MIF started with a kiss and ended on a high
IT started with a kiss and finished off with a feast.
In between the intriguing and scary first event It Felt Like A Kiss and last weekend’s closing celebration with Festival Feast, this year’s Manchester International Festival has, measured by both critical acclaim and actual bums on seats, been a huge success.
There’s been one hot ticket after another, from the unique collaboration of Elbow and the Halle at the Bridgewater Hall to the opening night of Rufus Wainwright’s first opera Prima Donna.
The several hundred-strong queues daily outside It Felt Like A Kiss, the JS Bach/Zaha Hadid Architects installation at the City Art Gallery and the challenging Marina Abramovic Presents event at the Whitworth Art Gallery offered a plain-as-the nose-on-your-face refutation of the argument that it was all ‘too high-brow’.
So did the touts busily at work outside the Kraftwerk and Elbow shows.
But have the performances been great? Is there a palpable, exciting sense that Manchester is very firmly on the cultural world map? And does it feel like the Festival is not only international but also a genuine part of Manchester’s vibrant cultural life?
Hell, yes!
I was lucky enough to see It Felt Like A Kiss on its first night, long before anyone had, unforgivably, given away any of its more astonishing secrets. It was an incredibly thrilling, if often chilling, experience and, more to the point, the sort of show that probably would never have existed without the vision of MIF.
Priviledge
It felt like a real privilege to experience – and I use the term advisedly – that show without the carping intervention of London-centric critics from so-called national media. If they don’t like that, so what?
Perhaps the most exhilarating thing about MIF is its unique selling point that all the shows presented here in Manchester are world premieres.
Most festivals, however high their profiles, are culled from other festivals. Festival programmers swan around the world, rarely at their own expense, picking the shows that they think might work for their particular demographic.
This means is that you never really know whether the choices that are being made just possibly might have more to do with politics than they do with artistic integrity.
Whether you personally like them or not, and whether they fall short artistically or succeed beyond anyone’s wildest expectations, shows at the Manchester International Festival are unique to our city.
Then, and only then, does the rest of the world have the chance to see them.
Prima Donna, for instance, will be seen at Sadler’s Wells in London next April. No doubt the metropolitan critics who have been sniffy about it so far will change their tune then.
Vibrant
Perhaps one of the reasons the festival feels so vibrant this time around is that they have had a real live presence right in the heart of the city, with the specially-designed Festival Pavilion centrally situated in Albert Square complete with food, drink, live events, information and well-informed volunteers.
The annual and very successful, European markets in that same location have created a demand for that sort of presence – the Festival, to its credit, has taken that on board and has also put on some terrific free events, notably Jeremy Deller’s Procession on the opening weekend and the wonderful The Great Indoors, in and around the Town Hall.
The Difference Engine
Even Walk The Plank, noted for their spectacular outdoor shows, were persuaded to take part in that, with their engaging The Difference Engine family show.
I’ve played bingo, gee-ed along by Sally Lindsay, at the Royal Exchange. I’ve laughed, cried (just a manly tear or two, you understand), and felt enlightened by singing 70 and 80eighty-somethings at the extraordinary Young @ Heart show End Of the Road.
I’ve been awed by the dancing skills of Carlos Acosta. I’ve cheered as Britain’s Olympic cyclists rode past at the Kraftwerk show.
I’ve been deeply moved by some of the participants in Procession. I’ve seen things I never knew I wanted to see at Marina Abramovic Presents and I’ve heard music in a wholly unique way at the Zaha Hadid installation.
In short, I’ve had 18 utterly exhilarating days –and I’m not alone in that. That’s why the Manchester International Festival is great and why we’re lucky to have it.
Published: Tue, 21 July, 2009
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