She also occasionally works as a curator and writes about performance for a variety of publications.

She holds a BFA in Theatre from Simon Fraser University’s School for the Contemporary Arts and a Masters of Applied Arts in Visual Art from Emily Carr University of Art + Design. She’s currently working on a new work with longtime collaborator and friend, Veda Hille.

Find out more about Maiko at: thelocalbubble.org

About James Long

James Long is a director, actor, writer and teacher whose creative practice occurs in a wide variety of interdisciplinary and collaborative contexts, including as a co-founding Artistic Director of Theatre Replacement (2003-2022) and as an independent artist working in live performance, community engaged practice and public art.

James’s work has been presented across North America, Europe and Asia and includes Weetube, Footnote Number 12, Clark and I Somewhere in Connecticut, Town Criers, BioBoxes: Artifacting Human Experience, King Arthur’s Knight, How to Disappear Completely, Morko, Winners and Losers and others. In 2019, he and Maiko Yamamoto were awarded the Siminovitch prize for their work at Theatre Replacement and as freelance artists, and in 2016 he and Marcus Youssef were nominated for a Governor General’s Award for playwriting for Winners and Losers.

Long graduated from Simon Fraser University’s Theatre Program in 2000 and received a Master’s in Urban Studies in 2018. He serves as the president of the organization that stewards Vancouver’s Russian Hall, a multi-purpose performance and gathering space, and is an assistant professor in Theatre and Performance at SFU’s School of Contemporary Arts.

Land Acknowledgement

It is our duty to establish right relations with the people on whose territories we live and work, and with the land itself.

Gabrielle Martin chats with Tim Carlson, co-founder of Vancouver’s Theatre Conspiracy.

Listen to the trailer:

Listen to the full episode:

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Amazon Music

Access the episode transcript here.

Show Notes

Gabrielle and Tim discuss:

How did the relationship with PuSh begin?
What was the “PuSh aesthetic” in the early days?
How did Theatre Conspiracy’s practice and questions evolve over the years?
How did the surge of creative and entrepreneurial energy in 1990s Vancouver translate into an emerging performing arts scene?
What kind of work was created for the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver?
How did the prospect and need for collaboration emerge with Theatre Conspiracy?
Norman Armour said that ““The best work in the world should be coming here”. How did that start happening?
What about the larger economics (ie, rent, bills) and their effect on the theatre scene?

About Tim Carlson

Tim Carlson is a playwright, songwriter, journalist who co-founded Theatre Conspiracy and served as artistic producer from 2008 to 2022. He led the creation of Foreign Radical, which won the 2015 Jessie Award Critics Choice Innovation prize and a 2017 Edinburgh Fringe First Award. The script was recently published in Canadian Theatre Review. Most recent show is the podcast series, Isolation Suite, and he is currently writing The Dynamics, set to premiere in the 2024/’25 season.

Carlson’s documentary play, Victim Impact, premiered at The Cultch in Vancouver in June 2018. He also co-created, wrote the music for, and performed in Tanya Marquardt’s Stray, seen at The Tank in New York and SummerWorks in Toronto in 2018, as well as Vancouver in 2019. He was researcher/ interviewer for Berlin-based Rimini Protokoll’s latest show, Top Secret International, seen at the 2017 Under the Radar Festival in New York as well as researcher/ dramaturg for Best Before (Rimini Protokoll, @ PuSh 2010) and 100% Vancouver (Rimini Protokoll / Theatre Replacement, @ PuSh 2011).

The 2013 show Extraction, won the Rio Tinto Alcan Award, Canada’s largest prize for new play development. His play Omniscience (Talonbooks, 2007) was produced in Vancouver, Berlin, Lisbon and Chicago. He founded Club PuSh with the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival in Vancouver and served as co-curator along with Veda Hille and Norman Armour from 2009 to 2016.

