Aviva Studios celebrates one-year since landmark opening

Manchester’s landmark new cultural space, Aviva Studios, celebrates its first birthday this month.

Since opening back in the autumn of 2023, the venue has welcomed hundreds of thousands through its doors to enjoy its eclectic programme of theatre, music and art, with thousands more benefiting from its award-winning training and artist development opportunities.

Kicking off in spectacular style, Aviva made an instant impact with its opening production, the Matrix-inspired Free Your Mind created by Danny Boyle, Es Devlin, Boy Blue co-founders Kenrick ‘H2O’ Sandy and Michael ‘Mikey J’ Asante and Sabrina Mahfouz.

Featuring 50 professional dancers from the North West and across the UK, and almost 100 participants from Greater Manchester, this world-first adaptation of The Matrix took place throughout the building’s ultra-flexible spaces.

Prior to that Yayoi Kusama’s spectacular summer curtain raiser, You, Me and the Balloons was the first work to be presented at Aviva Studios, as a centrepiece to the 2023 edition of Manchester International Festival.

The striking landscape of large­scale inflatable sculptures, many standing over 10­-metres ­tall or suspended from the 21­-metre­-high ceiling, included a giant pumpkin, inflatable dolls, mirrored spaces and polka­dot spheres.

As part of the installation, 12,500 children took part in free workshops, and over 6,500 children participated in schools activities in the community, including a creative fashion project responding to the iconic style of Yayoi Kusama culminating in a fashion show on Festival Square.

The Welcome brought with it a nine-day programme of music, circus, art and fashion developed by Greater Manchester residents. The schedule ranged from a full­-day Mancunian street­ culture takeover of rap battles, workshops and skateboarding demonstrations to a large-scale photography exhibition of local people.

Other highlights from Aviva’s year-round programme included an acclaimed stage adaptation of Oliver Jeffers’ award-winning book Lost and Found, by BAFTA award-winning director Will Brenton with music from Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals; Robin/Red/Breast.

Maxine Peake, Sarah Frankcom, Imogen Knight Gazelle Twin and Daisy Johnson joined forces to create a theatrical reimagining of John Bowen’s Robin Redbreast – first broadcast as part of the BBC’s Play for Today series in 1970 and widely regarded as a precursor to The Wicker Man.

Award-winning dance artist and cultural innovator Ivan Michael Blackstock’s Olivier award-winning TRAPLORD, delivered a staggering show meditating on life, death and rebirth; award-winning Marshmallow Laser Feast served up a fast-food-inspired visual feast for the senses, and a stage spectacle combining Chinese and South Asian dance, data and video came from multi-disciplinary artist Keith Khan.

Musical highlights have come aplenty, too. Cultural icon and pop superstar Janelle Monáe played a series of intimate nights as part of a three-day residency at the venue; Johnny Marr, presented two nights of music with an orchestra of northern musicians; electronic pioneers Underworld stopped by and Angélique Kidjos played her first show in the city for a decade.

Looking ahead to 2025, and there is plenty to be excited about. Hamlet Hail to the Thief, will see Shakespeare’s words illuminated by Radiohead’s iconic album Hail to the Thief re-worked by Thom Yorke and performed live by a cast of musicians. There’s also the world premiere of Figures in Extinction, the final instalment of Simon McBurney and Crystal Pite’s award-winning dance trilogy presented by Nederlands Dans Theater (NDT) and Complicité.

Manchester International Festival is back next July, and the world premiere of a daring large-scale performance by world-renowned artist Marina Abramović also arrives.

Still to come this year, Laurie’s Anderson’s ARK: United States Part V will see the pioneering artist bring together new music and her uniquely visual storytelling to create a darkly comic ode to the end of the world, and Lightroom’s David Hockney blockbuster immersive retrospective Bigger & Closer (not smaller & further away).

For more information on everything coming up from Factory International and Aviva Studios, click here.