PuSh Play PuSh Festival

Inbal Ben Haim (Episode 3) and Julia Taffe of Vancouver’s Aeriosa Dance Society chat about the intersection of rock climbing and aerial/vertical dance.
This episode is sponsored by the French Consulate in Vancouver as part of Paris 2024. Sport climbing is one of the new disciplines of the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.
Show Notes
Gabrielle Martin discusses a number of questions with Inbal and Julia, including: 
How to deal with the unknown and reframe failure?
How do dance/circus and rock climbing intertwine?
How failure and perfection in dance means something very different in climbing
How are climbing and dance both about problem-solving?
Where does the sport end and the artistic discipline begin?
How does self-discovery of one’s physicality affect the work today? How does it take place of being competitive, replacing the need to be first?
What is the importance of doing the work beforehand (building systems, locations, etc.)?
Is there a spiritual dimension to climbing and/or aerial and vertical dance?
About Inbal
Born in Jerusalem in 1990, Inbal Ben Haim grew up in the Israeli countryside. After studying visual arts, she discovered the circus in 2004 at the Free Dome Project then the Shabazi Circus. The call of heights and creating with her body led her to specialize first in the static trapeze, then the rich minimalism of the aerial rope.In 2011 she left her homeland to follow her artistic path in France, furthering her research through important artistic encounters and training: first at the Centre Régional des Arts du Cirque PACA – Piste d’Azur, then the Centre National des Arts du Cirque in Châlons-en-Champagne, from which she graduated in December 2017 (29th graduating class).
In Summer 2018, she premiered Racine(s) (Root(s)), which developed from her meeting the musician, composer, and arranger David Amar and the director Jean Jacques Minazio. At the same time, she developed a teaching method for therapeutic circus and worked in various contexts in Israel and France.
By blending circus, dance, theatre, improvisation, and visual arts, Ben Haim has created her own form of poetic expression. Largely inspired by the human bond made possible by the stage, the ring, and the street, she aims to create strong connections between the audience and the artist, the intimate and the spectacular, the earth and air, and the here and there.
About Julia
Choreographer Julia Taffe combines art, environment and adventure, making dances for buildings, mountains, neighbourhoods, theatres and trees, finding new movement perspectives in the realm of suspension.
Julia is the artistic director of Aeriosa, a Vancouver-based vertical dance company. She has choreographed over 25 works on location including: Stawamus Chief Mountain in Squamish BC, Taipei City Hall, Cirque du Soleil Headquarters, Vancouver Library Square, Banff Centre, Scotiabank Dance Centre and Toronto’s 58-storey L Tower.
Prior to founding Aeriosa, Julia performed across Canada with Ruth Cansfield, and around the world with Bandaloop. Julia attained ACMG Rock Guide certification in 1997. She has worked as a co-producer, choreographer, cast member, stunt performer, mountain safety rigger and creative movement consultant on various film and television productions in Canada and abroad.
Land Acknowledgement
Gabrielle hosts from the unceded, stolen and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish Peoples: the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), colonially known as Vancouver.
Inbal joins the podcast from Paris, France. Julia joins from Ucluelet, which is a Nuu-chah-nulth (Nootka) word most known as ‘People of the Safe Harbour.’ More accurately Ucluelet People, lit. ‘Dwellers of the Protected Place Inside’. The Ucluth peninsula has been inhabited by the Yuu-tluth-aht Yuułuʔiłʔatḥ people as far back as 4,300+ years ago.
It is our duty to establish right rel

Diana Lopez Soto discusses how ecology and land can connect to art. See NOMADA at the 2024 PuSh Festival from Feb 1-3.
Show Notes
Gabrielle Martin discusses the upcoming PuSh co-commission, NOMADA, with creator Diana Lopez Soto. Gabrielle and Diana discuss how aerial dance contributes to NOMADA’s dramaturgy, the research and development process behind this piece, how ecology and land can connect to art, and more, including: 
Why aerial dance and what does it contribute to the dramaturgy of Nomada?
How did research fit into the development of the piece? What methods were used?
How did you choose the right collaborators for this project and for the inherent knowledge exchange?
How do NOMADA’s theme relate to Diana’s wider practice?
