The full programme of events for this year's Manchester International Festival has been revealed including a three-day residency from singer-songwriter Janelle Monáe and a world premiere art project from former Manchester United player Juan Mata.
People will also be able to step inside Manchester's £210m arts centre, Factory International, as it hosts some of the festival's events ahead of its official opening in October. A major exhibition of Japanese artist, Yayoi Kusama’s inflatable sculptures will form a centrepiece of the festival, with the major exhibition 'You, Me and the Balloons' taking over the vast warehouse space.
The world-famous biennial arts festival, with a wide-ranging programme of original new work by artists from around the world, will be back in the city between June 29 and July 16. Rooted across Manchester, there will be theatre, arts, dance and music in both indoor and outdoor locations, including a city-wide treasure hunt for collectable coins, a celebration of our connection to water on the banks of the River Medlock, and adaptation of a lost dystopian masterpiece in the depths of the John Rylands library by Maxine Peake.
Read more: Manchester's £210m Factory International named one of best things to see in the WORLD this year
Creating a new riverside destination for Manchester, Festival Square will also relocate to Factory International's outdoor spaces with free live music from over 100 performers, as well as a wide variety of food and drink on offer.
MIF23 provides the first opportunity for audiences to experience Factory International’s new venue, ahead of its official opening in October. Hailed as a "landmark" venue for the city, and designed in the form of a gigantic hangar, the £210m facility is being built on the former Granada TV Studios site and is expected to attract 1.15m visitors a year.
Among the big names debuting new work at MIF23 will be curator Hans Ulrich Obrist and footballer Juan Mata exploring art and the beautiful game, Janelle Monáe's three-day residency in the city, musicians and composers Alison Goldfrapp, Afrodeutsche, and Ryuichi Sakamoto, and award-winning photographer Benji Reid.
Manchester International Festival artistic director and chief executive John McGrath says: "From the radical and agenda setting to the purest of celebrations, MIF23’s programme covers a huge range of art forms and styles - from a ritual on the banks of a newly uncovered river, to mixed reality from one of Japan’s greatest composers, from a hunt for artworks across the city to a residency from one of American music’s most vibrant superstars. A genuine melting pot of creativity where artists share their ideas with each other and the public, the Festival will once again take the temperature of our times, and imagine possibilities for the future.
"As always MIF is rooted in its home - in the spaces and places of Greater Manchester. So at the same time as we take up residency in our flagship new venue with our centrepiece exhibition of Yayoi Kusama’s incredible inflatable sculptures, the Festival will extend its reach throughout the city: finding unexpected locations to show its work in, and working with local artists and residents to perform and take part. MIF23 will be a true celebration of the city and its cultural offerings.”
Councillor Luthfur Rahman OBE, Deputy Leader Manchester City Council, says: "We take culture very seriously here in Manchester. It plays a big part in our global reputation and economic success, making Manchester a city that people and businesses the world over want to visit, work, live, and invest in. The Festival is a real celebration of that – showcasing the fantastic venues and spaces around the city, drawing national and global audiences, and creating opportunities for local people to get involved, through jobs, volunteering and the chance to perform and participate in shows.
"Being able to invite audiences to experience our brand-new building for the first time as part of this year's brilliant Manchester International Festival, as well as a programme of events right across the city, is very exciting and should not be missed. This new chapter takes our cultural ambitions to the next level and then some. Putting a world-class building on our doorstep that brings with it a wealth of jobs, training, and opportunities that further cement our place as an international centre and incubator for culture, creativity and innovation.
"The eyes of the world are once again on Manchester, the festival, and this new space - and they will not be disappointed."
Sarah Maxfield, Area Director, North, Arts Council England. Says: “I’m excited to see this year’s Manchester International Festival programme. Not only is the city welcoming back its internationally renowned festival but also presenting work for the first time in Factory International’s venue and new public spaces. This is a huge moment for both Manchester and the wider Northern cultural scene. I can’t wait to see the city buzzing with people experiencing world class arts and culture by artists from here at home and from around the world. This is going to be one exciting summer for Manchester!”
