MIF15 little black book

Little Black Book 2015 Volume 6

A Manchester International Festival Publication

MIF.CO.UK

Contents

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Introduction wonder.land Tree of Codes Richter / Pärt FlexN Manchester Neck of the Woods Björk The Skriker Mark Simpson – The Immortal The Tale of Mr Tumble FKA twigs – Soundtrack 7 Performance Capture 10x10: Four Tet – Live in Concert / Day & Night Interdependence Arvo Pärt / Manchester Camerata Arca & Jesse Kanda High Tea in Wonderland The Age of Starlight The Crocodile Pavilion Theatre Festival Square MIF Creative & MIF Learning Volunteers Sponsors & donors Media coverage Sustainability Today, Manchester. Tomorrow, the world...

Festival team & acknowledgments

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official partners

silver supporters

public sector funders corporate members media partners

official providers

5plus Architects Addleshaw Goddard Arup Berg Bilfinger GVA Boutinot BuroHappold Engineering Cheadle Hulme School DAC Beachcroft Deloitte

Eclectic Hotels ferrious Great Northern Warehouse The Grove Farrow & Ball Hawkins\Brown Kuits Solicitors Manchester School of Art, MMU Marcus Worthington Group MC2

OMI Architects Panaz Pinsent Masons Seddon Shoosmiths Slater & Gordon stephenson STUDIO urbanbubble WHR Property Consultants

international circle

commissioning circle

patrons

Stavros Niarchos Foundation

Charles Asprey Ben Caldwell Tony & Jane Elliott Stephen & Jane Sorrell Richard Thomas (Founder) Martyn & Valerie Torevell

Tom & Jo Bloxham David & Julia Eventhall Anthony & Margaret Preston Caroline Younger

Peter & Judy Folkman Richard Gahagan & Vanessa Jackson Chris & Gayle Hopkinson Mike Ingall Jonathan & Ann Joseph Jonathan Levy Jack Livingstone John Maxwell Hobbs & Lauren Dyer Amazeen Jim & Joyce McNamara Alice Rawsthorn

John & Karla Robinson Raj & Reshma Ruia Andrew & Debra Sciama Andy Spinoza Rachel Sopher Paul & Juliet Stewart Roisin Timpson Nicky Unsworth Anne Webber John Williams Cathy Wills

additional public sector funders mif creative circle Bill & Julie Holroyd

trusts and foundations

gold supporters

mif pioneers Frances Anderson Simon & Shalni Arora Atul & Paulette Bansal Grant Berry Tracy Bosanko Brian Boylan Laura & Peter Carstensen Frank & Cherryl Cohen Nic & Jennifer Edmondson Brendan Finucane & Fiona Horlick Scott Fletcher

We would like to thank all our MIF Members and those who have kindly donated online or given anonymously.

© Liz Young

Introduction In 2015, we celebrated ten years since Manchester International Festival (MIF) began staging its opening series of trailblazer events, such as Gorillaz: Demon Days Live at the Opera House and Steve McQueen’s Queen and Country at Manchester Central Library. Since then, Manchester has evolved and expanded with great ambition and drive, and the Festival itself has become a fixture in the international cultural calendar.

While MIF has always strived to be an artist-led event, I hope it has also played a positive role in the city’s transformation, and I’m excited to see how Manchester continues to forge into the future.

MIF is a truly collective endeavour, created by a cast of thousands from this great city and beyond. I would like to pay tribute to the artists, to all Festival staff members and freelancers, to our volunteers, and to the countless contractors and suppliers who each contributed their expertise and time to MIF15. I would also like to thank the 70 corporate sponsors, 48 individual 4

donors and numerous MIF Members whose support, along with the invaluable contribution of Manchester City Council, makes possible everything we do. In particular, the leadership of Sir Richard Leese, Sir Howard Bernstein, Tom Bloxham and Christine Cort has proved invaluable.

MIF15 was my last Festival as CEO and Artistic Director.

Although I leave the Festival with a heavy heart, I’m delighted to pass the baton on to such an excellent and caring team.

I would like to extend a very warm welcome to John McGrath, my successor, and I wish him every success for MIF17 and beyond. And finally, I would like to offer sincere thanks to all of the incredible artists, supporters, colleagues and volunteers who have made MIF a risk-taking and uncompromising artist-led Festival of new work.

