Happy New Year, and welcome back to The Friday Round-Up! And this month there is so much to see!

Joining us from Australia January 24-27, is the DanceHouse and The Cultch co-presentation of Gravity and Other Myths, with their work The Mirror. The corporeal glory of bodies, full of sweat, heat and power, forms the meat of The Mirror in which the Australian company more than lives up to its title, suspending the laws of physics in order to generate a new kind of dance, infused with elements of circus, cabaret, and a light spanking of kink.

Offering much more than a metaphorical peek behind the curtain, The Mirror strips bare the architecture of performance itself. From the grunts, shouts and onstage banter to the price paid for pushing the body to its absolute limit, this is heart-in-your-throat territory, leavened with a hefty dose of humour and some more outré elements from torch songs to sexy underpants. Scaling the heights of elegance before descending into near-Exorcist contortions, The Mirror loops in the audience for some gleeful conspiring, backstage access and a wee bit of interactivity. The feats of strength and balance are staggering enough, but in amongst the fleshy tangles of arms and legs is something more than raw spectacle. A spiritual dimension is also present, created by sheer bodily effort, it is the stuff of awe that soars towards the sublime. You can check out a teaser of the work here. At the Vancouver Playhouse, 8 pm. Tix

Wednesday-Saturday January 17-20, Tara Cheyenne Friedenberg presents her latest work, Pants. Can one reimagine gender from inside a middle-aged body while standing at the playground caught in the no “man’s” land between the “moms” and the “dads”? Pants takes a deep dive into the shallow end of the gender binary through raw comedy and dance that crawls inside our “packaging”. What happens to one’s flimsy identity, built on blending, when one’s offspring sheds the binary before recess? Profoundly personal storytelling is delivered through alarming comedy and movement that reveals the heart of the matter. Not to be missed! At the Firehall Arts Centre, 7:30 pm. Tix

Friday to Sunday, January 19 to 21, as part of the Dance Centre’s Global Dance Connections Series and in partnership with the PuSh Festival, don’t miss the Tangaj Collective in Ramanenjana. The work is a docufiction performance about a mysterious ‘dance epidemic’ which swept Madagascar for four months in 1863, bringing thousands of people to the streets to dance nonstop to the magnetic music of the drums. Examining conflicting accounts of the event, the work traces its political and religious implications, and how colonialism may have spread misconceptions about an extraordinary movement – and questions the role of dance itself in society. Choreographers Simona Deaconescu (Romania) and Gaby Saranouffi (Madagascar) collaborated with Malagasy ethnomusicologist and musician Olombelo Ricky and three versatile performers to create a witty and intriguing exploration of dance, disease, and revolution. At the Scotiabank Dance Centre, Friday-Saturday 8pm, Sunday 2pm. Post-show artist talkback January 20. Free artist lecture January 21 | 4pm. Tix. Digital stream also available

And speaking of PuSh, this International Performing Arts Festival is now in full swing showcasing a huge array of explorations in the performing arts from dance to theatre to opera and everything in between. There are just too many shows to list here, but some of the dance shows include Rakesh Sukesh in Because I Love this Diversity (This Micro Attitude, We All Have It), Diana Lopez Soto in Nomada and Cherish Menzo/Grip & Frascati Producties in Darkmatter. But do check all the programming here – the Festival continues until February 4.

For dancers in the community, in partnership with Training Society of Vancouver, PuSh has invited five visiting Festival artists to share their technique in Working Class. This series of classes for professional and pre-professional dancers is an opportunity to expand your practice with diverse contemporary approaches.  Simona Deaconescu – January 22 | Info & Registration Rakesh Sukesh – January 24 and January 26 | Info & Registration Jean Abreu & Naishi Wang – January 29 | Info & Registration Cherish Menzo – January 31 and February 2 | Info & Registration. All sessions 10AM at Scotiabank Dance Centre | $15, registration required. For more info, contact Julian at community@pushfestival.ca.

And continuing on the PuSh theme, on Thursday, January 25, do check out Left of PuSh, a platform for experiments in process by local and national dance artists, produced by plastic orchid factory. Running parallel to the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival, the 2024 edition features work by Livona Ellis and Rebecca Margolick/Anya Saugstad/Venus Art Gallery (V.A.G.) At Left of Main, 5 pm Tix

Until February 3, check out Interdisciplinary artist Nellie Gossen’s Returns, an imaginative convergence of dance, labour and garment fabrication: an innovative experiment and month-long artistic enquiry into the standard 30-day retail return policy. Garments of all kinds are purchased and brought to the studio where they are carefully disassembled, and their materials reimagined into new forms. Gossen works alongside dance artist Erika Mitsuhashi, clothing artist Jaewoo Kang and visual artist tone puorro to construct an ever-shifting landscape of garment constellations, sculptural configurations, and unfolding movement scores. At the end of the 30-day period, all garments are meticulously reconstructed back into their original forms and returned to stores for a full refund. Presented with the PuSh Festival. At the Scotiabank Dance Centre, drop in and stay as long as you want. Check here for times.

This sounds like it is worth checking our: HOLD ON LET GO, an annual festival of contemporary performance work by Vancouver and Canadian artists, produced by Theatre Replacement and Company 605. Now going into its 14th season, HOLD ON LET GO (formerly PushOFF) has solidified its place as a vital space for artists and audiences to come together in the sharing of new, experimental works that look to challenge what performance is and can be. Part I of this year’s program takes place between January 23-27, including incredible new works by Hong Kong Exile’s, Heaven FM and whereverever by duo Mardon + Mitsuhashi, among others. Part II takes place on January 30 and 31, with new works by both Theatre Replacement (Best Life) and Company 605 (lossy). There are also emerging artist events, a Town Hall and a fun mixer for artists and teams of HOLD ON LET GO and the PuSh International Performing Arts Festival! At the Russian Hall, check here for the schedule and more info.