The PuSh International Performing Arts Festival (PuSh Festival) presents the Canadian premiere of Pancho Villa From a Safe Distance in a one-night only performance on January 31, 2019, at 8pm at the Vogue Theatre. Renowned composer Graham Reynolds collaborates with librettists Lagartijas Tiradas al Sol to craft an experimental opera inspired by the life of Mexican revolutionary general Pancho Villa. The cross-border, cross-genre production casts timely focus on the relationship between communities in Mexico and the United States, as well as the borderlands that separate them.
Pancho Villa From a Safe Distance is the final installation of The Marfa Triptych — a series of three musical portraits by Reynolds commissioned by Ballroom Marfa, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping artists achieve projects that have significant cultural impact but would be impossible to realize in a traditional setting. The stunning production presents a non-linear collage of scenes inspired by the life of the enigmatic hero and legendary bandit of the Mexican Revolution. Born in 1878, Francisco “Pancho” Villa became notorious as a wrathful, yet sentimental leader. Raised on a farm as a peasant worker, he eventually ran away and turned to a life of banditry. When war broke out, he assembled a group of revolutionaries who would become an army of fighters. A figure shrouded in myth, he is memorialized today as a man who tore down borders.
The PuSh Film Series, which rounds out the festival’s performing arts experience with related screenings, will also show A Scanner Darkly (2006), directed by Richard Linklater and scored by Graham. The film is the first of four collaborations between the two creators, and offers a weirdly funny, inescapably prophetic Rotoscope-animated adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s novel of alternate realities, drugs, paranoia, and the surveillance state. A Scanner Darkly will screen at 4:30pm on February 3, 2019, at Vancity Theatre (1181 Seymour St).
PuSh International Performing Arts Festival presents: Pancho Villa From a Safe Distance
Dates:
January 31, 2019 at 8pm
Ticket Prices:
From $47.75 (fees included)
Location:
Vogue Theatre
918 Granville St
Vancouver, BC
Audience Services:
604.449.6000 / tickets@pushfestival.ca
Website:
pushfestival.ca
Photo by Alex Marks
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