Alex Poots CEO & Artistic Director, Culture Shed, New York Former CEO & Artistic Director, Manchester International Festival 5

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DAYS

NEW COMMISSIONS & OTHER EVENTS

CO-COMMISSIONERS & CO-PRODUCERS FROM AROUND THE WORLD

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COUNTRIES REPRESENTED AMONG TICKET-BUYERS

230 PERFORMANCES

£38.8m ECONOMIC IMPACT

95% £27m £2.7m OF SETS & PROPS REUSED & RECYCLED

ADVERTISING EQUIVALENT VALUE OF MEDIA COVERAGE (EXCLUDING ONLINE COVERAGE)

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RAISED IN SPONSORSHIP, TRUSTS / FOUNDATIONS & INDIVIDUAL GIVING

65% 35% OF TICKET BUYERS FROM GREATER MANCHESTER

OF TICKET BUYERS FROM THE REST OF UK & ABROAD

16,248

TICKETS BOUGHT BY GREATER MANCHESTER RESIDENTS AT £12

88,474 TICKETS SOLD

259,648 ATTENDEES

436 2,868 VOLUNTEERS RECRUITED

CREATIVE LEARNING PARTICIPANTS

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wonder.land A new musical created by music by

Damon Albarn, Moira Buffini & Rufus Norris

Damon Albarn Buffini

book & lyrics by Moira

To launch MIF15, Damon Albarn, Moira Buffini and Rufus Norris took Lewis Carroll’s iconic tale of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and reworked it for the digital age. In wonder.land, Carroll’s rabbit hole was transformed into the internet, a place where 12-year-old Aly could escape from an unhappy home life and build herself a new identity – but also a place where things aren’t ever quite what they seem…

Touching, funny and spectacularly designed, wonder.land was a huge hit with local audiences after its world premiere on the first day of MIF15. At the end of 2015, the show was staged as the big Christmas production at the National Theatre in London.

‘ Inventive delirium reigns in Albarn’s Alice…

The best – and oddest – new British musical for families in a long time’ the sunday times

‘ Surreal, silly, supercharged with energy...

A triumph’ manchester evening news

A Manchester International Festival/National Theatre co-production. Commissioned by Manchester International Festival, National Theatre and the Théâtre du Châtelet.

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@ Brinkhoff Mogenburg

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© Joel Chester Fildes

Tree of Codes

A contemporary ballet Wayne McGregor director & choreographer Olafur Eliasson visual concept Jamie xx composer

‘ Sometimes, five stars is not enough’ the independent

‘ A joyous sensory overload’ pitchfork

Commissioned by Manchester International Festival, Park Avenue Armory, FAENA ART, Paris Opera Ballet, Sadler’s Wells and European Capital of Culture Aarhus 2017. Produced by Manchester International Festival, Paris Opera Ballet and Studio Wayne McGregor. Supported by the PRS for Music Foundation and MIF Commissioning Circle.

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A stunning collaboration between three world-class artists, Tree of Codes left audiences breathless.

Jamie xx’s scintillating score, Olafur Eliasson’s dazzling designs and Wayne McGregor’s visceral choreography, danced by members of his own company alongside the stars of the great Paris Opera Ballet, came together to create something greater than the sum of their component parts – and drew standing ovations for the show’s run at the Opera House, where it received its world premiere on 3 July 2015.

The essence of MIF distilled into a single show, Tree of Codes was staged in New York in September, and will travel in future years to Paris, Miami, London and Aarhus.

11 © Ravi Deepres

Richter / Pärt Richter / Pärt married Double Grey and Birkenau, two major new works by the great German artist Gerhard Richter, with Drei Hirtenkinder aus Fátima, a new piece written by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt that was performed in the Whitworth every day by Vox Clamantis and a succession of professional, amateur and community choirs from Greater Manchester.

Few who saw and heard this beautiful collaboration between two towering figures in contemporary culture were left unmoved by the experience.

Just a few days before the opening of Richter / Pärt, the Whitworth was awarded the prestigious Art Fund Prize for Museum of the Year. he effect was profound and moving, with the ‘ T artworks resonating with one another and the audience encouraged to see and hear more deeply’ the new york times

‘ The Whitworth is not a religious setting… Yet Richter / Pärt conjures the profound and resonant effect of a powerful memorial service in a cathedral’ the daily telegraph

Commissioned and produced by Manchester International Festival and the Whitworth.

Curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Alex Poots.

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© Jan Chlebik

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FlexN Manchester Reggie ‘Regg Roc’ Gray director & choreographer

For this truly transatlantic collaboration, MIF Creative brought together a team of flex dancers from Brooklyn, New York with ten of the best street dancers from Greater Manchester. Directed

by Reggie ‘Regg Roc’ Gray, one of flexing’s founding fathers, FlexN Manchester packed a powerful punch while also entertaining full houses during the Festival’s final week. To accompany FlexN Manchester, MIF15 also staged Europe’s first ever D.R.E.A.M Ring, a dance battle format devised by Gray that saw dancers from Greater Manchester compete against each other for both prize and prestige. FlexN Manchester was one of several MIF15 events to be held within the confines of Old Granada Studios.

‘ Splitting at the seams with energy and heart’ the guardian

‘ Powerful, accessible, fun but also thought-provoking, FlexN Manchester is poetry in motion’ manchester evening news

Commissioned by MIF Creative. Produced by Manchester International Festival.

Supported by MIF Creative Circle.

