MIF 2017: first shows announced

New Manchester International Festival artistic director John McGrath gives a glimpse into what form MIF will take following the departure of founder Alex Poots, with the announcement of four new commissions for his debut as AD next year (29 Jun-16 Jul).

“It’s exciting to be announcing our first four commissions and events for MIF17, with 20 more still to come,” said McGrath, who joined MIF from National Theatre Wales. “As a Festival of new work, MIF is uniquely able to respond to our changing world. The artists in our 2017 programme have a lot to say about the times we live in – and they’re responding in unexpected ways.”

These unexpected responses begin with What Is the City but the People?, a huge fashion runway that will take place in Piccadilly Gardens (“Manchester’s meeting place”). A collaboration between artists Jeremy Deller, Salford arts hub Islington Mill and the people of Manchester, the show “will be the setting for a self-portrait of the city,” says a statement from MIF.

It's the first time Islington Mill has been involved with MIF, and it's heartening to see McGrath reaching out to one of Manchester's most vital arts communities with his first festival. “Creating space for people to be themselves has been a core part of what we have been doing over our 20 years,” said Islington Mill founder and director Bill Campbell. “Working with the Festival and Jeremy gives us the opportunity to do this on a much greater scale than ever before.”

We're told the specially designed walkway in Piccadilly Gardens will welcome “a selection of local residents, who will parade on the runway to musical accompaniment for audiences both in the streets and online. Ranging from high-fashion statements to far more personal moments, What Is the City but the People? will capture Manchester through its outfits, attitudes and individuality.”

Women in charge

Another eye-catching show in this first batch of announcements is What if Women Ruled the World?, a new work by artist Yael Bartana riffing on 1964 film Doctor Strangelove, with the performance directed by Royal Court artistic director Vicky Featherstone. Using Kubrick’s dark satire as a provocation, specifically its final scene of a surviving nucleus of male leaders repopulating the earth, Bartana’s new work will imagine the opposite: what if women ruled the world?

“Each night, a group of ten women and one man will be confronted by some of the urgent crises of our time: climate change, military escalation, mass migration,” MIF’s statement reads. “Together, they’ll spend the evening trying to solve that night’s global emergency as the clock ticks above them…”

As if to create gender balance, we’re also promised a bold new theatre work featuring a cast of 13 men from the creative minds of Underworld’s Karl Hyde, Scott Graham of theatre group Frantic Assembly and playwright Simon Stephens, which will focus on “contemporary fatherhood in all its complexities and contradictions.”

Named Fatherhood, the play takes inspiration from conversations with fathers and sons from the three men’s home towns in the heart of the country, making the show “a survey of life in England’s towns today.”

Fatherhood will transform the familiar spaces of Manchester’s Royal Exchange Theatre, and feature a musical score by Hyde and Matthew Herbert.

European ties and community engagement

Also announced this morning is a new work from French choreographer Boris Charmatz, one of Europe's great dance makers celebrated for his radical and experimental approach. Titled 10000 Gestures, the work will see Charmatz “take over a found space in the city centre for this joyful, provocative piece in which the 25-strong ensemble dance without ever repeating a single movement.”

“MIF has always been and will remain fiercely international,” said McGrath, “inviting major artists such as Boris Charmatz and Yael Bartana to create new work. We’re also proudly engaged in our city: My Festival, our new initiative, will provide a range of new ways for local artists and communities to be part of what we do, year-round. As the incoming Artistic Director, I’m thrilled to be part of MIF’s extraordinary creative ambition, and I look forward to sharing more of our plans in the months ahead.”

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Manchester International Festival
29 June - 16 July 2017

Tickets for 10000 Gestures and Fatherland go on sale at 10am on Thursday 17 November via mif.co.uk and 0843 208 1840.

Tickets for What if Women Ruled the World? go on sale in March 2017.

The full MIF17 programme is revealed 9 March. Keep an eye on theskinny.co.uk/news for more announcements.