Manchester International Festival Presents Postcards from Now

MANCHESTER INTERNATIONAL FESTIVAL PRESENTS POSTCARDS FROM NOW

Postcards from Now New films from artists under lockdown Images can be downloaded here press.mif.co.uk

The global COVID-19 pandemic is changing our world in countless ways: some already visible, others as yet unknown. It has shattered much of what we knew and understood about our lives. But could this tragedy also be an opportunity – a moment for us to reimagine, reshape and rebuild society to be fairer, brighter, better?

Postcards from Now presents five distinct perspectives from leading international artists of every stripe – choreographers, musicians, visual artists, theatre-makers, animators and more. Commissioned and created at the height of the global lockdown, these five films explore everything from community to communication, patriarchy to power. And in very different ways, they consider the question that we’ve all been asking ourselves and others: what happens next?

Breathless Puppets Akram Khan & Naaman Azhari Forced apart in childhood by the expectations of their cultures and the disapproval of their fathers, two men with a passion for dance reconnect through the tragedy of the pandemic. Choreographed by Akram Khan and directed by Naaman Azhari, this powerful short film uses rotoscope animation, created by hand-drawing over live action footage.

Akram Khan is one of the most celebrated and respected dance artists of today. In just over 19 years he has created a body of work that has contributed significantly to the arts in the UK and abroad. His reputation has been built on the success of imaginative, highly accessible and relevant productions such as XENOS, Until the Lions, Kaash, iTMOi (in the mind of igor), DESH, Vertical Road, Gnosis and zero degrees.

As an instinctive and natural collaborator, Khan has been a magnet to world-class artists from other cultures and disciplines. His previous collaborators include the National Ballet of China, actress Juliette Binoche, ballerina Sylvie Guillem, choreographers/dancers Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui and Israel Galván, singer Kylie Minogue, indie rock band Florence and the Machine, visual artists Anish Kapoor, Antony Gormley and Tim Yip, writer Hanif Kureishi and composers Steve Reich, Nitin Sawhney, Jocelyn Pook and Ben Frost.

Khan’s work is recognised as being profoundly moving, in which his intelligently crafted storytelling is effortlessly intimate and epic. Described by the Financial Times as an artist “who speaks tremendously of tremendous things”, a highlight of his career was the creation of a section of the London 2012 Olympic Games Opening Ceremony that was received with unanimous acclaim.

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As a choreographer, Khan has developed a close collaboration with English National Ballet and its Artistic Director Tamara Rojo. He created the short piece Dust, part of the Lest We Forget programme, which led to an invitation to create his own critically acclaimed version of the iconic romantic ballet Giselle. This received its world premiere in Manchester, presented by MIF as a pre-Factory Event.

Akram Khan said: "The project is a response to Covid 19....it is about 2 men who are friends. Their history and how that affects their future..... it reflects life: Life is never clear, you recognise some parts of life, you think you are in control of some parts of life and really, you are not."

Naaman Azhari is a British/Lebanese animator and film director.

His latest film, The Magic Boat, tells the story of a mother and son fleeing the conflict in Syria; it uses rotoscoping, an animation technique involving hand-drawing over live-action footage, to explore this familiar tale from a humane perspective. It was nominated for Best British Short Animation at the BAFTA Film Awards 2020 and selected for inclusion in the Aesthetica Short Film Festival and Encounters Short Film Festival in 2019. Azhari used the same techniques in his earlier film The Sunshine Boy to show the gulf in understanding between a parent and child.

Azhari is a graduate of Goldsmiths, University of London.

Naaman Azhari said: “It's been a real honour and privilege to be collaborating with Akram Khan and MIF on this project. Working with Akram has opened my eyes to the world of dance and its power in storytelling. He is an incredibly generous artist and I couldn't be luckier to have worked with him on this piece. This would not have been possible without MIF, who have given consistent support and the freedom and flexibility that any artist would wish for.”

I’m Not Dead (working title) Lola Arias The pandemic has excluded elderly people from social and political life, exposing their carers to more stressful and precarious working conditions than ever before. Everybody speaks in the names of those who are older as they are in the care of others – but who is really taking care of whom? In Lola Arias’s film, the daily routine of one elderly person and their carer becomes an unexpected act of love and resistance.

Lola Arias (Argentina, 1976) is a writer, theatre and film director. She is a multifaceted artist whose work brings together people from different backgrounds (war veterans, former communists, migrant children, etc.) in theatre, film, literature, music and visual art projects.