As a journalist, he worked on staff at the Halifax Daily News, Vancouver Sun and Georgia Straight. He holds an English degree from University of Regina, a journalism degree from University of King’s College, Halifax, and a MFA in Creative Writing from the University of British Columbia.

Contact Tim Carlson at carlson@conspiracy.ca

Land Acknowledgement

It is our duty to establish right relations with the people on whose territories we live and work, and with the land itself.

Gabrielle Martin chats with David Hudgins and Kevin Kerr, co-founders of Vancouver’s Electric Company Theatre.

Listen to the trailer:

Listen to the full episode:

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Amazon Music

Access the episode transcript here.

Show Notes

Gabrielle, David and Kevin discuss:

The beginnings of Electric Company Theatre and its early collective model
Why the fledgling theatre company had to “bite the bull by the horns”
The function of interchangeable roles in the creative process
The impetus behind early ECT shows at the PuSh Festival, such as Studies in Motion and Palace Grand
The rich physical-visual landscape that plays a role from inception of piece, and in dialogue with the text
How development of a company and its work corresponds to the process of aging
What’s it like when opening night is the same as your baby’s due date?

About David Hudgins

David Hudgins is a founder of the internationally acclaimed Electric Company Theatre in Vancouver. After more than two decades with this innovative company he has won numerous Jessie Awards. David received his BA Honours in English Literature at McGill University, a diploma in Acting from Studio 58 and a PDP Diploma in Education from Simon Fraser University. He teaches acting at Studio 58 and has directed nine shows there, including two Ovation-Award winning productions: Guys & Dolls (2007) and Spring Awakening (2012). The homegrown musical The Park (2010) which he directed and helped to dramaturge, garnered five nominations. His 5-year orchestral/physical-theatre hybrid experiment odyssey called Flee, with composer Peggy Lee, found its legs at the Fox Cabaret with Electric Company and Studio 58 in 2016. He has written song lyrics for a variety of Hollywood movies. David is also a father, musician and sailor.

About Kevin Kerr

Kevin Kerr is a playwright and founding member of Vancouver’s Electric Company Theatre with whom he’s collaborated on the creation of more than a dozen full-length productions, including Brilliant!, Studies in Motion and Tear the Curtain!

He received the 2002 Governor General’s Literary Award for his play Unity (1918), which has been produced more than 100 times across Canada and around the world. Other plays include Skydive, Spine (both for Realwheels Theatre), The Remittance Man (Sunshine Theatre), Secret World of Og (Carousel Theatre for Young People), and The Night’s Mare (Caravan Farm Theatre). He also co-wrote the feature film adaptation of The Score for CBC Television (Screen Siren Productions) and collaborated with Stan Douglas on his interactive immersive National Film Board installation Circa 1948. His latest project is a suite of virtual reality Installations that accompany Electric Company Theatre’s newest production, The Full Light of Day.

Kevin joined the University of Victoria’s Department of Writing in 2012. He currently teaches playwriting and screenwriting, with a creative focus on cinematic/theatre hybrids, collaborative creation, site-specific theatre and interactive narratives.

Land Acknowledgement

It is our duty to establish right relations with the people on whose territories we live and work, and with the land itself.

Show Transcript

A complete transcript of this episode will be available soon.

Gabrielle chats with Sherry J. Yoon and Jay Dodge, Artistic Directors of Boca del Lupo, about their early productions at the PuSh Festival from 2006, and how they’ve witnessed change over the years.

Listen to the trailer:

Listen to the full episode:

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Amazon Music

Access the episode transcript here.

Show Notes

Gabrielle Martin, Sherry and Jay discuss:

Collaboration as a core tenet of creativity
Collision and confluence of difference
Norman Armour’s early influence and guidance of the work
How Vancouver’s performing arts scene was dynamic at the time and has evolved since
How Boca del Lupo’s 2006 show, “The Perfectionist,” was envisioned and created
The artistic impetus for Boca’s later shows, such as “My Dad, My Dog”
The power and importance of international collaboration
How has the artistic practice evolved over the years, and what has remained consistent?
What is the right container or shape for the content you want to show?
How has the cultural context of PuSh changed over the years?
What makes the PuSh Festival about relationships, not just transactions?

