The 2015 PuSh Assembly (Part 2): Practice

January 26, 2015

Practice. It’s what you do everyday, to do what you love well.

In Outliers, author Malcolm Gladwell says that it takes roughly ten thousand hours of practice to achieve mastery in a field. By that measure as a programmer, if I consider all the hours I’ve spent in studios and theatres watching, thinking, writing and talking about performance, I reckon I’m about a quarter of the way to becoming a really great curator.

During the PuSh Assembly this week, we have two workshops for those who want to expand and deepen their practice.  Kate McIntosh‘s workshop Misuse/Displace is geared towards artists,  while Sherrie Johnson hosts a touring intensive for producers.

Participants for the workshops are diverse, from emerging, mid-career to the established; who identify as performers, producers and everything in between; and come from training ranging from dance, acrobat, improv, devised and script-based theatre, film directing. They all seek to learn new skills, gain perspective on their own practice as well as build new relationships.

This Misuse/Displace participant articulates the reason why we pursue practice:

…I am most interested in gathering new tools for developing work, engaging in conversation about what contributes to successful and considered installation, meeting an artist who has found a successful methodology for her work, as well as other Vancouver based artists with similar interests. The PuSh Festival is one of Vancouver’s key opportunities to gain an international perspective on performance making. I want be part of that, not only as an audience but as a practitioner.

Registrations for both Misuse/Displace: Strategies for installation and performance with Kate McIntosh and Touring Intensive with Sherrie Johnson and guest panel of international presenters close this week. Make sure you sign up to practice.

Joyce Rosario
Associate Curator