A host of world premiere productions have been announced for Manchester’s Aviva Studios this Spring and Summer including the first major production celebrating the music and life of Sinéad O’Connor and a magical forest family show

The Surge – an Ode to Sinead O’Connor is a new dance work inspired by the Irish artist to get its premiere at Aviva Studios in Manchester in 2026(Image: Kate Garner)

A new world premiere dance work inspired by the life and music of Sinéad O’Connor and a ‘monumental’ new exhibition by Ai Weiwei are among the highlights of the newly-announced programme of works at Manchester’s Aviva Studios. A world premiere new family show with a magical forest brought to life and the UK premiere of Angel’s Bone, in conjunction with English National Opera, are also announced.

In collaboration with world leading artists and arts organisations Factory International, the organisation behind Manchester International Festival (MIF) and the city’s cultural space Aviva Studios, will present a season of large-scale new productions that span theatre, dance, music and visual art. The shows will utilise the different spaces inside 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.

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.

Ai Weiwei will present his first major exhibition in the north at Aviva Studios(Image: Gonçalo F. Santos)

“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.”

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.

They include platinum-selling artist Halsey celebrating ten years of BADLANDS (29 Jan); superstar DJ Fatboy Slim (13 – 14 March); Persian pop by Aron Afshar (20 Feb); 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).

They run alongside a series of cutting-edge classical events, including the first collaboration outside MIF from Manchester Collective, who bring together a line-up of composers – Arvo Pärt, Benjamin Britten, Henry Purcell, Mica Levi, Jasmine Morris and John Luther Adams – for Sky With The Four Suns (8 Feb 2026); ANNO with Anna Meredith and the first time The Hallé comes to Aviva Studios (2 May); followed by the return of the BBC Philharmonic with the primal force of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (22 May).

Factory International’s artist development initiatives, including their 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.

New Shows for Spring 2026:

Return to the Forest (7-10 May) – WORLD PREMIERE

(Image: Aviva Studios)

A magical forest comes to life in a new puppetry and dance show for families created by Theatre-Rites and award-winning South African Choreographer Gregory Maqoma. Led by Maqoma’s high-energy movement and the magical puppetry of Director Sue Buckmaster, Return to the Forest is an invitation to imagine what is precious and how we care for it.

In an immersive, playful and thought-provoking encounter, precious objects transport audiences from a museum into the heart of a wild and magical forest, full of life and wonder.

Return to the Forest builds on Theatre-Rites and Maqoma’s collaboration The Global Playground for Manchester International Festival 2021 (MIF21). Theatre-Rites previous work with Factory International also includes The Welcome Party for MIF17, whilst Maqoma collaborated with Idris Elba and Kwame Kwi-Armah on Tree for MIF19.

Sue Buckmaster and Gregory Maqoma said: “We are both so thrilled to be co-creating Return to the Forest and reuniting with Factory International in this next chapter of our collaboration. Manchester holds a special place for us as artists. This production is deeply connected to themes of renewal and resilience, and there is no better city and audience with whom to share its spirit. Our partnership continues to be a source of inspiration, and we look forward to creating another unforgettable experience together.”

Angel’s Bone (12 – 16 May) – UK PREMIERE

English National Opera (ENO) in collaboration with Factory International, the BBC Philharmonic Orchestra with Kantos Chamber Choir will present the UK premiere of Du Yun’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Angel’s Bone at Aviva Studios. Visionary theatre maker Kip Williams makes his ENO and UK opera debut with this major new production.

An evocative contemporary opera that combines a bold fusion of musical styles and artforms, bringing together punk rock, opera, cabaret, electronics, theatre and chamber music, Angel’s Bone is a powerful, dark fable that delves deep into the harrowing realities of modern-day slavery and human trafficking.

Internationally acclaimed for his bold boundary-pushing work, Williams will join forces with Designer Marg Horwell reuniting the creative partnership behind The Picture of Dorian Gray starring Sarah Snook (2024), for which Horwell received the Olivier Award for Best Costume Design, and the forthcoming production of Dracula starring Cynthia Erivo.