The festival will presented across Manchester with £10 tickets for all shows and many free events. Tickets will go on general on from March 30 and can be purchased from mif.co.uk
MIF23 Programme
You, Me and the Balloons
Showcased at Factory International’s flagship new venue, Yayoi Kusama’s You, Me and the Balloons will bring together three decades of the renowned Japanese artist’s spectacular inflatable artworks for the first time.
Created especially for Factory International’s new warehouse space, You, Me and the Balloons will be the artist's largest ever immersive environment, featuring works over 10 metres tall. The exhibition will invite visitors to take a journey through Kusama's psychedelic creations including giant dolls, tendrilled landscapes and a vast constellation of polka-dot spheres.
With The Find
Artist Ryan Gander is inviting audiences to undertake a quest across the city in search of his latest artworks as part of a mass treasure outdoor treasure hunt. Hundreds of thousands of collectable coins will be hiding in plain sight across the city, each embellished with words offering guidance on daily decisions.
Coins will be left on park benches, walls, steps, in food courts and libraries, and tucked away inside parking ticket machines or between tram seats, for treasure hunters and passers-by to find. An invitation for all of Manchester to go out and explore, Gander will be adding mystery into people’s everyday encounters, encouraging them to see the world around them differently.
Each Tiny Drop
On the banks of the River Medlock in Mayfield Park, artist Risham Syed and director Angie Bual will draw on ancient practices and river rituals from South Asian culture as part of special event honouring our connection to water. Audiences are invited to collect water specially transported from the Soan River in Pakistan and pour it into the River Medlock in a celebration of the life source we so often take for granted.
The Trequartista
Co-curated by Manchester United footballer Juan Mata and Hans Ulrich Obrist, The Trequartista – Art and Football United , brings together 11 contemporary artists and 11 footballers to produce new works inspired by the Trequartista, a legendary position and style in football that is rapidly disappearing.
The exhibition has been developed by writer Josh Willdigg, and 11 teams of footballers and artists will work together over two years, culminating in a group show at the 2025 edition of Manchester International Festival. The project kicks off at MIF23 with a world premiere of This entry – a new work by artist Tino Sehgal, made with the involvement of Juan Mata and presented at the National Football Museum and the Whitworth.
We Cut Through Dust
A collaboration between artists' group Blast Theory, which makes interactive work exploring social and political questions, and Manchester Street Poem, audiences will be taken on a walk through the city into the future guided by a series of phone calls. Set in a world not too far from now, the walk starts at a location where your mobile phone triggers a giant mechanical sign to open, and the story to begin.
Kagami
This unique collaboration between award-winning musician and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto and Tin Drum, the world’s premiere mixed reality content production studio, Kagami is a new kind of concert of concert experience. Drawing on electronic and classical composition as well as dimensional moving photography, audiences will be treated to a never-before-experienced mixed-reality presentation.
Viewers will wear optically-transparent devices to view the virtual Sakamoto performing on a piano alongside dimensional art aligned with the music, and are free to wander and explore during the hour-long event at Versa Manchester Studios.
The Fa**ots and Their Friends Between Revolutions
Composer Philip Venables and director Ted Huffman will be presenting a world premiere musical adaptation of Larry Mitchell and Ned Asta’s cult 1977 book The Fa**ots and Their Friends Between Revolutions at HOME - reimagining the history of the world through a queer lens with a cast of actors, singers and musicians.
They
Another cult classic text from 1977 will be brought to life at MIF23 by Maxine Peake, Sarah Frankcom and Imogen Knight, as they adapt Kay Dick's, They, with a live, afterhours performance by Peake inside the John Rylands Library. The adaption of the dystopian masterpiece is the trio’s latest Festival collaboration, following The Masque of Anarchy, The Skriker and The Nico Project, which all celebrated radical acts and artists.
R.O.S.E
Dance company L-E-V and London-based record label Young will come together this MIF to celebrate the freedom, energy and intimacy that runs through club culture in a night of dance and music in Manchester’s iconic New Century Hall night club. R.O.S.E will bring the dark hedonism of Sharon Eyal’s choreography and artistry of the L-E-V dancers off the stage and onto the dancefloor alongside new music curated by Young for L-E-V. Ben UFO DJs throughout.
f*ck m*ss s**gon play
Making its world premiere at the Royal Exchange Theatre, Kimber Lee’s untitled f*ck m*ss s**gon play - winner of the inaugural Bruntwood Prize for Playwriting 2019 - jumps through time – wriggling inside of and then exploding lifetimes of repeating Asian stereotypes, wrestling history for the right to control your own narrative in a world that thinks it can tell you who you are.
