PuSh International Performing Arts Festival celebrates its 20th Festival, returning to Vancouver January 23 to February 9, 2025. For more than two decades, PuSh Festival has been the Lower Mainland's signature, mid-winter cultural event delivering audacious, innovative, contemporary works of live art by acclaimed local, national, and International Artists. This year's festival features dynamic and radical genre-bending works in dance, theatre, multimedia and music at venues across the city.
PuSh 20 features more than 25 presentations including: 20 original performance-based productions; five animated parties and cabaret-style events; two film events; and two artist residencies, one of which will culminate in an open studio showing by international guest artists.
The Festival lineup is dedicated to inspired risk-taking and dynamic interdisciplinary collaboration with visionary works from 13 countries including 3 world premieres and 8 Canadian debuts. In addition to a strong Canadian presence with 13 presentations, PuSh's 2025 international projects include works by artists of Belgium, South Korea, Brazil, United Kingdom, Uruguay, France, Denmark, Italy, Taiwan, USA, Sweden, and Democratic Republic of Congo. PuSh's commitment to diversity continues with 16 shows created by people of colour; 13 by female or gender non-binary artists; and 8 by 2SLGBTQIA+ artists.
“The 2025 PuSh Festival is a celebration of audacious live art. These are performances and immersive experiences that shift our paradigms for creative expression and how we relate to one another,” says PuSh's Director of Programming Gabrielle Martin, who has curated and co-curated the past 4 festivals. “In a world increasingly dominated by generative AI, they underscore live performance as a sanctuary of authenticity in an age that risks losing touch with the real. They invite us into the wilds of untethered imaginations and the liberatory spaces of play. Accept the invitation and be transported from the brutalist landscape and inherited mythologies of Bogota, to the astro-glam extravaganza of a dune wars kiki ball, to the 8-kilometers passage between Güzelçamliand Samos, to the neon luminescence of an imagined Saigon nightscape, and beyond.”
Highlights for the 2025 PuSh include two Vancouver Playhouse co-presentations.
Visceral and transgressive, BOGOTÁ by Montreal's Andrea Peña & Artists constructs a brutalist landscape from choreography inspired by Colombia's political and spiritual heritage. This raw, physical experience of transmutation and resurrection explores embodied origins, inherited mythologies and mortality, honouring the rebellion of deviant bodies and paying tribute to resilience within the post-colonial era. Presented with New Works in Partnership with VLACC (Jan 31 & Feb 1).
Between dreamlike fiction and stark reality, Dimanche by Belgium's Focus & Chaliwaté companies paints a sharp yet tender portrait of humanity caught off guard by devastating natural disasters. It depicts the ingenuity and stubbornness of humans as they cling to habits amid ecological collapse, asking: how much longer can we ignore the storm at our door? Presented with The Cultch (Feb 6-8).
PuSh's animated parties and cabaret-style events for 2025 include Van Vogue Jam's Dune Wars Kiki Ball (Feb 2), the return of Dances for a Small Stage (Feb 4 & 5), opening and closing parties with surprise performances (Jan 23 & Feb 8), and the return of the frank theatre's QT Cabaret at Club PuSh (January 29 at 9 p.m). Foregrounding experimentation and delight, this evening will immerse attendees in fearless dance, heart-stopping music, and rapturous drag at the Fox Cabaret.
Rounding out the lineup for 2025's programming will be two film events: a free marathon screening featuring Brazilian actress Renata Carvalho, the artist behind PuSh's Transpofagic Manifesto (Feb 9), and a Born in Flames (Lizzie Borden) film screening (Feb 6) at SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts.
PuSh's Industry Series returns for 2025 from January 28 to February 2. The conference style gathering is an opportunity for arts leaders (producers, presenters, curators, directors, and more) to collectively dialogue industry issues, spark ideas, make connections, and be transformed by live performance. New this year is the Industry Series Hub at The Post at 750, a convivial late-night gathering space for attendees.
In addition to the on-stage programming of the 20th Festival, PuSh, in partnership with Playwrights Theatre Centre and Festival TransAmériques, will also offer free artistic consultations for local artists with invited national and international dramaturgs. This initiative centres process in order to highlight creative work that is often behind-the-scenes, nourishing individual practice while contributing to collective dramaturgical knowledge systems.
The PuSh Youth Program is PuSh's way to engage, support, and uplift a new generation of arts enthusiasts by providing greater access to the performing arts via discounted tickets, educational opportunities, and stimulating conversation. PuSh's Youth Pass allows youth aged 16-24 to access 4 shows from the PuSh Festival programming at highly discounted rates at only $20.
PuSh continues to support youth in the arts through its partnership with Surrey-based Solid State Community Industries, and the event-planning co-op Symposia. Symposia presents its first iteration of the Elevate Program, a cohort of racialized youth eager to develop their artistic practice who will receive mentorship from a group of local creative professionals and produce a showcase event in July 2025. The Elevate cohort will have the unique opportunity to participate in workshops and conversations with Festival artists, and experience a slate of exciting PuSh shows!
PuSh is excited to continue to expand its community outreach and to work alongside new and long-standing partners including Théâtre la Seizième, The Cultch, New Works Dance in partnership with VLACC, Inner Fish Theatre Society, Music on Main, plastic orchid factory, Small Stage, Touchstone Theatre, Pandemic Theatre, Boca del Lupo, the frank theatre co., ISF, Here & Now (UK), Vancouver Poetry House, VIVO Media Arts Centre, Simon Fraser University, with support from Vancouver Civic Theatres, Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre, and the Granville Island Theatre District.
PuSh also celebrates new partnerships with Chilliwack Cultural Centre, the Vancouver Art Gallery, Alliance Française Vancouver, Vancouver International Children's Festival, Latincouver, and Van Vogue Jam.
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