Manchester International Festival’s free online programme for audiences at home, continues this week with FKA twigs: Soundtrack 7, an abstract autobiographical film, created during the artist’s MIF15 residency. It will be streamed via MIF’s YouTube channel on Friday 24 April, 7.30pm, continuing the weekly release of archive shows, talks, and behind-the-scenes insights. The streaming will be followed by an exclusive live in-conversation with FKA twigs and other speakers to be announced.
In July 2015, the charismatic, uncategorisable FKA twigs journeyed to Manchester for a ten-day residency at Old Granada Studios for MIF15. On each of the first seven days, FKA twigs and her team of collaborators created and filmed a new dance-based performance piece in which the artist explored a narrative from her own life. Audiences were admitted in groups of 20 to watch the creative process in action. Then, on the final Friday and Saturday nights of the Festival, the artist performed five very special shows in an intimate space at Old Granada Studios – one of the Festival’s hottest tickets.
Shot on location at MIF15, this film shows the work FKA twigs created and filmed during her residency. Conceptualized as an abstract autobiographical piece, Soundtrack 7 includes performances set to How’s That, Ultraviolet, and Good to Love among others, and is bound together by a striking, repeated recitation of Thomas Wyatt’s poem I Find No Peace (an excerpt from which opened twigs’s critically acclaimed LP1).
Emphasising the grit and physicality of dance, twigs describes the project as ‘flesh, sweat, feeling, muscle, and a live movement, no air brushing, no frills’. FKA twigs: Soundtrack 7 was commissioned by Manchester International Festival and The Space, and produced by Manchester International Festival.
Also on the MIF LIVE bill each week is a selection of artist talks from across the Festival archives, continuing with Kenyan novelist, playwright and activist Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o in conversation with acclaimed poet Lemn Sissay, originally presented as part of the Interdependence series of talks at MIF19. It will be streamed online for the first time on Thursday 23 April at 12.30pm.
Supported by MIF’s new artist fund, for creative practitioners whose livelihoods are affected by the COVID-19 crisis, the MIF LIVE programme also features a reimagined version of the micro-festival series, Festival in My House, designed to reach audiences in lockdown. Following last week’s Toilet Roll Gate Retrospective from performance artist Chanje Kunda, the series continues on Wednesday 22 April, 7.30pm, with a virtual club night from RebeccaNeverBecky, a collective which showcases new and emerging BAME, LGBT+ & QTIPOC Manchester DJs and creatives. It will feature performances from soul singer-songwriter Tyron Webster, cabaret star La Bella Fatma and Mystique, before closing out with a DJ set from RebeccaNeverBecky.
MIF LIVE shows will be streamed via the Manchester International Festival YouTube channel. For more information and direct links visit mif.co.uk.