What is a conversation between art and ecology? How are artists involved in sustainability? How does this influence the work and art process?
How do we connect to the land, and the larger communities to involve them in this process?
About Diana
Diana is an award-winning multidisciplinary Mexican/Canadian artist, mother and land caretaker. She has presented and exhibited her work nationally and internationally in France, Panama, Mexico, Costa Rica, the USA and Canada. She creates, co-creates and performs site-specific work, vertical dance, art installations and experimental film. 
Her interest in sustainable practices informs the direction of her collaborations and offerings. Some of her latest achievements are her participation at the Guapamacataro Art and Ecology residency, the Vancouver International Vertical Dance Summit and the ‘Ritual de las Aguadoras’ with the Tirindikua family from the Barrio de Santo Santiago Michoacan. Diana is the co-creator of Land Embodiment Lab with Coman Poon, an artist associate of Vanguardia Dance Projects and collaborates with Hercinia Arts, Femme du Feu, Look Up Theatre and Victoria Mata.
Land Acknowledgement
Diana joins the podcast from Peterborough, Ontario, in Treaty 20 territory: the traditional home of the Chippewa and Mississauga First Nations.
Gabrielle hosts from the unceded, stolen and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish Peoples: the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), colonially known as Vancouver.
It is our duty to establish right relations with the people on whose territories we live and work, and with the land itself.
Show Transcript
A complete transcript of this episode will be available soon.
 

Bruce Gladwin discusses how a disastrous first showing influenced the show’s creation. See The Shadow Whose Prey The Hunter Becomes at the 2024 PuSh Festival from Feb 1-3 at the York Theatre. Co-Presented with Neworld Theatre and The Cultch.
Show Notes
Gabrielle Martin chats with Bruce Gladwin, director and co-author of The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes. Gabrielle and Bruce discuss the show’s source and evolution, the need to place obstacles in front of actors, how a disastrous first showing of the piece led to the show it is today, and more, including:
What is the source for this particular piece, and how has it evolved since then?
Why is it sometimes the director’s job to place obstacles in front of actors instead of just giving them free rein?
How did a disastrous first showing of the piece lead to the show it is today?
Why is it just not that simple to say what you think and be heard? And how does this work explore that?
How do you perceive societal change with regards to the assumptions we hold about others?
What is unusual about this piece for Back to Back Theatre?
About Back to Back Theatre
Based in the Victorian regional centre of Geelong, Back to Back Theatre is widely recognised as an Australian theatre company of national and international significance. The company is driven by an ensemble of actors who are perceived to have intellectual disabilities and is considered one of Australia’s most important cultural exporters.
We contend our operation as a theatre company is beyond expectation of possibility: an affirmation for human potential. The company’s existence contributes to the richness and diversity of Australian life and palpably projects Geelong, Victoria and Australia to the world as innovative, sophisticated and dynamic.
The company has undertaken presentations and screenings at the world’s pre-eminent contemporary arts festivals and venues such as the Edinburgh International Festival, London’s V&A Museum and the Barbican, Vienna Festival, Holland Festival and Theater der Welt, the Kennedy Center in Washington DC, the Public Theater in New York, Festival Tokyo, West Kowloon Cultural District Authority in Hong Kong, and Buenos Aires International Festival.
Back to Back Theatre has received 21 national and international awards including the International Ibsen Award, a Helpmann Award for Best Australian Work, an Edinburgh International Festival Herald Angel Critics’ Award, two Age Critics’ Awards, a New York Bessie and the Sidney Myer Performing Arts Group Award for our long-standing contribution to the development of Australian theatre. In 2015, Bruce Gladwin received the Australia Council for the Arts’ Inaugural Award for Outstanding Achievement in Theatre. The ensemble were awarded the ‘Best Ensemble’ in the 2019 Green Room Awards.
Land Acknowledgement
Bruce joins the podcast from the land of the Wadawurrung, now colonially known as the state of Victoria in Australia.
Gabrielle hosts from the unceded, stolen and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish Peoples: the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), colonially known as Vancouver.
It is our duty to establish right relations with the people on whose territories we live and work, and with the land itself.
Show Transcript
A complete transcript of this episode will be available soon.