Arias’ productions play with the overlap between reality and fiction. “Sitting in the theatre, wandering a site-specific location or watching a film, we are inculcated into others’ narratives, wound into their complexities, joys and disappointments. At the same time, we are also invited and at times confronted, in an extraordinary and acute way, to reflect on the contingencies and fragilities of our own stories, individual and collective, as well as on our shifting, unresolved relation to the precarious and dangerous machinery that is social and political history.” (Etchells, in Re- enacting Life, 2019).

Arias studied Literature at the Universidad de Buenos Aires, and Dramaturgy at the Escuela de Artes Dramáticas (Buenos Aires), the Royal Court Theatre (London) and Casa de América (Madrid). In 2014 she completed the Film Laboratory Programme at the Universidad Di Tella (Buenos Aires), one of the most prestigious cinema programmes in Argentina.

Between 2001 and 2007 she wrote and directed six fictional pieces The Squalid Family, Studies of Loving Memory, Poses for Sleeping and the trilogy Love is a Sniper, Revolver Dream and Striptease.

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Since 2007 she has worked in the field of documentary theatre, creating over twelve plays in collaboration with people who have lived through different events or historical experiences. People who have, one way or another, survived.

My Life After (CTBA, Buenos Aires, 2009) is based on the biography of six performers who re-enact their parents’ lives during the dictatorship in Argentina. Familienbande (Münchner Kammerspiele, Munich, 2009) deals with role models in a contemporary family with three parents. That Enemy Within (HAU, Berlin, 2010) is a project about identity made in collaboration with two identical twins. The Year I was Born (Teatro a Mil, Santiago, 2012) is based on biographies of people born during Pinochet’s dictatorship. Melancholy and Demonstrations (Wiener Festwochen, Vienna, 2012) is a play about her mother’s depression. The Art of Making Money (Stadttheater Bremen, 2013) takes a concept from The Threepenny Opera by Brecht for a play performed by beggars, prostitutes and street musicians from the city of Bremen. And The Art of Arriving (Stadttheater Bremen, 2015) uses the example of Bulgarian kids living in Germany to develop a scenic tutorial that reflects on how to start a new life in another country.

Her most recent plays are Minefield (Royal Court Theatre, London, 2016), which brings together British and Argentinian veterans of the Falklands/Malvinas War to share their experience of the conflict and life since then, Atlas des Kommunismus (Maxim-Gorki Theatre, Berlin, 2016), which gathers stories of women between the ages of 8 and 84 with backgrounds in the GDR, What they want to hear (Münchner Kammerspiele, Munich, 2018), the reconstruction of the real case of a Syrian archaeologist trapped in German bureaucracy without any legal status for four years, and Futureland (Maxim-Gorki Theatre, Berlin, 2019), a science-fiction documentary piece with unaccompanied minors, teenagers who escaped from war, poverty and violence and travelled to Germany on their own. Lola began her film career with the video installation Veterans (Battersea Art Centre, London, 2014), the starting point of her multi-disciplinary art project about the Falklands/Malvinas War. In this series, veterans reconstruct their experience of the war in a space they inhabit in the present day.

Her first feature film Theatre of War (2018) was selected for the 68th Forum of the Berlinale Film Festival and received several prizes including the CICAE Art Cinema Award, the International Confederation of Art House Cinemas Award and the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury. Arias also won the Best Director Award at the 20th BAFICI Festival in Buenos Aires and the film received the Movistar+ Prize for Best Documentary Film at Documenta Madrid and the Silver Condor Award for Best Adapted Script.

Arias is currently working on her next film Reas [working title], supported by IDFA Bertha Fund and selected for the Pitching du Réel at the Visions du Réel Festival, which brings together the stories of women and trans people in Ezeiza Prison, Buenos Aires, reinventing the musical genre in documentary form, mixing scenes and stories from the inmates’ real lives with music and choreographies.

In the visual arts and curating field, she developed My Documents (Buenos Aires, 2012-2017; Milan, 2018; Lisboa, 2020), a lecture-performance cycle where artists from different backgrounds present personal research, a radical experience, a story that secretly obsessed them. She also conceived the durational performance Audition for a Demonstration (Berlin, 2014; Athens, 2015; Prague, 2015; Buenos Aires, 2017; Berlin, 2019); she created the exhibitions Stunt Double (Buenos Aires, 2016), in which four different installations rebuilt the last 40 years of Argentinian social and political history through documents, reenactments, interviews and popular songs; and Ways of walking with a book in your hand (Buenos Aires, 2017), a site-specific project for readers in libraries and public spaces.

