We asked the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival’s executive and artistic director Franco Boni and associate artistic director Joyce Rosario to unearth some of the hidden gems amid the interdisciplinary celebration that runs citywide from Tuesday (January 21) to February 9. Here are their insider recommendations:

Gardens Speak

January 28 to February 2 at the Roundhouse Community Arts and Recreation Centre

The sound-art installation (shown here) pays moving tribute to 10 victims of violence in Syria, each buried in a family garden. “Franco and I discovered [artist] Tania El Khoury together at In Between Time [festival] in Bristol,” Rosario says. “It gives you the feeling I used to get when I first went to PuSh.”

Old Stock: A Refugee Story

January 24 to 26 and 28 to 30 at the Frederic Wood Theatre

“For me this is one of those enduring pieces: it’s been travelling all over the world and it’s been reviewed so well—it’s been on top 10 lists in so many places, and then there’s [playwright] Hannah Moscovitch, who is such an incredible writer,” says Boni. “Plus who doesn’t love klezmer music?”

Cuckoo

February 3 to 5 at the Waterfront Theatre

Talking robotic rice cookers and moving reflections on South Korea's lost generation. "It examines such a precarious time in South Korean history," Rosario remarks. "It seems fun but it examines the effects of the financial crisis."

Monday Nights

February 6 to 9 at the Anvil Centre

“It’s an interactive basketball piece made by five men who didn’t think they’d been making a show but came together at a particularly difficult time in their lives,” Boni says. “Really the piece is about community.”