 

Cherish Menzo discusses her work’s consideration of the Black body in the context of post-humanism. See DARKMATTER at the 2024 PuSH Festival Jan 29-31. Co-Presented with SFU Woodward’s Cultural Programs.
Show Notes
Gabrielle Martin discusses DARKMATTER with co-creator and choreographer Cherish Menzo. The show will be presented at the 2024 PuSh Festival from January 29-31 at the SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts. Gabrielle and Cherish discuss the “chopped and screwed” remix technique, the Black body in the context of post-humanism, the equal roles of the beauty and the grotesque in the context of this work, and more, including. 
What is the purpose of distortion, the use of time, and its effect on meaning of images?
What is the “chopped and screwed” remix technique?
How can an audience experience of the texture of sound?
How can we encounter the black body in the context of post-humanism?
How and why does the piece place beauty and the grotesque on an equal footing?
Cherish’s Inspirations
Cherish mentioned a few points of inspiration for her work today:
Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection by Julia Kristeva
Wangechi Mutu, visual artist 
Death Grips, band
Philip Butler, Black post-humanist writer
​​​​Bayo Akomolafe, philosopher
About Cherish Menzo
Cherish Menzo (Brussels/Amsterdam) is one of the four artistic leaders of the dance organization GRIP, together with Femke Gyselinck, Jan Martens and Steven Michel.
As a dancer/performer, Cherish has appeared in the work of Lisbeth Gruwez, Jan Martens, Nicole Beutler, Eszter Salamon, Benjamin Kahn, Akram Khan and others. 
As a choreographer, her powerful movement language comes into its own in her own work, which tours internationally.
Cherish seeks out forms of movement and being, while placing beauty and the grotesque on an equal footing. She consciously seeks out an alienating effect to guide both the viewer and herself away from the known. Away from the familiar that we sometimes too easily equate with ‘the (only) truth’. She floats between the nostalgia of 90s and 00s hip-hop and the realms of industrial hip-hop, rap lyrics, manga and speculative fiction.
She created JEZEBEL (’19) and DARKMATTER (‘22) with GRIP and Frascati Producties, both productions were selected for both the Theaterfestival in Flanders and its Dutch counterpart. 
GRIP was founded in 2014 by choreographer and dancer Jan Martens and manager Klaartje Oerlemans.
From 2023 on, GRIP choreographers Femke Gyselinck, Jan Martens, Cherish Menzo, and Steven Michel act together as artistic directors. They do so in close dialogue with Klaartje Oerlemans and Rudi Meulemans, who coordinates and facilitates the dialogue between the four makers in his role of artistic coordinator.
Land Acknowledgement
Cherish joins the podcast from Brussels, Belgium.
Gabrielle hosts from the unceded, stolen and ancestral territories of the Coast Salish Peoples: the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam), Skwxwú7mesh (Squamish) and Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), colonially known as Vancouver.
It is our duty to establish right relations with the people on whose territories we live and work, and with the land itself.
Show Transcript
A complete transcript of this episode will be available soon.
 

Jean Abreu and Naishi Wang discuss how language shapes and reflects identity. See Deciphers at the 2024 PuSh Festival from Jan 24-26 at the Scotiabank Dance Centre. Co-Presented with New Works.
Show Notes
Gabrielle, Naishi and Jean dive into the development of this piece and how it was influenced by language and digital technology. They also discuss how their work tackles loneliness, the migrant experience, the transforming nature of human identity, and other questions including:
How does this piece expose the underlying motivations of the body’s movements?
What are creative and digital technology’s influence?
What does it mean to be in and out of the work?
How can internal processes translate to external performance?
How is developing a piece like this about learning how to share with others and with oneself?
How would you describe each other’s bodily-linguistic identities and how have these changed throughout the project?
How can precise language sometimes hold art back?
How does this work tackle loneliness, the migrant experience, and the transforming nature of human identity? How are these themes present in the wider bodies of the artists’ work?
How do we highlight “nonsense” in order to discover and translate not knowing into something else?
About Naishi Wang
Based in culturally diverse Toronto, and born in Changchun, China mixed with Chinese, North Korean and Mongolian ancestry. Naishi Wang observes and studies the underlying motivations of the body’s movements and the emotions it conveys. Renowned for his exceptional improvisations, which he turns into incarnations of bodily meaning, Wang is also a practicing visual artist. His drawings, which take the form of dances on paper, echo his work in dance. 