About Boca del Lupo

Led by Artistic Directors Sherry J. Yoon and Jay Dodge.

Sherry J. Yoon is a co-creator and director of the company’s original productions and Jay Dodge’s writing, performances and designs are central in Boca del Lupo’s shows. During the tenure of the pair, the company has received numerous awards including Jessies for Outstanding Design, Outstanding Production, Significant Artistic Achievement and Outstanding Performance; the Critic’s Choice Award for Innovation; and the Alcan Performing Arts Award.

For Boca del Lupo, collaboration is the core tenet of our creativity. Working across cultures and disciplines our productions are energized by the collision and confluence of difference. Since our inception in 1996, our artistic focus has been one that explores cultural hybridity and interdisciplinary through consciously convening artists from diverse backgrounds and giving them voice within the work through our established processes. We also have a well-established track record in touring, a strong level of engagement with our professional arts services organizations and meaningful outreach into the community. We proudly take our place as a theatre company that relentlessly expands creative possibilities through unprecedented innovations and partnerships with a repertoire that includes 60 original creations and unique presentations.

Boca del Lupo has a foundation in theatre but has evolved into a multi-disciplinary company often partnering with artists and organization that are beyond the conventional boundaries of our form and our sector.

About Sherry J. Yoon

Sherry J. Yoon, Artistic Director of Boca del Lupo, is a theatre creator and director with a passion for creating new performances through collaborative pursuits. With Boca del Lupo, Sherry has co-created more than 35 productions, including: Fall Away Home, an intergenerational site-specific production in the forest of Stanley Park; Photog, a large-scale show that toured across Canada and was created with interviews from prominent conflict photographers; and You Are It, as part of the Silver commissions from the Arts Club Theatre that investigates the complex dynamics between female friendships. During Sherry’s tenure, the company has received numerous awards, including the Rio Tinto Alcan Performing Arts Award, and Jessie Awards for Outstanding Production, Design, Actor, Ensemble, as well as the Critic’s Choice Innovation Award. Her productions have toured festivals and venues across Canada, Europe and Mexico. She co-created an online exhibition of Expedition, an iterative collaboration between Boca del Lupo and the Performance Corporation, and working on Net Zero, an interactive theatre installation about climate change that involves the audience charging a battery with a stationary bicycle. She is also a freelance director who has worked at the Richmond Gateway Theatre, Bard on the Beach, the Vancouver International Children’s Festival and at the National Arts Centre in Ottawa Canada.

About Jay Dodge

The Artistic Producer of Boca del Lupo since 2001, Jay Dodge was also part of the founding collective in 1996. During his tenure, the company has won the peer-assessed Alcan Performing Arts Award, and several Jesse Richardson Theatre Awards including seven nominations for the Critic’s Choice Award for Innovation and the Patrick O’Neill Award for best anthology with Plays2Perform@Home. Jay is a passionate set and video designer with Jessie Richardson Awards in both of those categories as well as a published playwright including a contribution to Boca del Lupo’s Red Phone project. His artistry is one of innovation and daring and his one man show, PHOTOG. featured interactive video, stunt rigging and verbatim text, touring to World Stage, Prismatic, Festival Trans Amerique and PuSh. Currently serving on the national board of the Professional Association of Canadian Theatres, Jay also has special interest in creative space making including as co-founder of celebrated colocation space PL1422, co-founder of the Granville Island Theatre District, and as project consultant for Video In/Video Out and Left of Main.

Land Acknowledgement

It is our duty to establish right relations with the people on whose territories we live and work, and with the land itself.

Show Transcript

A complete transcript of this episode will be available soon.

