PuSh Festival Returns this Winter with
25 Performances and Events
For the Culturally Fearless
PuSh International Performing Arts Festival is excited to announce the 2026 Festival will return to Vancouver from January 22 to February 8, 2026. For two and a half weeks across Vancouver, PuSh Festival invites audiences to discover creative theatrical works by local and Canadian artists alongside international collaborators and Indigenous creators. For more than two decades, PuSh has been the city’s midwinter anchor—a place where live art is celebrated, where risk is rewarded, and where Vancouver audiences engage with bold, audacious performances.
The 2026 PuSh Festival will continue to defy the bounds of disciplines, bringing together theatre, dance, multimedia performance, music, installation, and film. Rooted in PuSh’s artistic vision to animate culture and accelerate social change through performance, the Festival will present works that ask big questions, unsettle expectations, and create space for emotional resonance.
The 2026 PuSh Festival features 23 presentations in theatre, dance, multimedia, music, and film. Opening and Closing weekends will be celebrated at the Birdhouse, with an Opening Party event on Friday, January 23, and The Motha’ Kiki Ball by BlackOut Collective, co-produced by PuSh and Van Vogue Jam on Saturday, February 7.
Tickets for the 2026 Festival go on sale Thursday, November 20, 2025.
“The 2025 PuSh Festival is an invitation to the culturally fearless—to those ready to step into fresh futurities and the uncharted possibilities of live performance,” says Gabrielle Martin, Artistic Director of PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. “Across the program, artists prototype new ways of knowing and being in real time—through Indigenous cosmologies of deep time, feminist remappings of the gaze, AI-age grief rituals, and magic-realist reckonings where myth and memory blur. This is urgent work: performances as laboratories for how we might live and relate differently—where imagination is not escape, but infrastructure for the future.”
The Festival lineup is dedicated to inspired risk-taking and dynamic interdisciplinary collaboration with visionary works from 13 countries—including 6 world premieres, North American premiere, 4 Canadian debuts, 5 Western Canadian premieres and 4 Vancouver premieres. In addition to a strong Canadian presence with 11 presentations, PuSh’s 2026 international projects include works by artists from Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Palestine, The Netherlands, The United Kingdom, and Zimbabwe. PuSh’s commitment to diversity continues with 14 shows created by people of colour; 6 shows by Indigenous creators; and 5 shows by 2SLGBTQIA+ artists.
The full program will be announced at PuSh’s 2026 Program Launch Party, open to the public, at the Birdhouse (44 W 4th Ave in Vancouver) on Wednesday, November 19 from 5-8pm. The launch will feature previews of each 2026 presentation, plus a live performance excerpt from Simran Sachar and Justine A. Chambers’ Today is the evening to strike lightning / Aaj To Bijiliyan Girane Ki Shaam Hai, which premiered in July in an Indian Summer Festival-PuSh Festival co-presentation. RSVPs to the launch event are open until November 14.
A few highlights for PuSh 2026 include:
- The Western Canadian premiere of Alan Lake Factori(e)’s Orpheus at the Vancouver Playhouse (January 30 & 31). Orpheus reimagines the myth of descent as a visceral dance through darkness toward connection and renewal. Oscillating between dream and reality, the work becomes a mirror for our fractured humanity—a dance of chaos and connection, inviting us to drink from the fire, and to emerge changed. Ticket holders of Orpheus can also access Alan Lake’s online film Parades (online January 30 to February 8).
- Part ritual, part pop concert, Trouble Score is a hallucinatory portrait of family myth refracted through the lens of magic realism. This Vancouver premiere by Brazil-born, Belgian-based artists Luanda and Pablo Casell is a storytelling alchemy of music, language, and light. At the Vancouver Playhouse for one night only (February 7), presented in association with the Vancouver Latin American Cultural Centre.
- Split Tooth: Saputjiji brings Tanya Tagaq’s poetic universe to life on stage. Directed by Kaneza Schaal, it gathers throat singers, musicians, and performers in a world where music, memory, and myth intertwine. This world premiere concert adaptation of Tagaq’s renowned novel is a visceral act of transformation. Tagaq’s voice moves between the ancestral and the futuristic, carrying the elemental power that defines her work. A PuSh co-commission, at the Chan Centre for one night only (February 5), co-presented with the Chan Centre and Music on Main.
- Everything Has Disappeared celebrates and explores the unique relationship the Filipino diaspora has to the global economy. Created by UNIT Productions (Winnipeg) & Mammalian Diving Reflex (Toronto), in collaboration with The Chop (Vancouver), this Vancouver premiere highlights our globally interconnected society through interactive digital art and a touch of magic. At the York Theatre (January 29, 30, 31 & February 1), co-presented with the Cultch.
PuSh is not just about the performances—it is also a creative hub for dialogue, mentorship, and professional development. The PuSh 2026 Industry Series brings together 240+ global performing arts professionals for panels, labs, and sector-exchanges from January 27 to February 1.