Kip Williams, Director of Angel’s Bone, says: ‘I am thrilled to be directing Angel’s Bone for English National Opera and to premiere this work at the remarkable Aviva Studios with Factory International. Du Yun and Royce Vavrek have created a visionary and urgent piece, and it’s an honour to stage this boundary-pushing opera for British audiences for the first time.’

The Surge: An Ode to Sinéad O’Connor (25-27 June) – WORLD PREMIERE

Tony award-winning choreographer and director Sonya Tayeh presents the World Premiere of a new dance work set to the music of Sinéad O’Connor.

Presented in partnership with Joyce Theater and Factory International The Surge: An Ode to Sinéad O’Connor is a meditation on voice, protest and the courage to live a life that defies the norm. O’Connor’s voice guides us through the work, via her iconic music and narration from her memoir Remembering’s with Tayeh’s powerfully choreography performed by a company of ten women – ten dance artists cutting through the notion of age as something to fear.

The Surge is conceived, choreographed and directed by Sonya Tayeh – a creative visionary whose work relating to the body in motion explores many different worlds. An internationally celebrated artist, she is the dance backbone behind numerous stage and screen projects, most notably Moulin Rouge: The Musical!, for which she won the Tony Award for outstanding choreography.

Director and choreographer Sonya Tayeh said: “To me, Sinéad O’Connor’s music is rooted in a sense of a desire for freedom, an unrelenting righteousness and a quest for a spiritual awakening. The depth of emotion in her music is unmatched and vibrates through the dance space with such electric inspiration for me and has for decades now. I am so grateful to be working with ten women across many genres of the art form – from dance scholars and makers to teachers and seekers – to join me in the howl. To join me in The Surge.”

Ai Weiwei: Button Up! (2 July – 6 September) – WORLD PREMIERE

Internationally renowned artist and activist Ai Weiwei turns his critical gaze to the last 200 years of global history with a major new exhibition Ai Weiwei: Button Up!. Monumental in scale and ambition the exhibition interrogates the legacies of British imperialism, Chinese and British relations and the rise of globalisation. Taking inspiration from Manchester, a city at the heart of the Industrial Revolution, Button Up! explores how historic systems of trade, empire and exploitation resonate in today’s humanitarian and political crises.

Both global and personal, the title Button Up! is a playful poke at the artist’s ongoing battle with censorship. Conceived as a total environment, the exhibition brings together new and existing large scale works on display in the UK for the first time, incorporating a wide range of materials associated with both craft and industry such as antique timber, porcelain, cotton, glass and bronze.

Central to the exhibition are two major new commissions created especially for the vast Warehouse space at Aviva Studios: the world premiere of Eight-Nation Alliance Flags, which is made from hundreds of thousands of buttons, and a new version of History Of Bombs, Ai Weiwei’s largest 2D artwork to date, stretching just under 30 meters wide and made from over a million toy bricks. Button Up! immerses visitors in Ai Weiwei’s fearless interrogation of the forces past and present that drive today’s injustices – while championing art’s enduring power to challenge and inspire.

Known for his uncompromising artistic vision and political activism, Ai Weiwei’s life has been marked by periods of exile, surveillance, secret detention and ongoing resistance. His wide-ranging practice is rooted in storytelling and critical inquiry, encompassing sculpture, installation, film, photography, writing and architecture.

Ai Weiwei said: “I’m not interested in making very big things just for the sake of it. But in Manchester, that wonderful Warehouse space calls for monumental work.

“Visiting the city for this exhibition – the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution – and reflecting on Britain’s global territorial expansion made me realise I had to explore that history and understand how it connects to the forces driving today’s wars and global crises. The world today is deeply divided, with tragedy all around. Understanding history goes hand in hand with standing up for truth and justice.”