An AV experience set in your bathtub? The Push Festival immerses its audience in the unconventional

This year, the Push International Performing Arts Festival in Vancouver is looking to draw people out of their own heads and put them in tune with their senses, whether that's by welcoming them into the theatre with the striking aroma of milkfish or by helping them stage a performance from the comfort of their own bathtub.

The festival has been programming dance, theatre and multimedia works from around the world for 20 years, highlighting marginalized artists who are producing art that's not afraid to tackle themes of social injustice in unexpected ways.

"Push audiences expect something audacious, they expect something they've never experienced before, they expect something that might challenge them," said artistic director Gabrielle Martin. "That is a really liberatory space … to be able to do a lot of curatorial research and then find those projects that, for me, are unlike others I've experienced."

Running from Jan. 23 to Feb. 9, this year's programming maintains what Martin calls "a sense of cultural urgency" but with exciting twists unique to the newest iteration of the festival.

One of these is adding more work performed in languages other than English. 

Among these multilingual productions is Lasa Ng Imperyo, an adaptation of playwright Jovanni Sy's A Taste of Empire produced by rice & beans theatre. Although the original play was in English, this version was translated into Tagalog by Carmela Sison, who also stars in the one-woman show.

Lasa Ng Imperyo is part historical analysis, part cooking demonstration. With cameras capturing her every hand movement as she prepares the stuffed milkfish dish rellenong bangus, Sison dives into a reflection on the colonial history of the Philippines and how past imperialism has negatively influenced how food is currently distributed.

Anjela Magpantay, interim artistic director of rice & beans, thinks of the Philippines as "a dream that never was realized," with the country holding tight to a colonial mentality. Through dark comedy, the play hopes to spark conversations about where our food comes from and what it means to be a Filipino person.

Lasa Ng Imperyo is the first Tagalog-translated play to appear in the Push Festival — a milestone for both Vancouver's arts scene and its substantial Filipino population. 

"In Vancouver, we're not a theatre-going culture to the same extent that Montreal or Toronto are, and it could be prohibitive for a presenter to present work in a foreign language," Martin said. "It's a political stance for Carmela, who's perfectly fluent in English, to create a work in Tagalog. And there's something beautiful that another language can bring."

Magpantay says that even in the Philippines people are encouraged to prioritize English, so the struggle to connect with culture isn't unique to younger generations. Sison recalled telling her aunts about the production as she was working on the script, who were all shocked that she would take on a project like this. She says that, as Filipnos find themselves speaking English more and more, something like this feels like a meaningful act of cultural reclamation.

"It's really brought me this gift of conversing with my parents, relatives — just talking about the language itself and their own relationship with language," Sison said. "I would love for the Filipino community to come out and really bathe in the language and culture of it all."

Historically, Push has struggled to bring in African-based acts due various obstacles, including flight costs and visa wait times. Martin says she has been trying to remedy that for all four years she's been running the festival.

This year, the festival will be hosting Géométrie de vies, a theatrical dance piece performed in French and developed by artists from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. There will be two in-person performances and it will also be available online. For Martin, it's a huge step toward making Push "truly international."

"I'm really thrilled to invite this company," she said. "They're some of the most exciting playwrights and theatre-makers in Africa ... I've never experienced a piece, before this work ... a piece of contemporary theatre that's really experimental in its written form, a poetic approach to text-based work."

Martin mentioned that she's especially looking forward to hosting Ray Young, a U.K.-based artist and one of two people with multiple works in this year's Push programming.

One of the works, OUT, is a dance duet that combines elements of dancehall culture, voguing and Caribbean influences to explore gender and sexuality. It's a means of "seek[ing] liberation within one's own body," according to Young, drawing on their experiences growing up Black and queer in the U.K. They used to dance in it themselves, but they're embracing more of a directorial role for this restaged production.

The other work Young is running in this year's Push Festival is a bit unconventional in its staging — audiences only have to go so far as their own bathroom to get involved.

Thirst Trap will allow you to transform your bathroom into an immersive audiovisual experience using a box of sustainably sourced materials. Revolving around water, candlelight and pre-recorded audio instructions, this guided meditation is simple, but provides commentary on climate change and consumerism, emphasizing the sometimes destructive, sometimes nurturing nature of water. 

It's a sister work to Bodies, a similar project of Young's, which invited audiences to reflect on their relationship with water by gathering in a swimming pool and taking in the lights and sounds.

One of Young's priorities in developing works like Bodies and Thirst Trap was to address how certain people might not feel comfortable in traditional arts venues. By redefining what it looks like to engage with a performance, Young hopes to help wider audiences dip their toe (quite literally, in this case) into the art world.

"It's a really interesting offer for me to bring two very different works [to the festival.] One that is … within the theatre space, and then this other piece that is for people to do by themselves, in case people are still shielding or for whatever reason they can't come out," said Young.

All these works are taking rather different approaches to the ways they tell stories, but Martin believes they come together to form a well-rounded program that will appeal to anyone seeking an experience that's out of the ordinary.

"The collective dramaturgy of the program is different every year," said Martin. "It's a creative work in and of itself in terms of how all the works come together, and the kind of conversations that emerge between these multiple pieces that share the same space and time."

The Push International Performing Arts Festival takes place at various locations around Vancouver from Jan. 23-Feb. 9. Check the website for more details.