‘Are we here to stay? I think so. The question is always: In what form are we here to stay?”
Norman Armour, executive director of the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, is ruminating on the organization reaching a fifth year. Gathered around a table in PuSh's Vancouver offices with him are: Tim Carlson (man of many artistic hats, including PuSh festival co-curator and artistic producer of Theatre Conspiracy); James Long (artistic director of Theatre Replacement); and Julie-anne Saroyan (artistic producer of dance company MovEnt).
They're here as testament to PuSh's commitment to collaboration – a deep belief in partnership as inspiration and support, that is, Armour argues, at the heart of effective creativity.
“We are growing in volume and depth,” he says. “That brings greater infrastructure as well as greater producing responsibilities.”
The 2009 festival begins today, with around 20 main shows over three weeks, presented by national and international companies. It's a diverse program: From Toronto, Tribal Crackling Wind bring Transmission of the Invisible – a work three years in development with a Cambodian arts group. Toshiki Okada's Five Days in March juxtaposes a Japanese slacker love affair with the United States' invasion of Iraq, while 13 Most Beautiful… Songs For Andy Warhol's Screentests will see the faded grandeur of the Vogue Theatre play host to a montage of Warhol's celebrities against a live soundtrack commissioned by the Andy Warhol Museum. Vancouver's own productions include Radix's site-specific Assembly, and Theatre Conspiracy's multimedia exploration of the fall out of the electronic age, Live from a Bush of Ghosts.
If last year's festival is anything to go by, PuSh is on a roll: From 2007 to 2008, the festival doubled its audience – from 12,000 to 24,000. They must be doing something right.
“Each year,” Armour says when asked to reveal his secret, “we sit down and ask: What is the festival's relevance?”
For him, that relevance is international in scope – how curatorial practice in Vancouver connects with contemporary artistic movements around the world. It is also genre-defying: PuSh is proud of its interdisciplinary bent, always on the lookout for means of engagement that cross boundaries and break conventions.
“The idea of experiment is built into the concept of PuSh,” Carlson says. “The work doesn't have to fit any mould – we want a lot of surprises.”
This year, the big surprise was the announcement of Club PuSh – something Carlson is co-curating – a nightly performance event as well as a social hub. Opening with celebrated New York drag act, Taylor Mac, Carlson's intent is to broaden the audience for the festival by offering a more informal environment, in a space – he points out – that has a bar.
Located on Granville Island, Club PuSh also promises to up the music ante of the festival, with late-night DJ sets and bands from across the Pacific Northwest.
“We are trying to stimulate a regional edge to the festival,” Armour explains. “We have bands coming from Seattle, Portland, Victoria, Nelson ...”
That regionality is already being exploited by Long. Theatre Replacement's production of That Night Follows Day is a cross-border collaboration with Seattle's Behnke Centre for the Performing Arts. Following the English-language premiere of the play at PuSh, the 17 Vancouver children that make up its cast will head south to perform again in March.
The production itself is one that benefited from the extra injection of cash generated by the artistic arm of the Olympics, the Cultural Olympiad. It also is a perfect example of Armour's collaboration ethic in practice.
The PuSh director saw the original Flemish production in Europe, travelling to Bergen to meet up with its creator, Tim Etchells, artistic director of Britain's Forced Entertainment theatre company. (Armour already had a relationship with Etchells – Forced Entertainment's Quizoola! had opened PuSh in 2007.)
Armour's mission was to persuade Etchells to allow PuSh to produce the English-language premiere of the new show. Permission granted, Armour took the idea to Long and Theatre Replacement – a Vancouver company whose very first show was presented at PuSh, and a regular on the program ever since.
Cultivating such relationships and jumping at opportunities to cross-pollinate is Armour's raison d'être. It builds not just creative inspiration, but an atmosphere of mutual trust, MovEnt's Saroyan adds.
“Our programming is left to us – it is our own,” she notes. “But the fact is that PuSh is gaining a reputation for presenting good work, and that translates to audiences beyond the usual dance crowd coming out to see what we're doing. PuSh effectively doubles our audience.”
“It isn't that we give everyone we've ever worked with carte blanche,” Armour interjects. “But our partnerships are conducted face to face – we are people dealing with people.”
The trick, he says, is to know the track record and to be able to assess if the elements of a new work hold true.
“It's not black and white,” he shrugs. “And it doesn't mean everything is perfect. There is a huge range and there are huge risks. But I know that come Feb. 8, when it's all over, I'll be able to stand by each and every choice I have made.”
PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, Vancouver, today until Feb. 8, various venues. See www.pushfestival.ca.