With Ulises Conti she released the albums Love is a sniper (2007) and Those who do not sleep (2011), and with Stefan Kaegi she developed the projects Chácara Paraíso (2007), Airport Kids (2008) and Ciudades Paralelas (2010), a festival of urban interventions in Berlin, Buenos Aires, Warsaw, Zurich and other cities.

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She has published poetry, fiction and plays: Love is a sniper (2007, Entropía), The postnuclear ones (2011, Emecé), My Life After and other plays (2016, Penguin Random House) and a bilingual edition of her play Minefield (2017, Oberon Books). In 2019, Performance Research Studies published Re-enacting Life, a book that gathers articles, screenplays and documents from her whole career.

Lola Arias has received very prestigious prizes for her works, including the Premio Konex 2014 and the Preis der Autoren 2018, and her work has been performed at festivals including: Lift Festival, London; Under the Radar, New York; Festival d’Avignon; Theater Spektakel, Zurich; Wiener Festwochen; Festival Theaterformen, Brunswick/Hanover; Spielart Festival, Munich; and Berlinale; as well as at venues including Théâtre de la Ville, Paris; REDCAT, Los Angeles; Walker Art Centre, Minneapolis; Parque de la Memoria, Buenos Aires; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; and Royal Court Theatre, London.

Building momentum under lockdown - Lucinda Childs meets (LA)HORDE Lucinda Childs & (LA)HORDE When travel restrictions forced Lucinda Childs to postpone a project with the Ballet national de Marseille, the American choreographer began meeting the Ballet’s Artistic Directors – LA(HORDE) – via Zoom. Intimate, playful and relatable, this short film chronicles their ongoing digital collaboration, and explores how the distances enforced by the pandemic raise unexpected possibilities for creative interaction.

Born in 1940, Lucinda Childs has been passionate about dance and theatre since childhood. Her encounter with Merce Cunningham determined the direction she would go in and she joined forces with an arts’ collective that included Yvonne Rainer, Steve Paxton and Trisha Brown at the Judson Dance Theater. She embarked on her choreographic career in 1963 with Pastime before going on in 1968 to apply a logic of deconstruction to the classical vocabulary she was simultaneously learning. She established her own company in 1973, developing a minimalist style of dance. In 1976 she took part in Einstein on the Beach, Bob Wilson’s opera set to music by Philip Glass in which she performed choreographies by Andy de Groat.

Dance, created in 1979, was her first large-scale collective ballet and it was followed by several works in collaboration with other artists such as Available Light in 1983 with sets by Frank Gehry. For the Paris Opera Ballet she created Premier Orage in 1984, and Perfect Stranger for the Lyon Opera Ballet in 1990. She staged Gluck’s Orpheus and Eurydice again for Theater Kiel. Lucinda Childs also recreated ten years ago a company of young dancers who are breathing life into her repertoire.

Established in 2013, (LA)HORDE is a collective of three artists: Marine Brutti, Jonathan Debrouwer and Arthur Harel. Together they challenge the codes of various artistic disciplines, particularly in performance and contemporary art. Leading the Ballet National de Marseille since September 2019, (LA)HORDE creates choreographic pieces, films, video installations and performances centred on the moving body. With a variety of media, they develop scenarios and actions embedded in contemporary issues and provide several narrative spaces.

(LA)HORDE collaborates with communities of individuals on the fringes of mainstream culture and heads off on artistic journeys that show solidarity: people in their seventies, the visually impaired, smokers, teenagers ... Against any form of hierarchy or cultural appropriation, their practical approach is based on interrelationships and cooperation. Restless and always on the look out, they remain alert. The body is at the heart of their creation. They create works that emerge from their encounters with different communities online in order to define the effects of the internet’s arrival on dance, a topic of great interest to (LA)HORDE, which has led the members of the collective to define the phenomenon as post-internet dance. Claire Diez (journalist and dramaturge, dance specialist)

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Love Campus (2019-2021) Ibrahim Mahama The Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art and Red Clay Studios, established by Ghanaian visual artist Ibrahim Mahama (Parliament of Ghosts, MIF19) in his hometown of Tamale, run a series of experimental programmes designed to educate, stimulate and encourage young people from communities with high levels of poverty and low levels of education. This film tells their story.

