Five shows to see at the 2020 PuSh International Performing Arts Festival
Credit to Author: Stuart Derdeyn| Date: Sat, 18 Jan 2020 01:41:39 +0000
When: Jan. 21-Feb. 9, various times
Where: Various venues
Tickets and info:pushfestival.ca
A new year, a new decade and another PuSh to kick it off.
For the past 16 years the international performing arts festival has turned the winter blahs into oohs and aahs. Every year, audiences are left scrambling for the right words to describe the imaginative, innovative, challenging, transformative and — yes — sometimes maddening shows presented over the 19-day run.
With works ranging from straight-ahead theatre, music and dance to pieces that straddle so many genres that they become indefinable, there is really something for all tastes to take in.
This year marks the arrival of new artistic and executive director Franco Boni and he and his team have really put together a fine program celebrating diverse voices and viewpoints from across Canada and the world.
Here are five shows not to miss. All tickets are available at the pushfestival.ca website.
1: Flying White
When: Jan. 31, Feb. 1, 7:30 p.m.; Feb. 2, 2 p.m.
Where: Fei and Milton Wong Experimental Theatre, SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts, 149 W. Hastings St.
Tickets: $36
Wen Wei Dance and the Turning Point Ensemble join forces with members of the Little Giant Chinese Chamber Orchestra for a movement and musical work inspired by a rare form of Chinese calligraphy where long, light brushstrokes are made mirroring both the grace and dexterity required for the art as well as the speed.
2. Old Stock: A Refugee Love Story
When: Jan. 24, 25, 28-30, 7:30 p.m.; Jan. 26, 1:30 p.m.
Where: Frederic Wood Theatre, UBC, 6354 Crescent Rd.
Tickets: $39
The marvellously animated, big-voiced Ben Caplan stars in Hannah Moscovitch’s award-winning klezmer play based on the tale of her great-grandparents, Chaim and Chaya. Romanian Jewish refugees who fled the pogroms in their homeland, the couple met on Halifax’s Pier 21 in 1908, awaiting medical inspection for entry into Canada. Moving from their lives in Montréal and back to their homeland, the tale is one of triumph over tragedy.
3: Berlin: The Last Cabaret
When: Jan. 23-25, 8 p.m.
Where: Performance Works, Granville Island, 1218 Cartwright St.
Tickets: $44.50
City Opera Vancouver and Sound the Alarm: Music/Theatre celebrate the power of art in a political cabaret set in 1934, but wholly relevant to what’s going on all over the world today. Join five singers and a live band as they showcase the power of creative dissent in the face of the terminal populism of Nazism as its iron grip squeezes life out of liberation.
4: Little Volcano
When: Jan. 21-23, 8 p.m.
Where: Annex, 823 Seymour St.
Tickets: $39
Veda Hille’s latest production with Theatre Replacement is “a testament to maternal love, a joyful embrace of nature and much more.” Given all the avenues of creative expression this endlessly experimental artist has explored in her three decades onstage, expect this to be much more than a song-and-story show. Hille’s approach is always entertaining.
5: High Water
When: Feb. 1-2, 11 a.m., 4 p.m.; Feb. 3-4, 10 a.m., 12:30 p.m.; Feb. 5, 6 p.m.
Where: The Nest, Festival House, Granville Island, 1398 Cartwright St.
Tickets: From $15.50
Macromatter and the Vancouver International Children’s Festival present a wild ride into the world of making worlds. In this case, it’s what the performer puts together inside a fish tank using everything from ping-pong balls and clothes pins as the water level keeps rising. Both a showcase of creativity, as well as a sharp commentary into world-making and breaking, this is not just for kids. But it’s awesome that it’s there for them. The more all-ages performance art out there the better.