CityLife

MIF: It Felt Like A Kiss - haunting images that have shaped our world

It Felt Like A Kiss

EVERYONE loves the ghost train – right? Well, prepare for something far spookier at one of the major events kicking off the Manchester International Festival today (July 2).
 

It Felt Like A Kiss is a ghost walk like no other and it is taking over a five-storey, semi-derelict building in central Manchester for a multi-media journey through the music, politics, atrocities and scares of our times.
 

Created by BBC filmmaker Adam Curtis and Punchdrunk’s artistic director Felix Barrett, It Felt Like A Kiss also boasts  music from by Blur frontman Damon and the Kronos Quartet.
 

The journey tells the story of America’s rise to power in the golden age of pop and the consequences it had on the world.
 

The concept is a leading one; it aims to make the audience experience the years in a way they may not have considered and, perhaps, draw a logical line through the events that now ‘haunt’ us in today’s age of uncertainty.
 

Evocative score

This new production takes the classic haunted-house as a setting, unfolding over several empty floors of a semi-derelict Quay House, on the edge of Spinningfields.
 

Curtis has used the BBC’s extensive archive to create the piece, while Albarn’s evocative score is reminiscent of the period.
Audiences of eight people at a time will experience It Felt Like A Kiss, with shows beginning every 10 minutes during performance slots.
 

For Curtis’s BBC introduction and trailer see link right.
 

Quay House, Hardman Square, Thursday, July 2-19. Only suitable for those aged 16 and over. £25. Returns only