Ibrahim Mahama lives and works in Ghana. For MIF19 he created the major exhibition Parliament of Ghosts at the Whitworth. Known for creating monumental public realm art installations, he has presented work at international exhibitions such as Ghana's first national pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale; the Norval Foundation, Cape Town; Documenta 14, Athens and Kassel; and All the World’s Futures, 56th Venice Biennale.

Mahama often examines how workers are affected by state or corporate policies and practices, and in many cases created his own temporary workforce in the making of his art. His expansive practice includes creating education and cultural infrastructures, such as the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art (SCCA) in Tamale, an institution conceived as a studio space and exhibition venue. In April 2021, Mahama opens his third venue, Nkrumah Voli, to the public. Located in central Tamale, the silo will function as an exhibition space and repository for ecological forms and archaeological artefacts from the region.

For this project, he is creating a film about the activation of Parliament of Ghosts and the additional education spaces he is building in Tamale.

Ibrahim Mahama said: “Love Campus takes on the promises of technology as a starting point through establishing relationships between old airplanes and modern drones. These relationships manifest themselves through a series of workshops within the cockpit and fuselage of airplanes transported across the country in Ghana to a rural settling for renewed social and ideological reconditioning. What happens when two technologies from different timelines occupy the same space? Is there a possibility of a singularity and what promises or potentials does it have for another generation? The birth of new imaginations promises another era of rethinking life on all levels beyond the human experience.”

Angélique Kidjo Benin is rooted in a patriarchal culture, with households headed by men yet run by women. But in moments of crisis, whether in private homes or wider communities, it’s women who come to the fore – as musician and activist Angélique Kidjo demonstrates in this potent portrait of her home country and the women who inhabit it.

During her last trip to Benin, pre-COVID, Kidjo was accompanied by a professional videographer who recorded hundreds of hours of footage, interviewing and documenting the lives of women and girls around the country. Traditionally Benin is a patriarchal culture where households are headed by men but run by women; in moments of crisis, it is the women who come to the fore, utilizing their domestic skills for the sake of the community. This was epitomised early in the pandemic when a cottage industry of mask-making was swiftly developed by women needing new ways to feed their families.

Working with a black female film editor to shape her existing footage, Kidjo aims to give these women their stories

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back, put their voices front and centre and show the real women of Benin. The resulting film will be an artistic piece showcasing Kidjo’s talent as a political artist.

Four-time Grammy Award winner Angélique Kidjo is one of the greatest artists in international music today, a creative force with thirteen albums to her name.

Time Magazine has called her "Africa's premier diva". The BBC has included her in its list of the continent's 50 most iconic figures, and in 2011 The Guardian listed her as one of their Top 100 Most Inspiring Women in the World. Forbes Magazine has ranked Angelique as the first woman in their list of the Most Powerful Celebrities in Africa. She is the recent recipient of the prestigious 2015 Crystal Award given by the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the 2016 Amnesty International Ambassador of Conscience Award, and the 2018 German Sustainability Award.

As a performer, her striking voice, stage presence and fluency in multiple cultures and languages have won respect from her peers and expanded her following across national borders. Kidjo has cross-pollinated the West African traditions of her childhood in Benin with elements of American R&B, funk and jazz, as well as influences from Europe and Latin America. After exploring the roads of Africa's diaspora — through Brazil, Cuba and The United States — and offering a refreshing and electrifying take on the Talking Heads album Remain In Light (called “Transformative” by the New York Times, “Visionary” by NPR Music, “Stunning” by Rolling Stone, and “one of the year’s most vibrant albums” by the Washington Post), the French-Beninese singer is now reflecting on an icon of the Americas, celebrated salsa singer Celia Cruz. Kidjo’s album Celia (April 19 - Verve/Universal Music France) divests itself of the glamour to investigate the African roots of the Cuban-born woman who became the "Queen" of salsa. Celia was recorded in New York and Paris, produced by David Donatien and mixed by Russell Elevado (D’Angelo, Kamasi Washington). Over the course of 10 beloved songs from Cruz’s extensive catalog but with special focus on her work from the 1950s, Angelique’s voice soars in lockstep with a grand presentation of rhythmic touchstones that delve deep into the history of music from Africa and it’s influence on the music of Cuba. Each song celebrates this idea – from the tight afro-beat groove of “Baila Yemaja,” the high octane take on “Quimbara,” the frantic energy of “Bemba Colora” to “Oya Diosa,” a lushly orchestrated ballad.

