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Cutting-Edge Theatre Returns to PuSh Festival

Deeply original and audaciously witty, ‘The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes’ probes human rights, disability advocacy and AI.

PuSh Festival 11 Jan 2024The Tyee

A white person sits leaning to the side on a couch in a dimly lit room. They are surrounded by taxidermied animals on the wall. A tiger head looms over them.
How can we collectively make decisions in the best interest of a civic society? The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes takes on the quandary, playing Feb. 1 to 3 at PuSh Festival. Photo by Jeff Busby.

When AI takes over from human intelligence, how will people be treated?

Weaving a narrative through human rights, sexual politics, and the projected dominance of AI, The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes is a sly theatrical revelation.

The performance, created by PuSh alumna Back to Back Theatre and presented with Neworld Theatre in association with the Cultch, runs Feb. 1 to 3 at the York Theatre as part of the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival.

The festival runs Jan. 18 to Feb. 4. Known for delivering radical, innovative, contemporary works of live art by acclaimed local, national and international artists, the 2024 edition of PuSh Festival features 17 original works.

The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes is inspired by a New York Times article that followed 32 disabled men who were taken out of an Iowa institution in the 1970s and put to work in a turkey processing plant as a part of a government backed employment program. More than 30 years later, the men were still living and working in inhumane conditions and only being paid $65 a month.

Instead of attempting to recreate the story, Back to Back Theatre frames the discussion of the work in the context of protest.

How does society stereotype and castigate people with intellectual disabilities, consciously or otherwise? How do we each ethically navigate the complexities of representation and language?

The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes is a raw, honest and deeply funny work that reminds us that none of us are self-sufficient and all of us are responsible.

Award-winning Australian theatre company takes the stage again at PuSh

Back to Back Theatre, returning to PuSh for the third time with The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunger Becomes, is a widely recognized Australian theatre company based in Geeolong, Victoria. Their work Small Metal Objects was performed as a part of the 2008 festival and in 2020, and Back to Back worked with PuSh and Neworld Theatre to create a collaborative, egalitarian movie in The Democratic Set.

Established in 1983, the theatre company has become one of Australia’s leading creative voices, focusing on moral, philosophical and political questions about the value of individual lives. All three of the works presented at PuSh dig more deeply into these lines of artistic and social inquiry, generating a thematic arc about how we live and what gives life meaning.

Back to Back maintains a full-time ensemble of disabled performers. The nature of the actors' continuous employment creates unique creation conditions that support long-term, collective exploration of a range of thematic and dramatic possibilities.

The full lineup of works in the 2024 festival offers personal accounts of resistance and acts of vulnerability pushing us to examine our relationship to contemporary themes such as migration, displacement, labour and injustice.

To experience interdisciplinary collaboration and the shifting paradigms of artistic form, get your tickets to PuSh Festival today.

PuSh International Performing Arts Festival runs Jan. 18 to Feb. 4. ‘The Shadow Whose Prey the Hunter Becomes’ runs Feb. 1 to 3 at the York Theatre. For tickets and more information, visit the PuSh website. [Tyee]

Read more: Rights + Justice

This article is part of a Tyee Presents initiative. Tyee Presents is the special sponsored content section within The Tyee where we highlight contests, events and other initiatives that are either put on by us or by our select partners. The Tyee does not and cannot vouch for or endorse products advertised on The Tyee. We choose our partners carefully and consciously, to fit with The Tyee’s reputation as B.C.’s Home for News, Culture and Solutions. Learn more about Tyee Presents here.

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