About This Episode:

In this episode of Stageworthy, host Phil Rickaby sits down with Gabrielle Martin, Artistic Director of Vancouver’s PuSh International Performing Arts Festival. Gabrielle discusses her unconventional path into arts leadership, the realities of curating large-scale interdisciplinary work, and the responsibility of presenting challenging, global performance within a local context.

This episode explores:

• Gabrielle’s journey into arts leadership and festival direction

• The role of PuSh Festival within Vancouver’s cultural ecosystem

• Curating interdisciplinary and international performance

• Audience engagement and accessibility in contemporary performance

• The realities of producing large-scale work in Canada

• Care, sustainability, and leadership in the performing arts

• And much more!

Guest: 🎭 Gabrielle Martin

Gabrielle Martin is a cultural producer and live arts curator practicing transformative experiential design in one of society’s few remaining ritual spaces. Her work prioritizes embodied criticality, imagination, pluralism, and risk. It centres the body, and is framed by social and political urgencies.

Gabrielle has a BFA in Contemporary Dance from Concordia University (Montréal), a Certificate in Dramaturgy from the Centre National des Arts du Cirque (Châlons-en-Champagne), and an MA in Arts and Cultural Management from Rome Business School.

Recently, Gabrielle has participated on curatorial and selection juries for Denmark’s CPH Stage International Days, England’s Horizon Showcase, and Canada’s Governor General’s Performing Arts Award in Dance. Before joining PuSh in 2021, she worked as Festival Manager with the Vancouver International Dance Festival. Prior to working in arts management, Gabrielle performed over 1,400 shows internationally with Cirque du Soleil’s TORUK – The First Flight and Cavalia, participated in choreographic residencies in Belgium, Sweden and France, and presented her work in the UK, US, and across Canada.

Connect with Gabrielle:

🌐 Website: https://pushfestival.ca/

📷 Instagram: @pushfestival

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