Angélique’s interpretation of The Talking Heads’ classic 1980 album, Remain in Light, was recorded with superstar producer Jeff Bhasker (Kanye West, Rolling Stones, Beyoncé), taking classic songs such as "Crosseyed and Painless," "Once in a Lifetime," and "Born Under Punches (The Heat Goes On)" and reinterpreting them with electrifying rhythms, African guitars, and layered backing vocals.

Her star-studded album DJIN DJIN won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary World Album in 2008, and her album OYO was nominated for the same award in 2011. In January 2014 Angélique’s first book, a memoir titled Spirit Rising: My Life, My Music (Harper Collins) and her twelfth album, EVE (Savoy/429 Records), were released to critical acclaim. EVE later went on to win the Grammy Award for Best World Music Album in 2015, and her historic, orchestral album Sings with the Orchestre Philharmonique Du Luxembourg (Savoy/429 Records) won a Grammy for Best World Music Album in 2016.

Angélique has gone on to perform this genre-bending work with several international orchestras and symphonies including the Bruckner Orchestra, The Royal Scottish National Orchestra, and the Philharmonie de Paris. Her collaboration with Philip Glass, IFÉ: Three Yorùbá Songs, made its US debut to a sold out concert with the San

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Francisco Symphony in June 2015. In 2019, Angelique helped Philip Glass premiere his latest work, Symphony #12 “Lodger”, a symphonic re-imaging of the David Bowie album of the same name, at a sold out performance at the Los Angeles Philharmonic. In addition to performing this new orchestral concert, Angelique continues to tour globally performing the high-energy concert she’s become famous for with her four-piece band.

Angélique also travels the world advocating on behalf of children in her capacity as a UNICEF and OXFAM goodwill Ambassador. At the G7 Summit in 2019, President Macron of France named Kidjo as the spokesperson for the AFAWA initiative (Affirmative Finance Action for Women in Africa) to help close the financing gap for women entrepreneurs in Africa. She has also created her own charitable foundation, Batonga, dedicated to support the education of young girls in Africa.

Series commissioned by Manchester International Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music, Théâtre du Châtelet and Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay. Breathless Puppets is also commissioned by Sadler’s Wells. Series produced by Manchester International Festival. I’m Not Dead (working title) is also produced with the collaboration of Staatstheater Hannover and Galerie im Turm.

For further information please contact Bread and Butter PR Kate Hassell [email protected] 07921 264 564 Maisie Lawrence [email protected] 07786 075 979 Ben Chamberlain [email protected] 07931 723 988

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Full details of where and when the films can be watched will be available soon. Visit www.mif.co.uk for more information when available.

About Manchester International Festival

Manchester International Festival (MIF) is an artist-led festival of original, new work and special events reflecting the spectrum of performing arts, visual arts and popular culture. MIF21 takes place from 1 - 18 July 2021.

Staged every two years in Manchester, MIF has commissioned, produced and presented world premieres by artists including Marina Abramović, Damon Albarn, Laurie Anderson, Björk, Boris Charmatz, Jeremy Deller, Idris Elba and Kwame Kwei-Armah, Elbow, Philip Glass and Phelim McDermott, David Lynch, Wayne McGregor, Steve McQueen,

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Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy, Yoko Ono, Thomas Ostermeier, Maxine Peake, Punchdrunk, Skepta, The xx, Robert Wilson and Zaha Hadid Architects.

These and other world-renowned artists from different art forms and backgrounds create dynamic, innovative and forward-thinking new work, staged in venues across Greater Manchester – from theatres, galleries and concert halls to railway depots, churches and car parks. MIF works closely with venues, festivals and other cultural organisations globally, whose financial and creative input helps to make many of these projects possible and ensures that work made at MIF goes on to be seen around the world.

MIF supports a year-round Creative Engagement programme, bringing opportunities for people from all backgrounds, ages and from all corners of the city to get involved during the Festival and year-round, as volunteers, as participants in shows, through skills development and a host of creative activities, such as Festival in My House.

