From Ai Weiwei’s first ever major exhibition in the North to an intimate headline show from Lily Allen, from a striking new live performance from pioneering musician Tricky to visionary director Kip Williams’ UK opera debut, Factory International has today announced a programme of new work for Spring 2026 featuring three World premieres and a UK premiere.
In collaboration with world leading artists and arts organisations Factory International, the organisation behind Manchester International Festival (MIF) and the city’s landmark cultural space Aviva Studios, will present a season of large-scale new productions that span theatre, dance, music and visual art, utilising the versatility of Factory International’s purpose-built home. Tickets will go on sale to members on Tuesday 20 January ahead of general on sale on Tuesday 27 January. Tickets are available from £10 across all shows.
? History, power and empire collide in a major new exhibition by world-leading artist and activist Ai Weiwei. Monumental in scale and ambition, Ai Weiwei: Button Up! confronts 200 years of turbulent world history in this vast new exhibition which centres on two major new commissions created especially for Aviva Studios, one of which will be his largest 2D artwork to date made from over a million toy bricks. (2 July–6 September).
? The World premiere of The Surge: An Ode to Sinéad O’Connor. Created by Tony award-winning choreographer and director Sonya Tayeh, the dance work is set to the music of Sinéad O’Connor and is a mediation on voice, protest and the courage to live a life that defies the norm performed by a company of 10 women. Presented by Joyce Theater and Factory International (25-27 June).
? Theatre-Rites and award-winning South African Choreographer Gregory Maqoma will present the World Premiere of Return to the Forest, an immersive, playful and thought-provoking new dance and puppetry show for families, co-produced by Factory International and co-commissioned by Sadlers Wells East. (7-10 May).
John McGrath, Artistic Director and Chief Executive, Factory International said: “This season we have a collection of firsts. We’re proud to have Ai Weiwei’s first major exhibition in the North of England, ENO’s first production staged in Manchester and the first major production celebrating the music and life of Sinéad O’Connor. Factory International is collaborating with pioneering, fearless artists this Spring inviting them to use the flexibility and versatility of our extraordinary home Aviva Studios, as their playground to create work they could not make anywhere else. We welcome them to Manchester to push the boundaries of their practice and create at unprecedented scales imagining spectacles both intimate and ambitious for our audiences in the North and beyond.”
Find out more here: https://factoryinternational.org