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© Sodium

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© Studio lost but found VG Bild-Kunst Bonn 2015 Ninon Liotet

Charlotte Rampling, Hélène Grimaud

Neck of the Woods directed by Douglas

Gordon

‘ Ms Grimaud and Ms Rampling were riveting on stage’ the new york times

‘ The soundscape is simply inspired, the human voices of the Sacred Sounds Women’s Choir convincingly moulding themselves into the noise of rustling trees, woodland wildlife and howling wolves’ manchester evening news

Devised and directed by Turner Prize-winning artist Douglas Gordon, and starring eminent pianist Hélène Grimaud and the extraordinary Charlotte Rampling, Neck of the Woods sent audiences on a mesmerising journey into the darkness that shrouds the fairy tale of the wolf and Little Red Riding Hood.

Gordon’s staging and Grimaud’s music combined to create an incomparably atmospheric piece of theatre, with Rampling a compelling presence at centre stage throughout. Also featuring the Sacred Sounds Women’s Choir, founded by MIF Creative to perform at MIF13, Neck of the Woods was the first MIF event to be staged at HOME, Manchester’s new centre for international contemporary art, theatre, film and books.

Commissioned by Manchester International Festival, HOME, FAENA ART and MIF Creative. Produced by Manchester International Festival. Supported by the Foyle Foundation and MIF Creative Circle.

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© Carsten Windhorst

Björk plus

Arca

‘ A very singular form of rapture’ the daily telegraph

‘ Gloriously uncompromising’ the times

Produced by Manchester International Festival.

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Four years after her Biophilia residency at Campfield Market Hall dazzled audiences at MIF11, Björk returned to the Festival for her first European show since the release of Vulnicura, her latest album. Accompanied by members of the Heritage Orchestra on a perfect summer’s evening at a packed Castlefield Arena, the peerless Icelandic singer delivered a sensuous set of new material mixed in with old favourites such as Army of Me and Hyperballad. The evening began with a set from Arca and Jessa Kanda, fresh from their own Festival show the previous night, and ended with fireworks exploding into a balmy summer sky.

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Maxine Peake

The Skriker by

Caryl Churchill

directed by Sarah music by Nico

Frankcom Muhly & Antony

Two years after the pair collaborated on a compelling account of Shelley’s The Masque of Anarchy at the Albert Hall for MIF13, actor Maxine Peake and director Sarah Frankcom joined forces once more at the Festival. For MIF15, the pair took on The Skriker, Caryl Churchill’s prescient and prophetic journey into a post-apocalyptic dystopia. Staged in a dramatically reconfigured Royal Exchange Theatre, which continues to go from strength to strength under Frankcom’s direction, the production astonished audiences over its sell-out run and received universally enthusiastic reviews.

‘ It’s the best bad dream I’ve had all year’ the times

‘ A performance of huge, sure-footed range from [Maxine] Peake’ the independent

‘ Big, bold, ambitious, visually and linguistically rich’ the stage

Commissioned and produced by Manchester International Festival and the Royal Exchange Theatre.

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© Jonathan Keenan

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Mark Simpson

The Immortal An oratorio BBC Philharmonic

The familiar beauty of Mozart’s Requiem, which constituted the first half of this opening-weekend concert at The Bridgewater Hall, was never going to prepare audiences for the explosive, astonishing world premiere that followed the interval. Written by young British composer Mark Simpson, inspired by the stranger-than-fiction Victorian belief in occultism, and performed with fierce skill by the BBC Philharmonic conducted by Juanjo Mena, with baritone Mark Stone, EXAUDI and the Manchester Chamber Choir, The Immortal was one of the highlights of MIF15.

‘ The best new oratorio I’ve heard in years…

Superbly realised by the BBC Philharmonic under Juanjo Mena… I immediately wanted to hear it again’ ***** the times

‘ Blazingly original’ the guardian

Commissioned and produced by Manchester International Festival.

Supported by MIF Commissioning Circle and Sky Academy Arts Scholarship.

© Joel Chester Fildes

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Justin Fletcher

The Tale of Mr Tumble Known to millions through his appearances on CBeebies, Justin Fletcher made his first bow at the Festival with this funny, engaging and visually exciting show at the Opera House exploring the life and times of Mr Tumble. Written and directed by Will Brenton, and co-starring Ronni Ancona and a fabulous ensemble cast, the show featured a singing and signing choir, which at each performance was drawn from a group of more than 400 schoolchildren from 10 Manchester schools. The thousands of kids in the audience for the show’s 13 performances left in euphoric mood – is there a star in Britain more loved by his fans than Justin Fletcher?

‘ Just when you think you’ve reached peak Tumble (or Fletcher, for that matter), this new MIF stage show comes along – and it’s a smasher’ manchester confidential

‘ What makes the production something extraspecial is [Justin Fletcher’s] mass Makaton signalong with a choir of kids from Manchester primary schools. No international arts festival can top that’ the stage

Commissioned by MIF Creative. Produced by Manchester International Festival.

