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 announced a programme of new work for Spring 2026 featuring three world premieres and a UK premiere.
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 today (Tuesday 20 January) ahead of general on sale on Tuesday 27 January. Tickets are available from £10 across all shows.
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Highlights include:
- 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).
- The first in a series of new productions, English National Opera (ENO) and Factory International present the UK premiere of Du Yun’s Pulitzer Prize-winning contemporary opera Angel’s Bone with a libretto by Royce Vavrek – a major new production directed by the visionary theatre maker Kip Williams. In collaboration with the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra Angel’s Bone is a powerful allegory exploring themes of exploitation, power, and the human cost of survival. (12-16 May)
- Throughout the Spring, Aviva Studios – which has fast become a hub for music in the UK, recognised for its outstanding acoustics – will host a wide range of music performances from artists, bands and collectives that push at the limits of experimental electronics and indie music, alongside headline gigs from some of the world’s biggest pop stars and DJ, including; platinum-selling artist Halsey celebrating ten years of BADLANDS (29 Jan); superstar DJ Fatboy Slim (13 – 14 March); a headline show from Lily Allen (10-11 Mar) who performs her No.1 selling album West End Girl in full; global pop star Kesha (13-14 Mar); Grammy-winning jazz-funk bassist Thundercat (27 Mar); a live set by dance royalty Basement Jaxx (28 Mar); trip-hop pioneer and Massive Attack co-founder Tricky (16 May); and indie trailblazers Pixies (24-25 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.”
One of the UK’s largest cultural exporters, Factory International is creating and commissioning work in the North of England that is seen by audiences all over the world. In addition to the work commissioned and produced by established voices Factory International is committed to supporting artists at every stage of their career, including offering free, industry-focused training programmes through Factory Academy.
Factory International’s artist development initiatives, including the Artist Takeover, Young Curators, Factory Sounds and Factory Fellowship programmes will return this Spring. These initiatives offer practical support, including funding, mentoring, access to space to create, and training, to help break down the barriers many artists face when trying to access the resources they need to take their practice to the next level.
Factory International’s Young Curators – six young creatives from Manchester aged 30 and under – will collaborate with artist Trackie McLeod to create UTOPIA a working pub inside Aviva Studio’s Warehouse which will operate as an exhibition, pub, drag bar, intimate music venue and workshop space from 19-21 February.
Also taking place in February is the fifth edition of Factory International’s Artist Takeover initiative, which will see dancer and choreographer Chad Taylor receive financial and production support to experiment with project mapping at Aviva Studios over the course of a week. The ongoing Artists In Times of Upheaval talk series also returns this Spring, exploring new artistic projects and discussions emerging from artists’ direct responses to global and national upheaval.
Next in the series is a reading of Resisters a new play, currently in development by award-winning writer and performer Mojisola Adebayo, exploring queer and women’s resistance to occupation, war and genocide through art.
Ai Weiwei image credit: Gonçalo F Santos