Gabrielle chats about the early beginnings of PuSh with Camyar Chaichian, who helped create one of the shows from the first festival in 2005.

Listen to the trailer:

Listen to the full episode:

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Amazon Music

Access the episode transcript here.

Gabrielle Martin and Camyar Chaichian (Neworld) talk about:

Norman Armour’s influence in developing both PuSh and Vancouver’s theatre scene
The veritable artistic renaissance occurring in Vancouver at the time
PuSh’s role as a megaphone for local voices and artists, as well as a touchstone that brought international work to the city
How Camyar’s 2005 show, Crime and Punishment, was created with PuSh alongside from concept to realization
The artistic struggle of maintaining a core, original vision and how this was always treated as a priority
How we forget the past at our own peril
How art, as well as those who make it, must rise from the ashes and create something from nothing

About Camyar Chaichian

Actor, director, writer and producer, born in 1968 in Iran, and raised there and in England and the United States. His family moved to North Vancouver British Columbia in 1980, when he was 11 years old. He graduated from the University of British Columbia (Acting, 1992; M.F.A., 2007), and currently lives in Vancouver.

In 1993 he founded Neworld Theatre in Vancouver which produced the site specific collective Devil Box Cabaret (1999), based on Four Boxes by Iranian author Bahram Beyzaee; and an adaptation of Crime and Punishment by James Fagan Tait; and the cult hit that propelled its own company, The Leaky Heaven Circus (1999-2002). He served as Artistic Producer at Neworld until 2007.

He wrote and performed in I Am Your Spy: A Day In The Life of Mordechai Vanunu with Rumble Theatre. This production toured to Calgary, Montreal, and Toronto in January, 2001. His adaptation of Quest, Trail of Mystic Poets, Rummi and Attar was produced at the Vancouver East Cultural Centre. He co-authored Hurl Hemmhorage and Heal, the Nurses Musical, which toured for the British Columbia Nurses Union.

His other plays include The Adventures of Ali & Ali and the Axes of Evil (Neworld Theatre and Cahoots Theatre Projects 2004) created with Guillermo Verdecchia and Marcus Youssef, published by Talonbooks; The Asylum of the Universe (Neworld Theatre 2003), published in Canadian Theatre Review 116 (Fall 2003); and Ali & Ali: The Deportation Hearings with Verdecchia and Youssef (Neworld 2010).

He returned to Neworld in 2016 for the twentieth anniversary of the theatre with a production entitled “Doost” (which means “friend” in Persian) that combines narrative, music and poetry to express his Sufi faith and its concepts of friendship and community.

In April 2019, his adaptation of Shakespeare’s Richard III, entitled King Richard and His Women, was performed at Seven Tyrants Theatre, with Chai as director and scenographer. As Richard lies dying on the battlefield, he is haunted by the women he has loved, hated, and destroyed.

Camyar Chai has also written two librettos, Rosa and Elijah’s Kite for Tapestry New Opera in Toronto. For the CBC he has written and broadcast sketches and commentaries. He has received a Jessie Richardson Awards for his writing.

As a director, he has worked for New Works, Touchstone Theatre, La Luna Productions and the Solo Collective Theatre. He received The Ray Michael Award for Most Promising New Director in 1999.

As an actor, he has worked for many Canadian companies including Vancouver Playhouse, Arts Club Theatre, Touchstone Theatre, Rumble Productions and Green Thumb Theatre for Young People, as well as appearing in many film and television productions. He has received a Jessie Richardson Award for his acting.

Camyar Chai is currently Program Manager, Community Cultural Development at the City of Richmond.

Land Acknowledgement

It is our duty to establish right relations with the people on whose territories we live and work, and with the land itself.

Show Transcript

A complete transcript of this episode will be available soon.

Season 1 (2023-24)

2022 Industry Series Panel Discussions

The 2022 PuSh International Performing Arts Festival Industry Series ran from February 2-6, 2022, and included panel and round table discussions, curated pitches, walks with local artists, artist talks and select studio showings. It highlighted touring from an Indigenous perspective, multilingual creation, experiments in concept touring, Indigenous performing arts protocols, and new curatorial perspectives.

