Stir Cheat Sheet: 5 shows to startle and spellbind at PuSh International Performing Arts Festival

Productions that “push” forms include dance works that play with props and stereotypes, as well as ethereal odes to nature and the northern lights

By Janet Smith

(Left to right) Cherish Menzo in Jezebel (photo by Eva Würdinger), Plastic Orchid Factory’s Catching Up to the Future of Our Past (photo by David Cooper).

FOR ITS LOYAL FANS, the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival has long been that rare place to find works that carry an element of surprise—shows that startle, challenge, and defy expectations.

There’s a strong lineup this year, from genre-breaking danceworks to ethereal cinematic concerts. Note that at least one big draw—Action at a Distance’s WAIL—is already sold out, and PuSh has just added another show for Creepy Boys’ and So.Glad Arts’ SLUGS because of demand.

Here are five shows that “push” forms as much as they will push your understanding of the world.

#1

Jezebel

January 22 and 23 at the Scotiabank Dance Centre

In the late 1990s, hypersexualized, twerking “hip-hop honeys” bounced and pumped their way across a wave of male rap-star music videos. In her provocative dance work Jezebel, Dutch performer Cherish Menzo deconstructs those problematic portrayals of Black women and asserts a strong, new alternative—complete with exaggerated fake nails, PVC shorts, heavy gold chains, and faux-fur jacket. The artist underlays it all with an unsettling, industrial-rumble score and live-camera projections that zoom in threateningly on her glitter-caked lips and metallic-grill teeth.

Kiuryaq

#2

Kiuryaq

January 28 at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts

“Kiuryaq” means “northern lights” in Inuvialuktun—and in this multimedia theatre work built over a four-year collaboration between artists from Canada, Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland), and Sápmi (Norway), you’ll come to see them through the eyes of Northern peoples who live surrounded by them each winter. Their stories are told amid video projections of the aurora borealis, in a play centred on a girl who is being raised by her grandparents in the Canadian Arctic. It’s a timely shift in perspective as the region becomes a focus of power plays by Trump America and other world leaders. And don’t miss the preshow artist talk with co-creators Reneltta Arluk and Rawdna Carita Eira, with a reception hosted by the Royal Norwegian Embassy.

Remember that time we met in the future? Photo by Robin P. Gould

#3

Remember that time we met in the future?

January 28 and 29 at the SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts

As one of the country’s most fearless dance artists, Oji-Cree choreographer Lara Kramer returns with a work for four dancers, playing, as ever, with salvaged materials and dreamlike, non-linear time and space. The artist has long used powerful visual metaphors and props in her thought-provoking work—think old baby carriages and beer cans in NGS (“Native Girl Syndrome”), or the ripped-up mattresses in Windigo. Here, Kramer explores themes of memory, renewal, and transformation with bright neon stockings, blue gas tanks, and reflective construction materials, the stage covered in litter that morphs into soft sculptures. Co-presented with Matriarchs Uprising.

#4

Catching Up to the Future of Our Past

January 30 and 31 at the Scotiabank Dance Centre

Joining a strong roster of form-pushing dance on the PuSh program, Vancouver innovators James Gnam and Natalie Lefebvre Gnam of Plastic Orchid Factory play with nostalgia and memory. Audiences will be welcomed into a retro-future, Mary Quant–inspired “astral bubble”. Beneath its surreal visual touches—a revolving Astroturf stage, old space-movie astronaut helmets, and vintage folding lawn chairs—the pair are really exploring the alien universe of midlife, when we all start to process the passage of time.

#5

askîwan

January 29 and 30 at the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre

Dubbed a stunning “ecological opera”, Tyson Houseman's askîwan is a multimedia production in which a miniature film set gets projected in real time against a haunting electroacoustic-string-based soundscape and baritone vocals in nehiyawewin (Plains Cree). Visuals span timeless mountainscapes, rippling water, and northern lights, brought to life by the music of guitarist and electroacoustic sound artist Devon Bate, Cree-Métis baritone Jonathon Adams, and Leah Weitzner on a Baroque-style viola da gamba.  

---

Related Articles