Venue of the Month: Contact, Manchester

On the approach to Manchester's Contact theatre, Oxford Road – currently welcoming its newest batch of university freshers – is as buzzing as the venue's new artistic director, Matt Fenton. He's in his third week of the job, assuming the position following the resignation of Baba Israel in December last year, and he’s jumped to the task with an infectious enthusiasm: “I’m really up for it!” he exclaims.

Despite the title, however, Fenton – who was previously, as director of Live at LICA, in charge of programming at Lancaster Institute for the Contemporary Arts – is quick to stress that he’s not planning to boss everyone around by himself. “My job is less to come in with grand ideas, and more to facilitate artists and young people and communities to help define what the programme at Contact will be,” he insists. Contact has always been a place inspired by and providing a platform for young artists, and that won’t be changing anytime soon. “Rather than importing my taste, I’m working with the young people at Contact to develop what the vision is,” he says. “And the programme that they’ve been putting together is absolutely amazing.”

That's not to say he doesn't have ambitious ideas of his own: “I want the theatre to be much better known," he says, "in the city, and nationally – and I want to expand our audiences... I’m interested in more international work here but also, really importantly for me, is to get Contact’s young people's work shown internationally as well.”

He also explains that he wants people to move away from the idea of theatre as a fixed genre of art, and to be open to more experimental work that doesn’t exactly meet the specifications of traditional theatre. “I’m not really worried about whether we call it ‘theatre’ or not,” he explains. “I’m interested in events – in performances – that draw on all different kinds of art forms. Contact have always been miles ahead of the game when it comes to merging things like spoken word, rap, street art, performance, dance, MC-ing, DJ-ing… all of that is in the mix here.”

Fenton is awash with enthusiasm when it comes to the venue's “brilliant” upcoming programme, and his new position seems to consist of negotiating a never-ending stream of interesting ideas, projects and performances. Launching on 3 Oct, the autumn season's first show could be seen as a showcase of everything the organisation does well: from returning company 20 Stories High, Melody Loses Her Mojo (1-5 Oct, various times, £11 (£6)) weaves theatre, spoken word, hip-hop, dance, street art and even a little puppetry into the innovative story of three young misfits. The following week brings an ominous and sensuous retelling of Cinderella in the form of emerging company RashDash Theatre’s The Ugly Sisters (11-12 Oct, 8pm, £11 (£6)). Caroline Horton presents Mess (16-17 Oct, 7.30pm, £11 (£6)), which, tackling anorexia, has won acclaim everywhere it's been; and of course, it wouldn’t be Contact without even more of a hip-hop vibe, and Jonzi D will be bringing his Lyrikal Fearta collection (23-24 Oct, 8pm, £11 (£6)) featuring a brand new piece about the fractured lineage between modern hip-hop and old skool hip-hop. Forced Entertainment – a group known for their innovation – will also be turning up with Tomorrow’s Parties (31 Oct-1 Nov, 8pm, £14 (£8)), an exploration of the many possible futures, absurd or otherwise, that could be coming our way.