Push Festival 2021

Push is HOME’s annual celebration of the North West’s creative talents, and this year has been reimagined to become a strand across the whole year, allowing work to be seen both live and digitally, despite the coronavirus pandemic.

From September, Push will return to the HOME building, with a combination of live and digital works.

Emmanuel Bajiiji’s Candy Floss (30 September – 2 October) is a charming storytelling piece charting one man’s journey as he reflects on life in Oldham, his new town, in a new country, on a new continent. In Jenni Jackson’s multidisciplinary Endurance (7 – 9 October), the artist explores how we can observe a woman wilfully push herself to the limit, how complicit the audience is with that experience, and how this destruction of the female body echoes through time. Both works are new commissions by HOME.

On 27 October, Kani Kamil and Sherko Abbas’ Brouhaha uses chaotic noise to reflect on social agitation, displacement and the experience of being an Iraqi artist living in the diaspora, and on 29 October, join storyteller and musician Emmanuela Yogolelo for an afternoon exploring the traditions of songs, harmonies, and storytelling of the people living in the Congo basin in Tales from the Congo Basin.

On 6 November, First Dibs: The Assembly is the culmination of award-winning LGBTQ+ led theatre company Dibby Theatre’s first ever First Dibs course, a radical new play-making school led by LGBTQ+ artists, for LGBTQ+ artists.  Then on 9 and 10 November, Remi Adefeyisan’s You, Us and Them is a physical theatre and rap production that journeys through the life of two people whose emotions, personalities, and their relationship are constantly being moulded and shaped by the world around them.

Ugly Bucket return to HOME following their incredibly popular Homemakers commissions ABC (Anything But Covid) with Good Grief (11 – 13 November), a high energy maelstrom of clowning, movement, verbatim and thumping techno tracks – that is also a show about death. Then on 16 and 17 November, Susanna Amato’s Landfill of Memories is an autobiographical production, about our relationship with holding onto things and the subsequent place it takes up in our heads, our hearts and our houses.

And on 20 November, Box of Tricks return to HOME with the PlayMakers Takeover, bringing together Northern playwrights and theatremakers to connect, collaborate and create. The day will culminate with a cinema screening of Box of Tricks’ acclaimed stage production SparkPlug (filmed at HOME in 2019) followed by a Q&A with playwright/performer David Judge, last seen in Manchester as Lysander in HOME and Filter Theatre’s outdoor production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

“Thrilling and challenging, HOME’s annual festival is a glimmering reminder that new performance continues to be developed, despite ‘you-know-what’.” – Creative Tourist

In this festival

Push 2021 Call Out / Northern Artist Film (shorts)

We are looking for Artist Films (under 20 mins duration) to be featured in Spit That Out, our annual screening of North West Artist Short Films. 

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Q&A with Jennifer Jackson

We caught up with Jennifer Jackson, creator of Endurance, one of our Push 2021 commissions.

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Q&A with Holly Rush

Holly Rush talks about why superheroes are relevant again and unusual career paths

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Q&A with Graeme Arnfield

Graeme Arnefeld talks about how he creates sensory essays through film

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Q&A with Hope Strickland and Jessica El Mal

Artists Hope Strickland and Jessica El Mal on working together for the first time

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HOME’s Push festival returns with brand-new commissions and a groundbreaking experimental video game

Festival will be spread across 2021 to allow work to be seen both live and digitally despite coronavirus

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Q&A with Emmanuel Bajiiji

Emmanuel Bajiji talks about how art can give people confidence to tell their own stories

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Previously in this Festival

PUSH Artist Film Commissions / Q&A

Join Alice Wilde (Talent Development Producer: Visual Art) and Isabelle Croissant (Talent Development Programme Manager: Film & Digital) for an informal webinar about the HOME…

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PlayMakers Culture Café 2021

Join Box of Tricks and our family of supported writers for a coffee and a chat about our PlayMakers Network for Northern playwrights and theatremakers.

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Emmanuela Yogolelo presents

Tales from the Congo Basin

A fun, traditional African storytelling and music session, for families with children aged 8+.

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Dibby Theatre presents

First Dibs: The Assembly

Join the First Dibbers as they proudly present work-in-progress sections of five exciting new LGBTQ+ led pieces, at Dibby’s end-of-term assembly. 

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ToolBox Workshop Stage Design

Join us for a 60-minute creative workshop for Northern stage designers led by Box of Tricks’ Associate Designer Katie Scott with Sascha Gilmore and Kirsty…

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Ugly Bucket presents

Good Grief 2021

Ugly Bucket process the death of a friend in the only way they know how, through a high energy maelstrom of clowning, movement, verbatim and…

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Susanna Amato presents

Landfill of Memories

Imagine destroying twenty years worth of accumulated memories...could you obliterate your past?

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Brouhaha 2021 with Kani Kamil and Sherko Abbas

Brouhaha is understood as noise and voice of a state of social agitation. This performance is a new version of the project called When the…

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PlayMakers Masterclass 2021

Writing from lived experience: A 60-minute practical workshop led by Box of Tricks’ Artistic Director Hannah Tyrrell-Pinder and playwright David Judge (SparkPlug)

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PlayMakers Takeover 2021

Join Box of Tricks for our first ever day-long PlayMakers Takeover as we bring together Northern playwrights and theatremakers to connect, collaborate and create.

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Online Edition: Spit That Out 2021: North West Artist Film Programme

Online now: Discover a selection of recent work from artists who are living in, working in, hailing from or have studied across the North West.

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Spit That Out 2021: North West Artist Film Programme + Introduction

Discover a selection of recent work from artists who are living in, working in, hailing from or have studied across the North West.

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Venessa Scott: Together We Are

Venessa Scott presents a brand-new mural reflecting on the strength of Manchester and its people. Head to Whitworth Street West (next to Jack Rosenthal Street)…

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If I could name you myself (I would hold you forever)

Notions of Black resistance and feminist ecologies are explored in this thought-provoking artist film.

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Closed Hands

An experimental and political video game that explores the complex effects of extremism

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YOU US & THEM

You, Us and Them is a surreal, physical journey through the lives of two people whose friendship is constantly being tested, moulded and shaped by…

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Interactive fiction for writers (intermediate)

A workshop for existing writers with some experience in “traditional” linear fiction, exploring how to effectively build a fragmented interactive narrative. 

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Holly Rush presents

Superhero Alter Ego

Take a surreal, escapist journey into the world of comic books

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Emmanuel Bajiiji with Flare Productions presents

Candy Floss

This funny, heart-warming and serious one-man show looks at how you find your space in a new place

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Interactive fiction for writers (beginner)

A workshop exploring the world of interactive fiction and how you can make our very own interactive stories without worrying too much about learning to…

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Panel Discussion / Muslim representation in games

A discussion focusing on cultural representation within videogames beyond western-centric approaches.

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Panel discussion / Complex storytelling in games

A panel discussion exploring the world of thematically challenging games.

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Graeme Arnfield: The White Ship

Dissolving between past and present, The White Ship tells the story of workers unwittingly witnessing one of the earliest shipwrecks

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PUSH 2021 Theatre Commissions/ Q&A

Join Amanda Fawcett, Programme Producer and Davinia Jokhi, Talent Development Producer; Theatre, for an informal webinar about the HOME PUSH Festival Commissions.

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SparkPlug + Q&A with David Judge

Cinema screening of Box of Tricks’ acclaimed stage production SparkPlug (filmed at HOME in 2019) – a punchy, poetic exploration of family, race, identity and love –…

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