PuSh’s new Program for emerging artists and arts critics, In Dialogue (ages 25–35), is a free intensive inviting deep inquiry into contemporary performance. Over seven days, participants will attend Festival performances together, join discussions with leading theatre makers and scholars, and take part in post-show conversations with Festival artists.
PuSh’s Youth Pass allows youth (ages 16-24) to access 4 shows from the PuSh Festival programming at the highly discounted rate of $20. Quantities are limited and passes must be booked through the box office.
PuSh 2026 continues partnerships with organizations including The Cultch, New Works, Music on Main, Touchstone Theatre, Indian Summer Festival, frank theatre co., Playwrights Theatre Centre, Here & Now (UK), Van Vogue Jam, The Dance Centre, SFU, Vancouver Civic Theatres, Roundhouse Community Arts & Recreation Centre, and the Granville Island Theatre District.
PuSh also celebrates new partnerships with the Chinese Canadian Museum, LIVE Biennale, and the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts.
In partnership with Latincouver and the Vancouver Latin American Cultural Centre, PuSh presents the new series Encuentro, centering Latin American artistic expression at the Festival. This community-centred initiative (meaning “gathering” in Spanish and Portuguese) fosters Latin American cultural appreciation and exchange at PuSh. Encuentro aims to build connections between PuSh’s visiting artists and Vancouver’s Latin American communities, and to amplify Latin American perspectives within the Canadian cultural landscape.
2026 PuSh Festival Performances
International companies/artists being presented for PuSh 2026 include: Luanda Casella / Pablo Casella / ntgent (Belgium), Wet Mess (UK), Renae Shadler and Roland Walter (Australia/Germany), Rainbow Chan (Australia/Hong Kong/Weitou), L’École Parallèle Imaginaire (France), Khalil Albatran / Bilal Alkhatib (Palestine), Cherish Menzo / Frascati Producties (The Netherlands / Belgium), Archa Centre of Documentary Theatre (Czech Republic), and Jerahuni Movement Factory (Zimbabwe).
Canadian companies/artists being presented include: Action at a Distance / Vanessa Goodman, BlackOUT Collective, Justine A. Chambers, Creepy Boys / So.Glad Arts, Alan Lake Factori(e), UNIT Productions & Mammalian Diving Reflex in collaboration with The Chop, and Cole Lewis / Patrick Blenkarn / Sam Ferguson, and plastic orchid factory / James Gnam.
Indigenous companies/artists being presented include: Lara Kramer (Turtle Island/Canada), Tyson Houseman (Treaty 6 Territory, Turtle Island), Akpik Theatre / Theaturtle (Canada, Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland), Sápmi (Norway)), Tiziano Cruz (Argentina), Lukas Avendaño (Mexico), and Tanya Tagaq (Cambridge Bay/Toronto).
The comprehensive 2026 program guide will be available online on November 20 with specific show information. You can also contact info@nullpushfestival.ca or 604.605.8284 for more details.
TICKETING
Prices for most PuSh shows start at $39. Full pricing varies according to show and venue. To buy tickets, visit pushfestival.ca or call the PuSh Festival Audience Services info line at 604.449.6000.
Early bird passes are now available, offering Festival-goers the opportunity to buy a 4-show Festival Pass for only $100. All-new Flex Passes, regular 4- and 6-show passes, and single-show tickets will go on sale November 20, 2025 with the announcement of the full program at pushfestival.ca. Contact tickets@nullpushfestival.ca for group sales.
| LISTING INFORMATION
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PuSh International Performing Arts Festival |
| Dates: | January 22–February 8, 2026
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| Ticket Prices: | $39/$59 General Admission plus FREE events
$120 4-Show Pass $165 6-Show Pass $130 4-Flex Pass $186 6-Flex Pass $38 – The Brutal Joy at Scotiabank Dance Centre $49 – WAIL at Scotiabank Dance Centre + Tiered ticket options available for venues with assigned seating: Orpheus and Trouble Score at the Vancouver Playhouse, Everything Has Disappeared at the York Theatre, and Split Tooth and Kiuryaq at the Chan Centre
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| Location:
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Various Vancouver Venues |
| Audience Services:
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604.449.6000 / tickets@nullpushfestival.ca |
| Website:
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pushfestival.ca |
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About PuSh International Performing Arts Festival (pushfestival.ca) For more than two decades, the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival has been BC’s signature mid-winter cultural event, delivering audacious, innovative, and contemporary works of live arts by acclaimed local, national, and international artists. Curated, multidisciplinary, international in scope—the Festival animates culture and accelerates social change with performance and multimedia projects that embrace creative risk and share a sense of cultural urgency. Follow PuSh on Facebook and Instagram and subscribe on YouTube.
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