Supported by Backstage Trust, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, players of People’s Postcode Lottery, the Reta Lila Howard Foundation, Stavros Niarchos Foundation, The Austin and Hope Pilkington Trust, The Oglesby Charitable Trust and MIF Creative Circle.

In association with CBeebies.

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© Robert Day

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FKA twigs

Soundtrack 7 The charismatic, uncategorisable FKA twigs journeyed to Manchester for a ten-day residency at MIF15. On each of the first seven days, FKA twigs and her team of collaborators created and filmed a new dance-based performance piece in which the artist explored a narrative from her own life.

Audiences were admitted in groups of just 20 to watch the creative process in action. Then, on the final Friday and Saturday nights of the Festival, the artist performed five very special shows in an intimate space at Old Granada Studios – one of the Festival’s hottest tickets. Those who couldn’t attend Soundtrack 7 in person were able to follow the work via Inside Soundtrack 7 (insidesoundtrack7.com), a specially commissioned digital project that offered a unique insight into FKA twigs’ working methods.

‘ A photo-reel of captivating and chilling scenes.

One that will continue to haunt me’ manchester confidential

‘ An entirely mesmerising experience... Animalistic and ravaged with raw intensity... It’s utterly brilliant’ the quietus

Commissioned by Manchester International Festival and The Space.

Produced by Manchester International Festival.

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© Paula Harrowing

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Ed Atkins

Performance Capture British artist Ed Atkins spent an intense 16 days at MIF15 ensconced at Manchester Art Gallery for Performance Capture, an extended exploration of the subjects of identity and representation in the era of digital culture. Using motion-capture technology, Atkins made a digital record of more than 100 performances by MIF artists and other Festival personnel reading from Ed’s own poetic script.

The performances were then fed through editing technology and mapped on to a computer-generated avatar – creating a figure that was both a distinct individual and an echo of everybody who was captured

by Ed for the project. The studio, the editing suite and the cinema were all open to the public as part of this extraordinary MIF commission.

‘ A thought-provoking yet ambitious rumination on our everyday life, complete with the added edge of eeriness that Atkins brings to all his work’ CORRIDOR 8

‘ Utterly fascinating’ MANCHESTER EVENING NEWS

Commissioned and produced by Manchester International Festival and Manchester Art Gallery.

Supported by MIF Commissioning Circle. Curated by Ed Atkins, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Alex Poots.

© Joel Chester Fildes

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10x10: Four Tet – Live in Concert Day & Night The closing weekend of MIF15 was highlighted by a huge celebration of two ten-year anniversaries. Manchester International Festival launched with Gorillaz: Demon Days Live in 2005, the same year that The Warehouse Project held the first of their now-legendary parties in the city. At the atmospheric Mayfield Depot on the final Friday of MIF15, Four Tet (aka Kieran Hebden) gave a rare live performance focused on tracks from his wildly acclaimed new album Morning/Evening. Then, on Saturday, DJs Carl Craig and Mike Banks topped a stellar bill at a 12-hour extravaganza that ran into the small hours of Sunday morning. Happy birthday to us!

‘ The Warehouse Project’s collaboration with MIF… sent a strong message out to those who doubted or denied electronic music’s place within contemporary art and culture’ resident advisor

‘ Polished, packed with energy and razor-sharp precision’ dj mag

Commissioned and produced by Manchester International Festival and The Warehouse Project.

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© Gary Brown

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Interdependence Inspired by a chance conversation between Alex Poots, then MIF’s CEO and Artistic Director, and Professor Brian Cox, one of the guiding forces behind The Age of Starlight, Interdependence brought together a disparate array of personalities to discuss creativity in all its myriad stripes and flavours. Figures as diverse as artists Olafur Eliasson and Jeremy Deller, physicist Kostya Novoselov, filmmaker Peter Strickland, the FlexN Manchester dancers and Dr Maria Balshaw of the Whitworth were all present for two days of conversation, provocation and performance at Old Granada Studios that gave audiences plenty of food for thought.

‘ A real complement to the rest of the Festival programme – a chance for people to understand and discuss the ideas and issues that go into conceiving and rolling out such a huge undertaking’ manchester confidential

Commissioned by Manchester International Festival and Guardian Live.

Produced by Manchester International Festival. With special thanks to Steve Morrison.

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© Rob Martin

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Arvo Pärt Manchester Camerata Gábor Takács-Nagy

Inspired by Arvo Pärt’s collaboration with painter Gerhard Richter at the Whitworth, one of the most acclaimed events in the Festival’s history, MIF presented this sold-out celebration of the life and music of this great contemporary composer.

Marshalled superbly by Gábor Takács-Nagy, Manchester Camerata were joined at The Bridgewater Hall by Estonian choir Vox Clamantis and soprano Polina Pasztircsák in a programme that ranged from Como cierva sedienta, an expansive motet, to the fragile shivers of Fratres, perhaps Pärt’s best-known and best-loved work. The standing ovation that followed the composer’s appearance on stage at the end of this unforgettable concert continued for more than five minutes.

