Thank you for joining us this last 18 days and for making the festival a success. Scroll back to remember some of the higlights of MIF 2017 and see you in 2019!
Manchester International Festival ran from 29 June and 16 July 2017
Talk to us @mifestival on twitter & mcrintfestival on Facebook
Boris Charmatz, creator of 10,000 Gestures
Boris delivers a rallying cry to reclaim public spaces for performances, to allow them to be transformative - where people can rethink who they are, who is audience, who is performer, and where we can all come together in the spirit of festivity.
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Quote MessageWhen you're about to die, they say you see your whole life in a minute - you see it all, and then, it's the end. This makes the whole process more loaded, it made the piece feel more existential - you see everything life can throw at you in fast-speed, and then it over.
Boris Charmatz, Creator, 10,000 Gestures
Get to grips with the explosion of movement that is 10,000 Gestures...
An MIF Boris Charmatz
What does a piece containing 10,000 gestures look like?
Quote MessageIn the piece we decided to have a storm of gesture, it was constructed at fast speed, trying to accumulate a huge amount of motions, of thoughts, of desires
Boris Charmatz
Are you angry or are you dancing?
It's the final day of choreographer Boris Charmatz' residency in Manchester with his utterly acclaimed new show 10,000 Gestures.
He's a French artist, who according to the New York Times, external, 'plays with the DNA of dance'.
He's known for setting dance in unusual spaces - in car parks, in warehouses, making it public, rather than hiding it away behind velvet ropes.
He's also a strident believer in 'non-dance' - that every moment we make as human beings can be interpreted as art, as physical poetry.
Curated by VICE
Yep, you heard that right, we're also back at 2pm today until 5pm, talking to some of VICE's shiniest stars, including Joel Golby, Zing Tsjeng and Clive Martin, as well as a lot of special guests.
John McGrath introduces the event
Artistic Director of MIF talks about why we're doing these Interdependence sessions - in order to, as a culture, try and stop shouting at one another, and remember how to listen, to respond, to ask questions.
We'll be live in 10 minutes
We're here at the beautiful Manchester Albert Hall on a drizzly Saturday and we're ready to talk about truth.
This morning, from 10:30am-1pm, we'll be talking to some scorchingly talented people - from Boris Charmatz, creator of 10,000 Gestures , externaland Grace Wales Bonner, external, to Nujeen Mustafa, external, Christina Lamb, external, Joanna Natasegara, external and James Ball., external
Grab a cup of tea, settle in, and let's get truthful.
Interdependence: We Need To Talk About Truth
Image source, MIFBeen enjoying our live-streams? Have we got something for you - an entire day of Interdependence, external, streamed live, as we hear from amazing speakers from across the festival and into the digital world.
From Boris Charmatz, creator of our hugely acclaimed 10,000 Gestures , external- to VICE star Joel Golby (who, in his own words 'invites you to look him in the eyes and tell him what you really think of him'), we'll be talking about truth, change, comedy and revolution.
You can tune in live here from 10:30am, and watch the action unfold for yourself. See you then!
Photos, thoughts, creative responses
Experimental dance piece 10,000 Gestures is pulling in almost every reaction you can imagine - but the consensus seems to be that it's a pretty magical experience, external. Sneak a peek for yourself, there's still a couple of opportunities to see it live...
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#creative50
Anna Horton
MIF17 Creative50
As a result of one of our Creative50 Commissions - I Contact, a quick-fire drawing game that gets people connected - 45 strangers met and drew one another without looking at the page.
It was the idea of Anna Horton and Becki Miller, two of our Creative50 local artists, who wanted to encourage people to introduce themselves and talk to someone new during My Festival day in Festival Square., external
Watch this gif to see who met who, each couple chose the next strangers to play the game...
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Credits:
Anna Horton - @annakhorton http://www.annahortoncremin.com/I-Contact, external
Becki Miller - @MOZE158 http://onefiveeight.co.uk/, external
La Mambanegra
Friday night! Festival Square will be buzzing with performances from a whole range of fantastic artists, and they don't come much more spectacular that La Mambanegra., external
A nine-piece, floor-filling fusion band that merges the horns of salsa with the basslines of funk and the rhythms of hip hop - you'd be foolish to miss it. Plus, it's their first ever Manchester show - so let's make sure they get a great welcome to our beloved city.
Listen below, and turn it up!
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Find out more about La Mambanegra, external, live at 7:30pm tonight at Festival Square.
#Creative50
As part of his Creative50 commission, local artist Dan Russell looked at the ways we can gather data, and how we turn that data into something beautiful.
Inspired by the journeys taken in ToGather, external, he came up with his own ways of collecting the routes people take, and then envisaged how this data might be translated into art.
Quote MessageI’ve broken down the steps I went through collecting information and then using it to produce artwork. These steps are essentially my interpretation of how Susan Hefuna might make sculptures, drawings and performances.
