About
Welcome to HOLD ON LET GO, an annual festival of contemporary performance work by Vancouver and Canadian artists.
Now going into its 16th 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.
HOLD ON LET GO takes place at the Russian Hall and is produced by Theatre Replacement in partnership with Company 605.
Theatre Replacement
End of Greatness – Theatre Replacement
Photo by Chelsey Stuyt
Image description: Two people, one standing slightly in front of the other. The person in the front is a woman with white hair, wearing a black and white striped hoodie. Her hands are just under her chin. She is wearing make up that is a bit unusual; her eyebrows are painted green and white and she has yellow highlights around her forehead and chin. The person in the back is a woman with dark hair, standing to the back and left of the woman in front. She is wearing a black hoodie, with a pattern on the front. Her hands are holding the side of the hood and she is watching the woman in front. She is also wearing the same style of make-up, with white and purple eyebrows and yellow highlights. She is a bit fuzzy in the picture, where the woman in front is in focus.
Theatre Replacement (TR) creates new, experimental and intercultural works of performance. Led by Artistic Director Maiko Yamamoto, in collaboration with resident, associate and guest artists, the company’s work is known for its love of formal inventiveness and conceptual play, often drawing from autobiography and biography in making performances that search for playful, immediate and authentic ways of bringing audiences together. The company also supports the practice of making and sharing new work through our public programs — opportunities for mentorship, residency, professional development and networking.
TR has been presented at internationally recognized festivals and venues including: Festival TransAmériques (Montréal), Magnetic North Theatre Festival (Ottawa, Vancouver, Kitchener, Whitehorse), Free Fall Festival and Factory Theatre (Toronto), PuSh International Performing Arts Festival (Vancouver), High Performance Rodeo (Calgary), On the Boards (Seattle), Fusebox Festival (Austin, TX), Noorderzon Festival (Groningen, NL), PAZZ Performing Arts Festival (Oldenburg, Germany), Lókal and Everybody’s Spectacular Festivals (Reykjavik), A! Festival (Akureyri, Iceland), Terni Festival (Italy), Dublin Fringe Festival and Dublin Theatre Festival (Ireland), Foreign Affairs (Berlin), Soho Rep. (New York), Woolly Mammoth (Washington, DC), Portland Repertory Theatre (Portland, Oregon), Mayfest (Bristol, UK), artsdepot (London), Cambridge Junction (Cambridge, UK), foldA Festival (Kingston, ON), BASTARDFESTIVALEN, Meteor Festival (Norway) and the Melbourne Fringe Festival.
Recent presentations and touring works include Best Life, a new, relational show performed by an audience for each other, inspired by the machines that make our lives better, and Town Choir, where writers send real-time messages to an awaiting choir who then sing the everyday observations out in public space. Current works in development include The End of Greatness, conceived and created by Yamamoto and long-time Artistic Associate and musician, Veda Hille (premiering in 2025/26), and FUTURE POEMS, a brand new work by Yamamoto, created and performed with a group of kids and youth — a playlist of poems performed to and for an audience of the future.
Company 605
lossy - Company 605
Photo by Luciana D'Anunciacao
Image description: A group of dancers are moving across a stage, some are low to the ground, others are in a mid way pose, some are reaching with their arms towards the right. On the left hand side of the photo are some modern furniture pieces: a clear, blow up armchair that is upended, a small side table, and a lamp on a boom stand. There are also fluorescent lights of bright, neon colours – pink, green and purple that light up the space and are reflected and bounce colourful lights off the floor.
Led by artistic co-directors Lisa Mariko Gelley and Josh Martin, Company 605 is an arts organization based in Vancouver, on the traditional, unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh First Nations. Producing various dance projects and performances through shared creative process, the artists place emphasis on rigorous choreographic propositions and movement exploration – juxtaposing raw with precision, and highlighting effort, risk and interconnection. 605 is an ongoing exchange between separate people, bodies and ideas, with each project seeking and celebrating their own unique forms of togetherness. Devising from experimental practice, and valuing collaboration as a critical path for new directions in dance, Company 605 continues to transform and build on an ever-evolving aesthetic, with multiple choreographic voices in pursuit of a truly embodied art form derived from the human experience.
With an expanding repertoire of diverse works, the company has performed from coast to coast in over 35 cities across Canada, and toured in the US, Central America, Europe, Asia and Australia, presented at notable festivals and venues such as: PuSh International Performing Arts Festival and The Cultch (Vancouver), Usine-C and L'Agora de la Danse (Montréal), La Rotonde (Québec City), DanceWorks (Toronto), National Arts Centre (Ottawa), Live Art Dance (Halifax), The Banff Centre, American Dance Festival, Bumbershoot Festival, On The Boards, RISK/REWARD Fest, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, and New York City Center's Fall for Dance Festival (USA), Festival PRISMA (Panama), Festival Paréntesis (Costa Rica), Odoru Akita, SAIDance, and Fukuoka Dance Festival (Japan), M1 Cont-act Festival (Singapore), Salihara Arts Centre (Indonesia), Kuandu International Arts Festival (Taiwan), The Sydney Festival (Australia), MasDanza (Spain), Teatri Riflessi and RA.I.D Festival (Italy), Tempel Kulturzentrum, Regensburger TanzTage, Heidelberg TanzBiennale, and Tanzmesse (Germany). The company’s collaborations with filmmakers and award-winning dance films have been shown at over 60 dance-on-screen festivals around the world, and on streaming platforms like CBC Gem.
605's co-directors have been invited to create several commissioned works for various arts organizations, including Vancouver's acclaimed Ballet BC (Anthem, 2017 and After We Glow, 2021), and regularly create and teach within post-secondary dance education programs across Canada. In 2024, Lisa and Josh were jointly named for the The Dance Centre's Lola McLaughlin Legacy Award, celebrating their shared achievement in dance, and contribution to the BC artistic community through Company 605’s work.
Current projects include: the recent premiere of Sloth Canon (2025), a large-scale international co-production with with The Human Expression Dance Company (Singapore), assembling a creative team and cast from both cities to collaboratively build a new ensemble work, touring The Dance Centre (Vancouver), Cont-act Festival (Singapore), and Salihara Arts Centre (Indonesia) in June 2025; the recent international touring of lossy (2024), with upcoming Canadian dates in Spring 2027; as well as the creation and touring of a new solo work by Josh Martin in Spain. For 2025/26, Company 605 continues as the presenting sponsor of Boombox, a converted shipping trailer turned artist-led experimental performance space operated by Here For Now Collective, and housed outside queer and trans ran arts and event venue, The Birdhouse (44 W 4th Ave).