‘ Manchester Camerata proved to be the ideal ensemble for this type of music’ the guardian

‘ There were moments where time almost stopped’ manchester confidential

Produced by Manchester International Festival.

© Joel Chester Fildes

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Arca & Jesse Kanda It’s safe to say that Hallé St Peter’s, a former church that’s now used chiefly as a rehearsal space by the Hallé orchestra, hadn’t ever witnessed anything quite like the MIF15 set delivered by Alejandro Ghersi, a 24-year-old Venezuelan musician better known as Arca, and Jesse Kanda, a visual artist and Ghersi’s regular collaborator.

Marrying Arca’s skittering beats and atmospheric soundscapes with Kanda’s astonishing visuals, the pair thrilled a packed house with one of the most exhilarating shows at this year’s Festival. The following night, Arca played a surprise set at Castlefield Arena in support of Björk.

‘ It’s refreshing to be confronted by something that asks so many questions – about sexuality, beauty, music and performance’ the guardian

‘ An audio-visual journey through the surreal, hyperreal, bodily and sublime’ i-d

Produced by Manchester International Festival.

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@ Lee Baxter

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High Tea in Wonderland An inspired companion piece to wonder.land, the big new musical that opened MIF15, High Tea in Wonderland led festivalgoers down a very different rabbit hole. Guided by a White Rabbit, audiences were spirited through the Manchester Museum and into a labyrinth of laboratories, herbariums and other hidden spaces, where a succession of incredible, inventive and occasionally surreal dishes were presented by assorted characters from Lewis Carroll’s famous tale. The food was devised and prepared by Mary-Ellen McTague, formerly of the Aumbry in Prestwich and one of the city’s most esteemed chefs.

‘ For fans of the book, or any of the film versions, there is plenty to delight’ manchester evening news

‘ Eat me, drink me, steal me… The secrets of High Tea in Wonderland – an MIF15 event that left us feeling ten feet tall’ creative tourist

Commissioned and produced by Manchester International Festival.

© Joel Chester Fildes

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The Age of Starlight Panel discussion

The most challenging show that MIF has endeavoured to produce, The Age of Starlight aims to tell the story of the universe using technology so far advanced that some of it has yet to be perfected – or even invented.

MIF15 welcomed several key members of the creative team to Old Granada Studios for an informal discussion on the progress of the show: joining then-MIF CEO and Artistic Director Alex Poots were Professor Brian Cox; artist and designer Peter Saville; Simon Whalley, Executive Producer from Framestore; and, beamed in from Florida, technological alchemist Rony Abovitz of Magic Leap, Inc. Brian Cox also joined Jennifer Cleary, MIF’s Creative Learning Director, for a special ‘In Conversation’ event attended by 230 young people aged 11-16 from across Greater Manchester.

Commissioned by Manchester International Festival and Culture Shed.

Supported by the Granada Foundation and the Stavros Niarchos Foundation.

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© Richard Tymon

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The Invisible Dot Ltd presents

The Crocodile Dostoevsky has never been known for his sense of humour. However, The Invisible Dot Ltd attempted to reinvent the old Russian master’s reputation with their adaptation of a whimsical short story that’s a long way in style and scope from Crime and Punishment.

Written by Tom Basden, directed by Ned Bennett and starring Simon Bird, The Crocodile highlighted the second week in Festival Square’s very own Pavilion Theatre.

‘ Tom Basden turns Dostoevsky’s allegory of capitalist inhumanity into sharp satire on political celebrity in the Twitter age’ the times

‘ The overall effect is of an ensemble who are having a high old time, and their evident pleasure in this savagely silly satire is entirely infectious’ the daily telegraph

Commissioned by Manchester International Festival.

Produced by Manchester International Festival and The Invisible Dot Ltd.

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© Jonathan Keenan

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Pavilion Theatre on Festival Square

The Crocodile wasn’t the only event to take place in our intimate Pavilion Theatre, located in Festival Square. The Invisible Dot Ltd presented six nights of cabaret starring an array of up-and-coming acts, plus an opening-weekend show starring the excellent Adam Buxton; Drunk at Vogue and Cha Cha Boudoir teamed up again for We Only Happen at Night; Erik Rug joined Dave Haslam for Yellow, the traditional MIF closing public party; and the BBC moved in to record an array of special programmes, everything from CBeebies’ Swashbuckling Adventure to BBC Radio 3’s Early Music Show.

‘ Some of the best contemporary comedy out there’ manchester evening news on the invisible dot cabaret

‘ Elaborate costumes that shock, bemuse and dazzle…

Last night, Manchester’s glorious drag scene came balling out of the dark and into the light’ manchester confidential on we only happen at night

@ Lee Baxter

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Festival Square Once again, Albert Square was converted into Festival Square for MIF15, and served as the buzzing home of the Festival for 18 days. The new look for 2015 came courtesy of ferrious design consultants and students from Manchester School of Art, MMU, continuing a collaboration with MIF that began in 2013.

