PuSh Announces 2022 Programming and Staff Addition

Gabrielle Martin is joining PuSh to lead programming and community initiatives for both the 2022 and 2023 festivals.

The 2022 festival program will take place from January 20 to February 6, 2022 and will include work presented with long-standing partners such as The Dance Centre, Theatre Replacement, Music on Main, Touchstone Theatre, The Firehall Arts Centre, SFU Woodward's Cultural Programs, and others.

Martin joins Dr. Margo Kane and Jason Dubois, in the newly formed PuSh Collaborative Leadership Team, which will manage the organization and lead the 2022 festival, while the organization continues its structural review process and evolution throughout the coming 18 months.

Martin brings to PuSh international connections and Canadian relationships in contemporary circus and dance and over a decade of experience in performing arts presentation. She notes: "As voices across the performing arts industry question a return to "normal", it is a crucial time to nurture the type of innovation and dialogue at the core of PuSh's mission. I am thrilled to have the opportunity to do so as part of a shared leadership model that exemplifies a commitment to collaboration and decolonial practices."

Gabrielle Martin's appointment comes as a result of an inclusive search process led by Jeanne LeSage (LeSage Arts Management) and a committee comprised of PuSh board and staff members, all of whom bring a breadth of experience in the arts community. The search process and the creation of the collaborative leadership team are part of the larger restructuring initiatives and the PuSh board's overarching goals:

1. To create a climate of healing and wellness for the PuSh Festival and its stakeholders.
2. To begin transformation towards a responsible, equitable, and accountable organization.
3. To get back to the business of giving cultural workers meaningful employment that enables delivering excellence in the performing arts.

The 2022 PuSh Festival will look different. The arts sector is rebuilding after the COVID-19 pandemic, the impacts from the George Floyd murder and the thousands of Indigenous children found buried at former residential school sites, compelling the sector to reckon with its own systemic racism.

The company is taking time to transform and realign PuSh as an organization, reimagining all aspects of the Society including but not limited to our leadership, staffing structure, and the ways in which they engage the community. As an organization serving many different communities, such as artists, patrons, volunteers, partners, and more, PuSh wants to ensure these connections are maintained and strengthened in 2022 as they rebuild toward the 2023 PuSh Festival and beyond.

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