PuSh Walks

An innovation for these times of COVID, and an invitation: walk safely with artists through the urban spaces that have given them inspiration. The artists have recorded audio for walks of 1-2 km, with given starting and ending points; armed with a pair of headphones, audiences can journey through the city at a time of their choosing, experiencing the terrain from fresh perspectives.

Think of it as a form of interior urban renewal, with streets, parks, and other stretches of land given new dimensions and imbued with new meanings. It’s a chance to hear the artists’ voices, directly and without mediation; it’s also a way to connect people across time and space, on the common grounds of geography, history, and art.

Latest releases

Sound in Space – A PuSh Walk with Ruby Singh and Gabrielle Martin

Listen in while old friends, interdisciplinary artist and composer Ruby Singh, and PuSh’s director of Programming Gabrielle Martin, stroll around their old East Van stomping grounds at Trout Lake.

The conversation begins with revelations about the youthful duo meeting at a poetry slam; a friendship which extended into adventures in fire dancing at the lost and lamented Illuminares Festival – one of the most popular festivals in Vancouver, until its untimely demise in 2013. This eclectic arts background and love of performing has informed both Singh and Martin’s careers since. As they traverse the muddy path around the lake on this winter walk, Singh talks about his interdisciplinary work, ambi-sonic installations and the inception and evolution of his work Vox.Infold into the compelling and exhilarating sound production it is today.

PuSh Festival presents Vox.Infold from January 20-30 at Lobe Studio.

A Community Evolves: A PuSh Walk with Gabrielle Martin and James Long from Theatre Replacement

In a Brave the weather alongside PuSh’s Gabrielle Martin and Theatre Replacement’s James Long as they defy the elements on a stormy day to take a stroll around historic Strathcona; or have a listen to this fascinating conversation from your sofa, either way, it’s an interesting ride.

Beginning at the Russian Hall, James recounts the backstory behind the Soviet film reels that were discovered in an old closet next to the Russian language classroom which now serves as the Theatre Replacement office and studio. These films, sent between the 1950s and the 70s, are an upbeat promotional campaign for The Soviet Union intended to lure back Russians who had fled Stalin, and they are the inspiration for Theatre Replacement’s newest work, Do you mind if I sit here? Other topics include the gentrification and cultural history of the neighbourhood, explored while walking in some very Vancouver weather.

Listen now on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. Explore the entire PuSh Walks series.

Credits

For PuSh Festival:

PODCAST PRODUCER Ashley Daniel Foot

More walks

In a journey that begins on Victoria Drive, Anais West uses story and song to transport you to her mother’s homeland, Poland. From a punk concert in Praga to the bloc apartments of Communist Gdansk, she searches for queer belonging and family history. The through-line is a protest anthem, “Rota,” written by lesbian Polish poet Maria Konopnicka and then re-appropriated through the centuries by revolutionaries, nationalists, and now queer punks.

The songs and narration are part of Underground Absolute Fiction, a docu-fantasy film Anais has been writing and developing with the support of the Canada Council, the BC Arts Council, the frank theatre, Rumble Theatre and the Queer Arts Festival.

View KhattieQ’s website here.

Available on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Listen now on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts. Explore the entire PuSh Walks series.

Credits

Text by Anais West Performed by Anais West and Julia Siedlanowska

Musical credits:

“Przemoc, twoja przemoc”
Vocals: Julia Siedlanowska
Guitar & Back Up Vocals: Sara Vickruck
Keyboard & Back Up Vocals: Claire Love Wilson
Drums & Music Direction: khattieQ
Lyrics by Anais West
Translation by Łukasz Wojtysko
Arrangement by Sara Vickruck
Recording, Mixing and Mastering: Piotr Wieczorek
Adapted by Sara Vickruck, khattieQ, Julia Siedlanowska & Claire Love Wilson
from the folk song “Biedoż moja, biedo,” author unknown.