Alongside the packed programme in the Pavilion Theatre (see previous pages), there was plenty of free entertainment: visitors were treated to live music by local acts on the Acoustic Stage and excellent nightly DJs in the Festival Pavilion. Heathcote & Co served terrific comfort food, alongside exquisite pizzas from Altrincham’s Honest Crust, moreish ice creams from Ginger’s Comfort Emporium and fare from a string of the North West’s best food traders, while Thwaites’ special Festival Ale was complemented by a full range of beers and wines.

As well as serving as the starting point for Jonathan Scofield’s walking tours of the city, Festival Square also provided a home for the MIF Box Office and SHOP. Last but not least, we were delighted to welcome The Mancorialist, who photographed visitors to the Square throughout the Festival and posted the shots on an exclusive website.

© Joel Chester Fildes

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© Sodium

© Liza Young

MIF Creative

MIF Learning

For each Festival, MIF commissions leading artists or thinkers to create ambitious new work in partnership with local people. These commissions, called MIF Creative, offer unique opportunities for residents to engage with MIF in new and exciting ways – and during MIF15, more than 2,850 people took part in Creative Learning programmes.

Alongside MIF Creative, MIF Learning devises and delivers cultural community engagement programmes to local residents from all backgrounds. MIF Learning consists of three strands:

At MIF15, MIF Creative’s work included FlexN Manchester, which paired local dancers with Brooklyn’s unique flexing dance community; The Tale of Mr Tumble, which featured local schoolchildren singing and signing on stage at the Opera House; and Neck of the Woods, which saw the return of the Sacred Sounds Women’s Choir after its foundation for MIF13.

‘ The people involved in MIF think creatively, and the way that they express support for artists is so different. I can personally say that the Festival has really helped’ jack bain, dancer in flexn manchester

Create allows groups to get hands-on with MIF commissions.

Among the many Create activities for MIF15, 90 college students went behind the scenes at Ed Atkins’ Performance Capture, and ten local choirs performed in Richter / Pärt at the Whitworth.

Engage brings new audiences into contact with the Festival through presentations, in-conversation events and masterclasses.

Train is MIF’s programme for mentoring emerging artists and cultural leaders. The Festival offered 71 professional and career development opportunities tied to MIF15, including placements, internships and work experience opportunities.

‘ It’s been the best job I’ve had so far in my career – it’s pushed me to all sorts of places where I never thought I’d be able to go’ amy liptrott, assistant director on neck of the woods

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Volunteers Run with the generous support of PZ Cussons, the Volunteer programme for MIF15 was bigger than at any previous Festival. A total of 436 volunteers were enlisted to help at MIF15, ranging in age from 19 to 86 and with a fabulously varied mix of backgrounds, interests and skills. The programme provides opportunities for people to develop and gain new skills, share expertise, meet people and give something back to the community.

Some of MIF’s volunteers fulfilled specific roles: photographing shows, working on artist liaison, even helping tailor the costumes for The Tale of Mr Tumble.

Other members of the team took a general brief: distributing programmes, assisting with ticketing, directing the pedestrian traffic in Festival Square.

‘ It’s a great city, Manchester, and it’s an honour to represent it. I’d definitely come back and do it again, and I’d recommend it to anyone’ mif15 volunteer

‘ It’s been a privilege to be involved… It’s been such a collaborative and collegiate experience.

I’ve met some amazing people and seen some brilliant things’ mif15 volunteer

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© Richard Tymon

Sponsors & donors The scope, scale and quality of each Festival depend on the generous support that MIF receives from its corporate sponsors and individual donors. Between them, these donors and sponsors provide 25% of the Festival’s overall budget, while also offering support through the provision of services, products and expertise. This backing is absolutely invaluable to MIF’s aims and ambitions.

MIF15 was produced with the assistance of 70 corporate sponsors (up from 43 in 2013) and 48 individual donors, along with all our valued MIF Members. We would like to take this opportunity to thank them all for their support of MIF. To join them for future Festivals, please contact Rachel Green, MIF’s Development Director, at rachel.green@mif.co.uk.

‘ Thank you for looking after us, our customers, colleagues and friends so well during the Festival. We had such a ball, and were extremely proud to be part of such a wonderful event!’

Festival sponsors contributed in countless valuable ways to MIF15.

Here are just a few examples: • Bruntwood created ManchesterInFlux, • Selfridges hosted a bespoke Tree of Codes installation, and also staged an interactive data visualisation tool and catered for numerous events that gave unique insights into the Festival • The Siemens Choir were among the performers in Richter / Pärt at the • DoubleTree by Hilton created a special MIF15 cocktail menu for Whitworth their Urban Bar • boohoo.com provided costumes • PZ Cussons connected MIF with the Seashell Trust for The Tale of Mr Tumble

for Neck of the Woods and FlexN Manchester

• C isco and the University of Salford provided equipment and expert help for Ed Atkins’ Performance Capture

• For our volunteers, Regatta provided rucksacks and waterproofs, while Craghoppers donated special ‘Drink Me’ metal water bottles

• Electricity North West provided key infrastructure for 10x10 at Mayfield Depot

• Pupils at sponsors’ schools joined the Makaton signing choirs for The Tale of Mr Tumble

juergen maier, chief executive of siemens uk

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Image courtesy of the BBC

Media coverage MIF15 generated greater levels of local, national and international coverage than at previous Festivals.

