Insiders dish on PuSh fest’s standout shows

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      With more than 50 events happening across the city, this year’s PuSh International Performing Arts Festival has Vancouverites spoiled for choice. To help you narrow down your favourites, we’ve asked four festival insiders what shows they’re most psyched to see.

       

      Joyce Rosario

      Associate curator of the PuSh Festival

      Inked & Murmur (January 20 at the Vancouver Playhouse)

      “I’m really excited about the Aakash Odedra show because it’s something new for us with the Dance Centre. When we’ve collaborated in the past, it’s been stuff at their venue, but for this one, the technical requirements of the show actually wouldn’t fit on the stage.…It’s very visually stunning—kind of a contemporary kathak dance but with a lot of high-tech electronic stuff going on.”

       

      Betty Lou Phillips

      Long-time PuSh Festival volunteer

      Intimacy (January 20 to 23 at the Orpheum Annex)

      “[Intimacy] is a show from Australia, where the creator went out late at night and he just encountered strangers on the street and asked them to talk. He’s collected their personal stories and created this work around it, so it’s about truth and how we perceive it both on-stage and in our own lives. I think this is one of those perfect little performances that will enable us to connect one-on-one.”

       

      Tim Carlson

      Curator of Club PuSh

      Decoder 2017 (February 4 at the Fox Cabaret)

      “With Decoder, it’s actually based more so on a German film from the ’80s with the same name. The show is an exploration of William Burroughs’s ideas in the 21st century, which are essentially about the voice of technology in terms of, say, government-corporate control and the possibilities for revolution….It’s very visual and sonically stimulating. The sound designer idiosyncratically just works with cassette tapes only, so it’s a really cool mix of high tech and old tech.”

       

      Peter Dickinson

      Director of the Institute for Performance Studies at SFU

      Monumental (January 28 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre)

      “It’s impossible to pick one, that’s the thing about PuSh. But I think I have to say, because it’s one day and because it’s the 10th anniversary and because it’s featuring live music by Godspeed You! Black Emperor, I’d have to go with monumental….It’s great that Noam [Gagnon] and Dana [Gingras] are getting [the dance company Holy Body Tattoo] back together for this.”

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