Dan Russell, Creative50 Artist
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With this in mind, fellow Creative50 artist Nicola Ellis then used the data Dan collected to create her own work: a six-drawing series she's called Translations (you can see one example right here)
Image source, MIFQuote MessageI am interested in the way Hefuna makes solid records of fleeting human experience, and how each stage of ToGather reinterprets the original data using different media, such as drawing, sculpture and performance. Using data relating to travel routes of the Creative50 gathered by Dan Russell, the sculptors drawings in the Translation series use a selection of drawing media, including digitally printed images to translate and reinterpret primary data maps into ideas for large scale sculpture.
Nicola Ellis
See the whole of Nicola's Translation series here, external.
ToGather , externalwas created by artist Susan Hefuna, with Studio Wayne McGregor in collaboration with the participants, a score by Robin Rimbaud – Scanner and a Digital Experience made by International Magic.
@dandidthis http://daniel-russell.co.uk, external
@_nicola_ellis_ www.nicolaellis.com, external
#Creative50
This amazing short film was made by two of our local Creative50 artists: animator Andrew Magee and sound artist Manoli Moriaty - in response to our Dark Matter gig series., external
Pulsing, dark, hypnotising, and a perfect example of art forms meshing and crashing together, watch it right now:
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The film aims to capture the energy of early nightclub culture from breakdancing to the world famous Hacienda and the acid house revolution that took place in late 1980s Manchester. The sound piece that accompanies the film was made in response to SUNN 0))) who are performing at the 02 Ritz on Saturday 15th July.
Insta: @andrewandoscar / www.andrewmagee.info, external
Twitter @manolimoriaty / https://manolimoriaty.wordpress.com/, external
#creative50
Two of our brilliant #creative50 artists, Anna Horton and Dan Russell, have been entranced by the gloriously twisted anarchy of Party Skills For The End Of The World, external, and have produced a surreal, bright and funny video in response.
Trust us, you won't see anything else like it today. We love it.
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Quote MessageInspired by the future alluded to in Party Skills for the end of the World we imagined what might be abundant in the future (plastic bags), what might be scarce (most natural resources) and what we'd use for money (cryptocurrency). We then made an advert direct from the future. It’s our campaign to harvest plastic bags, extract their goodness and make something useful for hotter, stranger and more underwater times.
Dan Russell
Follow Anna Horton on Twitter, external, or visit her website, external
Follow Dan Russell on Twitter,, external or visit his website, external
With thanks to Natalie Kane , external
#creative50
Dyllan Gunthner
MIF17 Creative50
Brilliant local projection artist Dyllan Zain is one of our specially commissioned Creative50 artists, and has responded to our opening event What Is The City But The People?
Dyllan projection mapped onto a mask structure whilst playing a mix of songs by Manchester artists – the projection responds to the rhythm of the songs.
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Quote MessageThe mask structure represents a city without the people – lifeless, barren and bleak. Combining the selected tracks from Manchester With Love’s compilation with footage of Manchester, each song causes the footage to react live - changing in colour, effect, and shape. This footage was projection mapped onto the mask, bringing it to life with the heart and soul of Manchester music scene. The aim is to portray the essence, and musical diversity that makes up this unique, strong-willed city – as the lifeblood of Manchester is, without a doubt, the music.
Dyllan Zain, Creative50 Artist
Visual design – Dyllan Zain (https://www.dyllanzain.com/, external)
Mask Design - Jack Philips
Track Mixing - Danny Carrol
Tracklist: https://manchesterwithlove.bandcamp.com/, external
Ceremony
This Sunday sees us welcome back a local hero - Friedrich Engels, co-writer of The Communist Manifesto - as part of our closing event. It's a free event at the NCP Bridgewater Hall Carpark, and you can learn more about it here, external.
In the meantime, Phil Jupitus spotted some of the preparations, so we thought it only fair you got involved too...
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Manchester Street Poem
Today's your last chance to visit Karl Hyde's exploration of homelessness over at Unfear - where he's daubed every available surface with personal expressions of being homeless, and experiencing rough sleeping. But why just take our word for it?
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We asked four prominent writers to teach us about our local hero
Not exactly sure why we should be celebrating Freidrich Engels, what he did for the North West, or why is legacy is more important than ever right now?
Luckily, we've asked some very smart people to tell us, before this Sunday's Ceremony celebration, external
We've got four must read articles for you to take a look at, explaining exactly what Engles did for us as a city, why it matters, and what we can learn from it for the future.
Starting with Nina Power, Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Roehampton University:
Quote MessageWhen the lives of people are cut short by state violence – by ‘social murder’, as Engels put it, whether it’s at the hands of the police, or at the hard end of economic savings that lead to the deaths of many because of cheap, flammable cladding – it is clear that some lives do not count as much as others. Whatever justice people can eke out of the state is paltry, insulting, if it ever comes at all.
Nina Power