Valued at more than £27 million in Advertising Equivalent Value (AEV), an increase of nearly 5% from MIF13, the coverage included everything from interviews in North West newspapers and dedicated broadcasts on national television to major features in the international press, all elevating the profile of the Festival to new heights. MIF received great support from its Media Partners: the BBC, The Guardian and the Manchester Evening News.

Media Partners

Press

•T he BBC delivered more than 12 hours of national broadcasts live from Festival Square, including BBC2’s Newsnight, a BBC4 special entitled One Night in Manchester, BBC Radio 4’s Front Row and BBC Radio 6 Music’s Radcliffe & Maconie.

BBC Radio 3 also offered live and recorded broadcasts of Festival events, including Mark Simpson’s The Immortal and Arvo Pärt at The Bridgewater Hall.

Alongside a wealth of coverage in the local press, MIF15 received extensive coverage in national newspapers.

MIF15 also featured extensively in UK consumer magazines, from Vogue to the Radio Times; and in the international press, with coverage in the likes of Die Zeit, Paris Match and the New York Times.

new york times, 2015

• The Guardian dedicated a special edition of The Guide to the Festival, with a total of 481,000 copies printed and distributed, and also produced a G2 special during the Festival. In addition, Guardian Live co-commissioned Interdependence at Old Granada Studios.

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•T here was extensive positive coverage in the Manchester Evening News of all Festival events, including a special MIF supplement and additional coverage in the Manchester Weekly News.

‘ The Festival has a distinctive identity that has brought international attention to this vibrant northern city... The event is an important player on the international cultural stage’

Online MIF15 featured in more than 1,000 articles from international websites and more than 1,500 from national sites – and both these figures are continuing to rise even several months after the Festival.

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© The Mancorialist

Sustainability From ensuring that all commissions are resourced efficiently and produced responsibly, through to partnering with our sponsors, suppliers, venues and co-commissioners, the Festival works hard to guarantee that its impact on the environment is minimal. MIF was the first international festival to be independently certified as meeting BS 8901, the new British Standard for Sustainable Event Management.

MIF has also now reached 2nd Level ISO20121, as developed by LOCOG and London 2012.

MIF is a proud member of the Manchester Arts Sustainability Team (MAST), first convened in 2010 when representatives of the city’s cultural industry met to share ideas and developments in sustainability.

In November 2014, MAST was awarded a Silver Green Apple Environment Award for Carbon Reduction in Leisure & Tourism.

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During MIF15: •T hanks to strong recycling policies and the use of compostable tableware, only 9% of waste from Festival Square was sent to landfill • Designed by students from Manchester School of Art, MMU, the roof terrace furniture at Festival Square was made from recycled plastic, and has since been installed in Whitworth Park • 95% of sets and props from MIF15 commissions were recycled or reused, an increase from MIF13 •T he Festival used 268 suppliers from Greater Manchester • MIF produced two types of ecofriendly bag: tote bags, made from bamboo and given to all artists, Festival delegates and MIF Members; and banner bags, made from recycled MIF promotional banners

• A ll marketing publicity was printed on Forest Stewardship Council (FSC)certified stock • 1,000 metal water bottles were supplied by Craghoppers to MIF artists, staff and volunteers as part of MIF’s drinking water initiative • MIF provided five bicycles for staff to get around the city •T hree hybrid vehicles, provided by Electricity North West, were used to transport staff, artists and equipment around Manchester during the Festival • 2,868 people took part in programmes organised by MIF Creative and MIF Learning

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wonder.land @ Brinkhoff Mogenburg

The Life and Death of Marina Abramović © Lucie Jansch

Macbeth @ Johan Persson

Today, Manchester.

Tomorrow, the world...

Close collaborations with carefully chosen co-commissioning and co-producing partners from home and abroad are a vital part of MIF. For 2015, MIF worked with no fewer than 21 co-commissioners, and the productions that they helped us create have already started to travel the globe.

To give just two examples from MIF15, wonder.land went on to become the big Christmas show at the National Theatre in London, and will play in 2016 at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris; while Tree of Codes enjoyed a sell-out run at New York’s Park Avenue Armory in September 2015, and will also be travelling to Faena Forum in Miami Beach, Paris Opera Ballet, Sadler’s Wells in London and European Capital of Culture Aarhus 2017.

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Since the first Festival in 2007, shows that received their premieres at MIF have travelled to more than 20 countries – from Spain to Singapore, from Brazil to Greenland. On the next page, you can see a map showing the global reach of MIF.

