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Vancouver Is Awesome is a proud media partner of the 2013 PuSh Festival! Throughout the festival the folks who run things will be bringing you intimate features from behind the scenes to the front lines.

On February 2 at Club PuSh, sad sack, by night  dedicated an entire evening to the expression of West Coast melancholy. We caught up with the curator of the evening, Vanessa Kwan, to talk a little bit about the night:

Tell us a little bit about yourself, and this night at Club PuSh that you’re curating entitled sad sack, by night

Hi, I’m Vanessa. I’m an artist with a practice that includes some curatorial work– in the form of performances, exhibitions, and whatnot. I’ve been working on a series of projects loosely called Sad Sack, and they are all about melancholy in the city. It involves an exhibition, some drawings, a monologue about David Bowie, potentially some absinthe, and: THIS NIGHT AT CLUB PUSH!
 

Image: Vanessa Kwan

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Vancouver Is Awesome is a proud media partner of the 2013 PuSh Festival! Throughout the festival the folks who run things will be bringing you intimate features from behind the scenes to the front lines.

PHOTO HIGHLIGHTS FROM WEEK TWO AT PUSH!

Do You See What I Mean? A 2.5 hour blindfolded tour into the streets, storefronts and hidden spaces of Vancouver! Photo by Liesbeth Bernaerts. 

Club PuSh – the social hub of the PuSh Festival. Photo by Riz Herbosa. …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

Vancouver Is Awesome is a proud media partner of the 2013 PuSh Festival! Throughout the festival the folks who run things will be bringing you intimate features from behind the scenes to the front lines.

All three weekends of the PuSh Festival (Jan 18-20, 25-27 + Feb 1-3) between 12:00PM and 4:00PM, head down to the Vancouver Public Library and check out a human book at Human Library! Choose from titles like “Female Heavy Equipment Mechanic” and “Non-Binary Transgender” and be connected with the person behind the title for an enjoyable and informal conversation designed to challenge prejudice.

We asked a few questions of Zaira Petruf, one of our “human books”:

Tell us a little bit about yourself and your book title

My book title is ‘Refugee‘. I constantly struggle with the images that this word evokes. Try a simple Google Image search of the word ‘refugee’ and you will know what I mean. While it is true, my immigration status for a period of time was ‘refugee’, the life I lead today is not a direct reflection of that period of time. It is more than that; I am more than that.

This is also the case for a lot of other immigrants and refugees or ‘people with accents’ that walk the streets of Vancouver. We have our intricacies and quirks. We can be ‘mainstream’ and ‘alternative’, ‘well-adjusted’ and ‘closed-minded’. We are full of contradictions because we are all people.

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Vancouver Is Awesome is a proud media partner of the 2013 PuSh Festival! Throughout the festival the folks who run things will be bringing you intimate features from behind the scenes to the front lines.

PHOTO HIGHLIGHTS FROM WEEK ONE AT PUSH!

All photos by Festival photographer Tim Matheson

Dan Mangan and CTV’s Mi-Jung Lee host the PuSh Festival Opening Gala

Club PuSh – packed to capacity on Opening Night! …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

Vancouver Is Awesome is a proud media partner of the 2013 PuSh Festival! Throughout the festival the folks who run things will be bringing you intimate features from behind the scenes to the front lines.

We asked PuSh Festival Executive Director Norman Armour to give a few recommendations for a wide variety of audiences and this is what he had to say!

WHAT PUSH FESTIVAL SHOW WOULD YOU RECOMMEND FOR…

A newbie to PuSh
Show: Winners and Losers
Why: If this doesn’t grab your interest, mischievous, intellectual hate strings, and make you want more, well then shut the front door.

A couple on their first date
Show: Ballet BC’s Encore
Why: The choice of entertainment will prove you have class, taste and smarts.

…READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>

Vancouver Is Awesome is a proud media partner of the 2012 PuSh Festival! Throughout the festival the folks who run things will be bringing you intimate features from behind the scenes to the front lines.

On Sunday, January 29, the Turning Point Ensemble premieres a brand new work at the 2012 PuSh Festival by acclaimed Vancouver composer Rodney Sharman in the program Colourful World.

We asked Rodney a bit about his writing, and about this new work. Here is what he had to say…

Photo of Rodney Sharman by Victor John Penner

Having been born in Saskatchewan and then living a number of other places before coming to Vancouver, what influence (if any) do you feel that Vancouver and the artistic scene here, has had on your creative output?

I have lived in Vancouver some 20 years. It is a place where I take pleasure writing music in a way that I have not done since I was a teenager, where I feel my artistic vision can stretch in all directions, where I am can shape culture as well as be shaped by it.

I am particularly proud of founding the Jean Coulthard Readings at the Vancouver Symphony when I was Composer-in-Residence and of the many commissions I was able to arrange for others, especially during the VS millennium season. I am also happy with the part I played in helping Ballet BC over the years a public speaker and volunteer.

I have grown as an artist through my relationships with many fine Vancouver musicians, among them the late Maestro Sergiu Comissiona, VS Music Director Bramwell Tovey, bassoonist Christopher Millard, harpist Rita Costanzi, violinist Mark Ferris, pianist Rachel Iwaasa and flutist Mark McGregor. Owen Underhill has been a marvellous supporter of my work, first with Vancouver New Music, especially the production of my opera, Elsewhereless, and now with Turning Point. I write cabaret songs with Vancouver writer Bill Richardson sometimes, too.

I love dance and visual art and my artistic life has been enriched by dance performances and galleries here. I only wish there were more of them!

What composers or compositions have most recently been inspiring or interesting to you?

I was very excited by the music of a young composer from London, Laura Bowler, whose work I heard in Banff when I was working on the Chamber Symphony in the Leighton Studios. At 25, she is already working on commissions from the …READ THE REST OF THIS ENTRY>>>