“Rota”
Sung by Julia Siedlanowska|
Written by Maria Konopnicka
Composed by Feliks Nowowiejski

Audio credits:

“【4K】Walk in Warsaw – Nowy Swiat and Chmielna Street | Warszawa Spacer | ASMR Street Sound” by Penguin Walk
“Aresztowanie Margot ze Stop Bzdurom i przemoc policji wobec osób demonstrujących” by Michał Szymanderski-Pastryk
“Marsz Równości 2019 w Białymstoku – relacja” by B K
“Old Radio Tuning into AM/FM Stations Sound Effect Free High Quality Sound FX” by Free High Quality Sound FX

For PuSh Festival:

AUDIO EDITING Ashley Daniel Foot PRODUCER Ben Lange

Podcasts

PuSh Play: New Episodes for 2024

Season 2 (2024)

Episode 29: Dancing in the Rain (2015) | Sept 17

Episode 28: Arriving while Happening (2014) | Sept 10

Episode 27: Collaboration over Competition (2013) | Sept 3

Episode 26: Local is International (2012) | Aug 29

Episode 25: How to Curate Partnership (2011) | Aug 27

Episode 24: The Ethos of Coexistence (2010) | Aug 13

Episode 23: Emergence (2009) | Aug 9

Episode 22: The Quest (2008) | (Jul 30)

Episode 20: Collaboration and Collision (2006) | (Jul 16)

Show Notes

About Boca del Lupo

About Sherry J. Yoon

About Jay Dodge

Land Acknowledgement

Show Transcript

Episode 19: The Beginning of PuSh (Jul 9)

About Camyar Chaichian

Land Acknowledgement

Show Transcript

Season 1 (2023-24)

Episode 18: Rock Climbing and Vertical Dance (Jan 15)

Episode 17: NOMADA (Jan 11)

Episode 16: The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes (Jan 8)

Episode 15: DARKMATTER (Jan 4)

Episode 14: Deciphers (Dec 28)

Episode 13: L’Amour telle une cathédrale ensevelie (Dec 21)

Episode 12: Inheritances (Dec 18)

Episode 11: BLOT (Dec 14)

Episode 10: because i love the diversity (this micro attitude, we all have it) (Dec 11)

Episode 9: Same Difference (Dec 7)

Episode 8: Dear Laila (Dec 4)

Episode 7: asses.masses (Nov 30)

Episode 6: LORENZO (Nov 27)

Episode 5: Returns (Nov 23)

Episode 4: Sound of the Beast (Nov 20)

Episode 3: PLI (Nov 16)

Episode 2: The Runner (Nov 13)

Episode 1: Ramanenjana (Nov 9)

2022 Industry Series Panel Discussions

Roundtable Discussions

Creative Producing with Rob Thomson, Bek Berger, and Anthony Gray

New Curatorial Perspectives; Supporting Artistic Practice

Multilingual Creation; its dramaturgy and implications

Process Production and Touring

PuSh Walks

Singing at Sen̓áḵw: An audio walk with Xwechtaal and Claire Love Wilson

Underground Absolute Fiction: a musical wandering between East Van and Poland, memory and fantasy

Here, now, and grateful: a walk through Pacific Spirit Regional Park with KhattieQ

Night Walk of Abstraction

Ulksen Spirit: a westward walking sonic experience with Jeanette Kotowich

Finding Delight in Heartbreak: An audio walk with Jesse Del Fierro

DTES suite / burials underfoot — a furious journey with Q Lawrence

“Of peanuts and screws”, an audio walk with Njo Kong Kie

Procession to New Town: an audio walk through Vancouver’s Chinatown

Graveyards and Gardens: A walk through Mountain View Cemetery and the back alleys of Massachusetts

Support the work of leading artists