‘ Astonishing visual elements... [Dancer] Marie-Agnès Gillot adds so incalculably much to the evening’ TIME OUT NEW YORK, REVIEWING TREE OF CODES (MIF15) IN NEW YORK, 2015

‘ Dadaist vaudeville meets high-concept performance art... Wondrous’ THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE, REVIEWING THE OLD WOMAN (MIF13) IN SAN FRANCISCO, 2014

‘ There is a shimmering thrill to [Robert] Wilson’s world, which is only enhanced by the music’ THE WALL STREET JOURNAL, REVIEWING THE LIFE AND DEATH OF MARINA ABRAMOVIĆ (MIF11) IN MADRID, 2012

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Image: Š Visible Earth, NASA

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Festival team & acknowledgments Alex Poots CEO & Artistic Director until the end of MIF15 John E McGrath CEO & Artistic Director Christine Cort Managing Director Jim Forrester Executive Director Tracy Longdin PA to CEO & Artistic Director and Executive Director Gemma Saunders Assistant to Managing Director Paul Clay Executive Producer* Jo Paton Executive Producer Christine Gettins Executive Producer Tracey Low Executive Producer Kate Mackonochie Senior Producer Katie Vine Touring Producer David Lawrence Producer* Pollyanna Clayton-Stamm Consultant Curator/ Producer* Conrad Lynch Producer* Jude Jagger Festival Square Producer* 62

Anna Moutrey Producer* Phoebe Greenwood Producer* Ella Byford Associate Producer* Tricia Coleman Assistant Producer Sophie Ignatieff Assistant Producer Patrick French Assistant Producer Tayah Preece Trainee Production Manager Jack Thompson Technical Director Helen Gorton Technical Co-ordinator* Tom Besford Head of Artist Liaison Rachel Down Deputy Head of Artist Liaison Kirsty Gbasai Accreditation Officer* John Ball Ground Transport Manager* Chloe Foy Artist Liaison Assistant (Internship) Sarah Rowland Festival Square Co-ordinator* Jackie Thompson Head of Guest Liaison Michelle Binieda Guest Liaison Co-ordinator

Henrietta Smith-Rolla Guest Liaison Assistant Francesca Ribolini Guest Liaison Assistant (Internship) Vanda Hagan Head of Finance David Fox Administration & IT Manager Hannah Clapham-Clark London Office Administrator Nadia Balfe Finance Officer Sue Jones Finance Assistant Marney Guy Administration Assistant Fiona Cariss Volunteer Co-ordinator** Ella Walker Assistant Volunteer Co-ordinator Kayleigh Harper Volunteer Administration Assistant (Internship) Jennifer Cleary Creative Learning Director Sarah Hiscock Creative Learning Manager Kate Reynolds Producer, MIF Creative* Kate Houlton Assistant Producer, MIF Creative

Rachel Green Development Director Jane Reynolds Development Manager Andrea Lowe Development Co-ordinator Emma Shiel Development Account Manager Emily Ross Development Account Manager

Lizzie Milne Ticketing Assistant (Internship) Ben Turner Community Engagement Freelancer* Will Fulford-Jones Publications Editor* Cathryn Ellis Senior Designer* Lee Baxter Designer*

Nadja Coyne Press & PR Director Jamie-Leigh Hargreaves Press Officer Jack Howson Broadcast Co-ordinator*

FESTIVAL BOARD Tom Bloxham MBE (Chair) Cllr Rosa Battle Keith Black Jeremy Deller Steve Downes Joyce Hytner OBE Sir Brian McMaster CBE Chris Oglesby Richard Paver Nancy Rothwell Peter Salmon Andrew Stokes Kully Thiarai Edward Pysden (Board Associate) Anna Hassan (Board Observer)

Janina Mundy Head of Marketing Cathy Gallagher Marketing Consultant* Billy Partridge Ticketing Manager Ben Williams Marketing Officer Eleanor Scott Digital Content Producer Tom Emery Marketing Assistant Caspar Stevens Digital Marketing (Internship) Sarah Eastaff Ticketing Assistant (Internship)

*Consultant
 **Secondment

ARTISTIC ADVISORS Michael Morris Hans Ulrich Obrist Peter Saville

AGENCIES Hemisphere Design Made the web Web Development ATG Tickets Ticketing The Corner Shop Publicity Bolton & Quinn Publicity Soup Collective Film Production Sodium Film Production Marketing Manchester Greater Manchester’s Tourist Board Morris Hargreaves McIntyre Research & Evaluation Thank you to our dedicated and talented volunteers, whose contribution helps to make the Festival a success.

Written & edited by Will Fulford-Jones.

Designed by Cathryn Ellis.

Printed in Greater Manchester on FSC-certified stock using vegetable inks.

Published by Manchester International Festival.

Blackfriars House, Parsonage, Manchester M3 2JA. Registered charity no: 1113902.

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MIF17 29 June – 16 July 2017

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