MIF will also run The Factory, the new world-class cultural space currently being built in the heart of Manchester and designed by internationally-renowned architects Rem Koolhaas’ Office for Metropolitan Architecture. The Factory will commission, present and produce a year-round programme, featuring new work from the world’s greatest artists and offering a space to make, explore and experiment. Attracting up to 850,000 visitors annually, The Factory will add £1.1 billion to the economy and create 1,500 jobs. Its pioneering programme of skills, training and engagement will benefit local people and the next generation of creative talent from across the city, whilst apprenticeships and trainee schemes are already underway during the construction phase.

MIF’s Artistic Director and Chief Executive is John McGrath.

BAM Brooklyn Academy of Music’s (BAM’s) mission is to be a home for adventurous artists, audiences, and ideas. America’s oldest performing arts institution, it is recognized internationally for innovative dance, music, and theater programming—including its renowned Next Wave Festival. BAM (Brooklyn Academy of Music) also features an acclaimed repertory film program, literary and visual art events, and extensive educational and humanities programs.

Sadler’s Wells Sadler's Wells is a world-leading creative organisation dedicated to dance in all its forms. With over three centuries of theatrical heritage and a year-round programme of performances and learning activities, it is the place where artists come together to create dance, and where people of all backgrounds come to experience it – to take part, learn, experiment and be inspired.

Esplanade –Theatres on the Bay

Esplanade is Singapore’s national performing arts centre. It hosts a year-round line-up of about 3,500 live performances and activities presented by Esplanade, its partners and hirers. Esplanade also brings the arts virtually to audiences in Singapore and beyond, through its diverse range of digital programmes on Esplanade Offstage, an all-access backstage pass to the performing arts and guide to Singapore and Asian arts and culture, with videos, podcasts, articles, quizzes and resources.

As an arts centre for everyone, Esplanade also creates opportunities for seniors, youth, children and underserved communities to experience the arts. More than 70% of the shows that take place each year at the centre are non- ticketed.

The centre works in close partnership with local, regional and international artists to develop artistic capabilities and content, push artistic boundaries and engage audiences. Esplanade supports the creation of artistic content by

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commissioning and producing new Singapore and Asian work for the international stage. It also develops technical capabilities for the industry nationally.

To bring even more of the arts to a wider audience and provide more platforms to support Singapore’s next generation of artists, Esplanade is building a new theatre along its busy waterfront. Named Singtel Waterfront Theatre, the 550- seat venue will open in 2022.

Esplanade –Theatres on the Bay is operated by The Esplanade Co Ltd (TECL), which is a not-for-profit organisation, a registered Charity and an Institution of a Public Character. The Charity Council awarded TECL the Charity Governance Award –Special Commendation for Clarity of Strategy in 2016, and the Charity Transparency Award for four consecutive years since 2016.

TECL receives funding support from Ministry of Culture, Community and Youth and its Community Programmes are supported by Tote Board Family, comprising Tote Board, Singapore Pools and Singapore Turf Club.

Visit Esplanade.com for more information.

Théâtre du Châtelet

For more than 150 years, Théâtre du Châtelet has played a leading role in Parisian cultural life by opening its doors to artists from around the world. Known for its wide-ranging artistic programming, the theatre collaborates with organisations across the city to improve access to its work and generate an on-going dialogue with the citizens of Paris. It is through this combination that Châtelet continues to be a place of artistic daring in the twenty-first century.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION, IMAGES, QUOTES AND INTERVIEW REQUESTS PLEASE CONTACT:

Kate Hassell [email protected] | 07921 264 564 Maisie Lawrence [email protected] | 07786 075 979 Ben Chamberlain [email protected] | 07931 723 988

Download high resolution images here

NOTES TO EDITORS

About Manchester International Festival Manchester International Festival (MIF) is an artist-led festival of original, new work and special events reflecting the spectrum of performing arts, visual arts and popular culture. MIF21 takes place from 1 - 18 July 2021.

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MIF will also run The Factory, the new landmark cultural space currently being built in the heart of Manchester and designed by the internationally-renowned architect Ellen van Loon of Rem Koolhaas’ OMA. The Factory will commission, present and produce one of Europe’s most ambitious and adventurous year-round creative programmes, featuring bold new work from the world’s greatest artists and offering a space to create, invent and play.

Attracting up to 850,000 visitors annually, The Factory will add up to £1.1 billion to the economy over a decade and create up to 1,500 direct and indirect jobs. Its pioneering programme of skills, training and engagement will benefit local people and the next generation of creative talent from across the city, whilst apprenticeships and trainee schemes are already underway during the construction phase.

MIF’s Artistic Director and Chief Executive is John McGrath. mif.co.uk

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