Queering the Warrior Festival - The Cultch
Warrior Festival 2026
Dates: February 11 – March 29, 2026
Venue: The Cultch, Vancouver
Tickets & Details: https://thecultch.com/warrior-festival-2026/
The Cultch presents the second annual Warrior Festival, a multi-week theatre festival focused on bold, urgent work from Canadian and international artists. The festival runs from February 11 to March 29, 2026, and features six productions that address power, identity, memory, politics, and resistance.
The festival opens with Batshit (Feb 11–15), a solo performance that challenges cultural ideas around female madness. UPU (Feb 17–21), co-presented with Full Circle: First Nations Performance, brings Pacific poetry to the stage in an immersive format following a sold-out run at the Sydney Opera House in 2025. Hannah Moscovitch’s Red Like Fruit (Feb 18–22) examines power and consent in the post-#MeToo era. Tomboy (Chłopczyca) (Mar 4–8) blends dance-theatre, Slavic folklore, and queer identity. Vancouver’s The Search Party presents People, Places & Things (Mar 10–22), a play about addiction and control. The festival closes with The Horse of Jenin (Mar 25–29), co-presented with Rumble Theatre, combining storytelling, mask, and comedy to reflect on growing up in Occupied Palestine.
Warrior Festival highlights artists who engage with important global conversations through theatre that takes risks and challenges audiences.
Quotes from Heather Redfern, Executive Director, and Nicole McLuckie, Associate Executive Director:
“These artists are pushing boundaries, telling necessary stories, and continuing to challenge the world around us with radical creativity. We can’t wait to welcome you back to Warrior Festival!”
Based on the Warrior Festival 2026 lineup, here are the performances identified as queer or queer-adjacent due to their themes of identity, gender, and social resistance:
Directly Queer Performance
Tomboy (Chłopczyca) (March 4–8)
Description: This production explicitly addresses queer identity. It is a blend of dance-theatre and Slavic folklore that explores themes of gender and self-discovery.
Queer-Adjacent & Identity-Focused Performances
These performances are featured in the festival for their "bold, urgent work" regarding identity, power, and the dismantling of traditional norms:
Batshit (February 11–15)
Themes: A solo performance by psycho-siren Leah Shelton that challenges cultural ideas and stigmas surrounding "female madness." It is highly adjacent to queer performance art through its camp, subversive nature and critique of patriarchal labeling.
Red Like Fruit (February 18–22)
Themes: Written by Hannah Moscovitch, this play examines power, consent, and the complexities of human relationships in the post-#MeToo era.
UPU (February 17–21)
Themes: Co-presented with Full Circle: First Nations Performance, this piece brings Pacific poetry to the stage. It explores decolonization and the reclamation of cultural identity, which frequently intersects with queer narratives in a festival curated for "resistance."
People, Places & Things (March 10–22)
Themes: Presented by The Search Party, this play focuses on addiction, recovery, and the struggle for control over one's own identity and reality.