PuSh International Performing Arts Festival unveils 2019 program of new Canadian work and guests from Japan, Australia, and beyond

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      Six world premieres will mark the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival's 15th edition, with two of them created by Vancouver dance talents Company 605 and MACHiNENOiSY, plus a third new local work set to the classic film Bicycle Thieves by composer and musical director Joelysa Pankanea.

      Running January 17 to February 3, 2019, the fest will boast 26 works from 13 countries, including Canadian premieres from half-way across the world: sound-based works from Japan by ASUNA, Marginal Consort, and Tetsuya Umeda; Dancenorth Australia with music by Indonesian band Senyawa; and a piece from Taiwanese choreographer Liu Kuan-Hsiang. 

      From closer to home, there will be world premieres by dub poet and actor D’BI; the performers of Kimmortal & Immigrant Lessons; and Guatemalan performance artist Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, who's an Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design grad.

      Other highlights: Toronto theatre star Ravi Jain’s inventive, inclusive Prince Hamlet (with Why Not Theatre); the broken-crockery fable PALMYRA by France's Bertrand Lesca & Nasi Voutsas; U.K. artist Selina Thompson's slave-ship evocation salt.; Kiinalik: These Sharp Tools, Inuk artist Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory and queer theatre-maker Evalyn Parry's multimedia ode to North and South; Pancho Villa From a Safe Distance, Graham Reynolds and Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol's operatic ode to Mexico's most infamous bandit; and ZVIZDAL (Chernobyl - so far so close), a documentary-installation about a couple who lives far inside the exclusion zone of the radiation-plagued Ukrainian region.

      Company 605's Loop, Lull.

      For their parts, local dance stars Company 605 will debut Loop, Lull from January 21 to 22 and 28 to 29 at the Scotiabank Dance Centre, while MACHiNENOiSY premieres the site-specific Fragile Forms at the Anvil Centre from February 2 to 7. 

      In another new twist for 2015, Club PuSh will be located in multiple spaces across the city.

      To mark its 15th anniversary, PuSh is also offering audiences $15 tickets for 15 days from today (November 15) to November 30. The 15x15x15 offer applies to the full festival program.

      See the full schedul, with tickets and passes available here.

      Palmyra, a performance that plays allegorically with broken crockery, from France.

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