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The Cultch has announced the inaugural Warrior Festival, taking place on all three Cultch Stages in East Vancouver this April 16 to May 11.
Featuring five fierce and funny works of comedy, theatre and circus, this new festival features some of Canada’s most boundary-breaking artists and companies. Cue the rebellion, the show is about to begin.
The festival opens with Katey Hoffman and Cheyenne Mabberley’s Lxdy Parts: Babes, a riotous brew of sketch comedy and storytelling at the Vancity Culture Lab from April 16 to 19. Featuring true stories and special guests, Hoffman and Rouleau draw hilarious inspiration from their new roles as mothers.
Dance Nation, a Pulitzer Prize Finalist for Drama produced by the Search Party, headlines the festival with an extended run at the York Theatre from April 23 to May 11. Written by Clare Barron, this ferocious exploration of adolescence, ambition and friendship follows a pre-teen competitive dance team gunning for a national championship. This Vancouver premiere is directed by Mindy Parfitt, choreographed by Amber Barton and features many of Vancouver’s finest actors. Called a “brave, visceral, excitingly off-kilter barbaric yawp of a play” (Vulture) and “blazingly original and unsettlingly familiar” (New York Times), this powerful play is not to be missed!
Hailing from Québec, acclaimed circus duo Agathe et Adrien literally and figuratively flip convention on its head with N.Ormes. “It is at once a shared celebration of strength and an incredibly vulnerable act — a direct provocation of gendered conventions onstage and off,” notes the Scotsman. This celebrated work of contemporary circus comes to The Cultch’s Historic Theatre from April 24 to 27, giving Vancouver audiences a unique opportunity to experience heart-in-the-throat acrobatics in an intimate venue.
Maddie Bautista and Deanna Choi’s Love You Wrong Time is a hilarious and interactive theatre show about two friends looking for love while contending with the fetishization of Asian women. Mixing standup comedy with music and true stories, this show is a good time, with teeth. See it on stage May 1 to 11 at The Cultch’s Historic Theatre.
Produced by Zee Zee Theatre, Every Day She Rose is “a blazingly intelligent play that challenges our perceptions of race, communication, friendship, respect and how we deal with uncomfortable situations” (the Slotkin Letter). In this play by Andrea Scott and Nick Green, two best friends find their politics aren’t as aligned as they thought when the Black Lives Matter protest and the 2016 Toronto Pride Parade collide.
“Since our founding in 1973, The Cultch has been celebrating the work of women and gender-expansive artists,” says Heather Redfern, the organization’s executive director. “This year, we continue that work by launching the Warrior Festival — a festival to celebrate artists creating powerful, liberating work that elevates the conversations happening on and off the stage.”
Tickets to all five Warrior Festival shows are on sale from $29. Guests who purchase tickets to more than one show will save 20 per cent, while those who purchase an all-access festival pass will save 30 per cent. All pass-holders are also invited to the Warrior Festival Party, a post-show celebration at The Cultch on May 2.
Come and be a part of the Warrior Festival at The Cultch from April 16 to May 11, where joy is an act of resistance and every artist is a warrior.
Full details can be found on the Warrior Festival webpage. ![[Tyee]](/design-article.thetyee.ca/ui/img/yellowblob.png){kind=small}
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