Factory International unveils stacked spring season at Aviva Studios

From Ai Weiwei’s first-ever major exhibition in the North and an intimate headline show from Lily Allen to a striking new live performance from pioneering musician Tricky and 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.

Ai Weiwei: Button Up!, which runs Thu 2 Jul – Sun 6 Sep, 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.

From Thu 25 Jun – Sat 27 Jun, Aviva Studios welcomes 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 isa mediation on voice, protest and the courage to live a life that defies the normperformed by a company of 10 women.

In May, 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 Sadler’s Wells East.

Also in May, and 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.

Throughout the Spring, Aviva will host a wide range of music from up-and-coming artists and global names alike, including; platinum-selling artist Halsey celebrating ten years of BADLANDS (Thu 29 Jan); superstar DJ Fatboy Slim (Fri 13 – Sat 14 Mar); Lily Allen (Tue 10 Mar – Wed 11 Mar) who performs her No.1 selling album West End Girl in full; global pop star Kesha (Fri 13 Mar -Sat 14 Mar); Grammy-winning jazz-funk bassist Thundercat (Fri 27 Mar); a live set by dance royalty Basement Jaxx (Sat 28 Mar); trip-hop pioneer and Massive Attack co-founder Tricky (SAt 16 May); and indie trailblazers Pixies (Sun 24 May – Mon 25 May).

Also on the music front is 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; ANNO with Anna Meredith and the first time The Hallé comes to Aviva Studios (Sat 2 May); followed by the return of the BBC Philharmonic with the primal force of Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring (Fri 22 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.”

Another standout from the spring programme is UTOPIA. Factory International’s Young Curators – six young creatives from Manchester aged 30 and under – will collaborate with artist Trackie McLeod to create a working pub inside Aviva Studio’s Warehouse, which will operate as an exhibition, pub, drag bar, intimate music venue and workshop space from Thu 19 Feb – Sat 21 Feb.

Tickets for Aviva Studios’ spring programme go on sale to members on Tue 20 Jan, ahead of general on sale on Tue 27 Jan. Tickets are available from £10 across all shows.