Part of the MAI (Montréal, arts interculturels) program in February 2019 and also presented in Halifax and Hamburg, Germany. His solo Taking Breath demonstrated his interest in intimate forms of bodily communication, a subject he takes up again in the duet Face to Face which focused on our new modes of virtual communication and the factors that act in concert to convey our intentions in even the simplest exchanges. Naishi is currently collaborating with UK-based artist Jean Abreu entitled Deciphers and a trio named Eyes, Wide Open. He is an artist in residency at the Citadel, Harbourfront Centre and TO Live and has been awarded Les Respirations du FTA (2021), Small Scale Creation Fund from CanDance (2021) and Chalmers Arts Fellowship from Ontario Arts Council (2022).
About Jean Abreu
Born in Brazil, Jean Abreu moved to London in 1996 after receiving a scholarship to study at Trinity Laban Conservatoire for Music and Dance. Jean Abreu received the Jerwood Choreography Award in 2003 following the creation of his first choreography, Hibrido. Since then his work has toured throughout the UK, Europe, Brazil and China including performances for Dance Umbrella, Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Royal Opera House and Southbank Centre in London. Jean Abreu’s movement practice comes from his ongoing interest in utilizing the body as a powerful tool to articulate arresting emotional and complex ideas through dance.  Creative & digital technology has consistently featured within and challenged Jean’s varied performance work.
In 2009 he founded Jean Abreu Dance and has since collaborated with influential artists across multiple art forms including rock band 65daysofstatic for Inside (2010), choreographer Jorge Garcia for Parallel Memories (2011), visual artists Gilbert & George for Blood (2013) and Brazilian sculptor and visual artist Elisa Bracher for A Thread (2016). His work Solo for Two toured across the UK in 2018 with further performances in China and Portugal in 2019.  Jean has taught extensively in the UK and abroad in renowned dance organizations and Universities including London Contemporary Dance School, London Studio Centre, Dance Base (Scotland), International Festival

Guy Régis Jr. sits down with Cory Haas, Artistic Director of Théâtre la Seizième, to talk about L’Amour telle une cathédrale ensevelie, which will be presented as part of the PuSh Festival from February 3-4 at the SFU Goldcorp Centre for the Arts.
Co-presented with Théâtre la Seizième and SFU Woodward’s Cultural Programs.
About the Show
With staggering subtlety and lyricism, L’amour telle une cathédrale ensevelie tells the story of exiled Haitian families through opera-theatre. Born into just such a family, author and director Guy Régis Jr uses a chorus to sing of the tumultuous, uprooted nature of migration—the journey and the aftermath—in Creole and French, accompanied by Haitian classical guitarist, Amos Coulanges.
A stunning creation that explores exile and dislocation through a portrait of families over sixty years, told in different forms and across different territories. Each fractal in the larger journey evokes those who live in the aftermath of voyages made or lost; each narrative reflects on the social, political and economic realities of a globalized world. 
This is a profound work, poetic and political. An interrogation of migration, human rights, social injustice and discrimination, the play is an ode to all those in search of a promised land.
About NOUS Théâtre
Created in 2001 in Haiti by Guy Régis Jr, NOUS Théâtre began its theatre work in the streets, cemeteries and universities. The approach is to bring theatre to the people. The form is paired down, ritualized, the speech is elevated. The discourse reflects the interrogations and the indignations of the company’s members on the social, political and economic situation in Haiti and the world.
The style ‘nous’ (meaning ‘us’) is about radical research and experimentation of theatrical gesture which shook up the Haitian theatre milieu. In 2009, the association NOUS Théâtre is created in France. It produces the works of Guy Régis Jr in France and internationally and works to develop artistic exchanges and encounters between France and Haiti.
The company produces artistic projects of various forms, from sound installations to performance and theatre creations, that can involve dance and/or music and/or video. The political speech and social engagement of the work, as well as the poetry of the texts, movements, images, sound and music compositions are all constants in the work of Guy Régis Jr. Themes of migration, human rights, social injustice, racism and discrimination of all kinds are very important to the texts and creations of the company.
Show Transcript
A complete transcript of this episode will be available soon.