All right
In 2014, a flight carrying 227 passengers and 12 crew members took off from Kuala Lumpur, heading towards Beijing, but the plane disappeared from radar. In All right, one of the biggest mysteries in the history of modern travel merges with a personal story from Helgard Haug, director and co-founder of the award-winning German theatre group Rimini Protokoll.
Performed live at HOME with a haunting contemporary score from Barbara Morgenstern and arranger Davor Vincze, the powerful UK premiere will focus in on disappearance, loss and how to deal with uncertainty.
Economics the Blockbuster: It’s Not Business As Usual
At the Whitworth, a selection of extraordinary art projects that each operate as real-world economic systems with will presented as thought-provoking display.
Building on the Whitworth’s ongoing commitment to being a useful museum driven by a civic purpose, this project addresses economics as a social and financial set of relations that we all take part in. From a community-led drinks company to a crypto-financed youth agency, the exhibition includes new artist commissions, merchandise with a purpose, business collaborations and a live programme of talks and activities.
Jenn Nkiru
Manchester’s industrial history and modern-day architecture intertwine in a meditative new film by British artist and filmmaker Jenn Nkiru. In this new work, she weaves together new footage and archive material to explore parallels between architecture and the human body.
Find Your Eyes
Benji Reid is inviting us to watch him at play as he creates live photography in this genre-bending show, Find Your Eyes. A choreo-photolist, Benji combines photography, choreography and theatre to make striking and surreal images which speak to his experiences as a Black man in the UK today.
The world premiere of his new show at MIF23 exposes the making of this work – a behind-the-scenes look at his life and practice where the stage becomes a studio. Choreographing three performers, Benji will create live photographs in front of an audience at Manchester Academy, interlacing the activity with recollection of resonant moments from his life.
Balmy Army
Over the past year young people, artists, madpride organisers, radical dreamers and disability justice doers have come together for mental health support that works.
From sharing poetry and making placards, to social media takeovers and mass acts of civil disobedience, Balmy Army is art and activism rolled into one. The gallery at HOME is the Balmy Army’s space and there are also a number of events in the works which anyone is welcome to join – including a rally through the streets of the city on the last weekend of the Festival celebrating young people making change.
Music Programme
One of the biggest events on the music bill will be a residency from Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Janelle Monáe, who will take up residency in the city performing for three nights over the opening weekend.
Alison Goldfrapp will also make a return to the festival with music from her first solo foray, and John Grant and the Richard Hawley band will debut their new show singing the songs of pop and country legend Patsy Cline. The Grammy-award winning Angélique Kidjo will perform her first show in Manchester in ten years with guest appearances from emerging local talent, and revered Sufi singer Sanam Marvi will celebrate the rich culture and sound of Pakistan.
A unique collision of cosmic sounds from The Comet is Coming and filmmaker Daisy Dickinson’s transcendent visuals, will take things up a a notch, while for one night only, living legend of cabaret, Justin Vivian Bond, will headline a night of trans excellence from TransCreative with a raucous and seductive evening of songs, stories and some very special guests.
On the final weekend of MIF23, Factory Sounds alumni Sam Malik will present Desi Factory, a night with some of the best in the British South Asian new music scene, while Manchester’s inventive classical scene will also play a key part at this year’s MIF, as electronic artist and BBC Radio 6 music host AFRODEUTSCHE premieres a new composition with the innovative Manchester Camerata Meredith as part of RNCM’s 50th anniversary celebrations.
Manchester Collective and theatre company Slung Low will also present a vibrant staging of Benjamin Britten’s community opera, Noah’s Flood featuring Lemn Sissay live as the voice of God and 180 schoolchildren alongside a professional cast. Meanwhile, the BBC Philharmonic will perform a world premiere by John Luther Adams, played by pianist Ralph Van Raat alongside new commissions by Ailís Ní Ríain and Alissa Firsova - with works inspired by the climate crisis.
Tickets for Manchester International are on sale to Factory International members from March 28, while general sale tickets will be available from March 30.
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