Everything Has Disapppeared is a stark display of Filipinos’ contributions to the global economy and culture.Atle Auran/PuSh Festival/Supplied
This week marks the return of Vancouver’s PuSh Festival, the international showcase of live performance that, just a few seasons ago, found itself embroiled in controversy.
It’s been two years since PuSh’s programming – and chaotic cancellation – of The Runner, Canadian playwright Christopher Morris’s play about a volunteer in Israel forced to choose between saving the body of a slain Jew or reviving the Palestinian woman who may have killed him. The cancellation – and subsequent shockwaves the incident sent throughout Vancouver’s arts communities – was a lightning rod for discourse about how Canadian institutions should engage with continuing geopolitical discord.
Gabrielle Martin, artistic director of PuSh, says The Runner taught the festival a “clear lesson” about its place in Canada’s artistic landscape – and its role as an international destination for live performance.
“As much as we try to be in conversation with current social and political issues, there are some issues that are… there’s just way too much pain and trauma around them to address in this context,” says Martin, who joined PuSh in 2021. “When you have diversity – actual, real diversity – you’re going to have friction. You’re going to have conflict." The Runner “was a really clear expression of that,” she added.
This year’s festival, which runs until Feb. 8, will feature a range of performances across the spectrums of genre, nationality and taste. While there’s no one curatorial thread for 2026’s programming, Martin says memory and time have emerged as recurring themes.
“We’re living in a polycrisis,” says Martin of her efforts to reflect diversity in PuSh’s offerings. “We need new mythologies for the disenchanted. We need to dream of alternate futures, and we need to think about how we frame this present moment.”
PuSh is something of a singularity in Western Canada – other Canadian performance festivals of similar scale take place on the other side of the country, namely Festival TransAmériques in Montreal and Luminato Festival in Toronto.
“We play a critical, critical role in this city,” says Martin. “There’s no other presenter doing this work – there are great presenters in the city, but we’re the only festival that’s international in scope in this way.”
Here are five performances to catch at this year’s PuSh Festival.
2021 was created by Canadians Cole Lewis, Patrick Blenkarn and Sam Ferguson.DAHLIA KATZ//PuSh Festival/Supplied
2021
Created by Canadians Cole Lewis, Patrick Blenkarn and Sam Ferguson, 2021 offers an example for how theatre makers might engage with artificial intelligence in their work – and in a way that doesn’t subtract from the decidedly human act of making theatre.
In 2021, an audience member plays a video game about Lewis’s deceased father in his final few weeks of life. At the end of the game – which can take over an hour, depending on the player – Lewis sharpens 2021’s stakes with an intimate conversation between herself and a digitized ghost.
A little weird, but wholly effective (I saw two workshops of 2021 in Toronto, before the team took the show to Under the Radar in New York), 2021 is an ode to humanity – and a hopeful look at how AI could enhance, rather than detract from, what it means to create art with other humans.
Kiuryaq is an exploration of the Northern Lights.Shay Markowitz/PuSh Festival/Supplied
Kiuryaq
A cross between theatre, music and video, Kiuryaq is an exploration of the Northern Lights – and a collaboration between Indigenous artists from Canada, Greenland and Norway.
At a time when the Arctic region and its sovereignty are top of mind, Kiuryaq is a one-night-only chance for audiences to learn from the artists who know the circumpolar region best – all in service of a story about two siblings born under the majesty of the aurora borealis.
Khalil Khalil
A movement piece by Palestinian artist Khalil Albatran, Khalil Khalil interrogates the significance of names – Albatran was named for his brother, a victim of the First Palestinian Intifada in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s.
Over the course of the performance, Albatran asks what it means to excavate the past – to exist in two eras at once as memories collide with the present.
Eight Short Compositions on the Lives of Ukrainians for a Western Audience
From Ukrainian playwright Anastasiia Kosodii, Eight Short Compositions on the Lives of Ukrainians for a Western Audience uses five actors to shed light on what it means to live through war. Presented by the Czech Republic’s Archa – Centre for Documentary Theatre, the work promises to offer a bridge between Canadians and the Ukrainians fighting for survival against Russian forces.
Everything Has Disappeared
A stark display of Filipinos’ contributions to the global economy and culture, Everything Has Disappeared asks audiences to consider the diaspora’s impact on their own lives, from Filipino care work to the Philippines’ influence over critical infrastructure and resources around the world.
A digital piece, Everything Has Disappeared comes to PuSh via Canada’s UNIT Productions and Mammalian Diving Reflex, in collaboration with the Chop.
Eight Short Compositions on the Lives of Ukrainians for a Western Audience uses five actors to shed light on what it means to live through war.Jakub Hrab/PuSh Festival/Supplied