Kraftwerk for MIF

Antony and the Johnsons, Elbow and Lou Reed and Laurie Anderson too

19 March 2009 - Much of it is risky; all of it is new and 30% totally free. The second Manchester International Festival has drawn and fused artists together from all over the globe with truly weird and wonderful collaborations.

Alex Poots, festival director, believes that the draw is partly due to the affection Manchester is held in: "We’re the first commissioning festival and the city allows artists to experiment away from the pressures that you get in capital cities. All the artists are put in one hotel so we’re expecting many more interesting collaborations to come off the back."

Despite set backs and financial woes, Alex and the organisers have pulled an intriguing and beguiling programme out of the bag. The festival opens with Kraftwerk and American composer Steve Reich at the Velodrome.

Documentary maker Adam Curtis and Punchdrunk’s Felix Barrett are collaborating on a 'haunted house' experience exploring America’s intoxication of the world, with a score written by Damon Albarn.

Rufus Wainwright is facing the challenge of a lifetime, creating the French opera ‘Prima Donna’."It’s a love letter to the city"- Guy Garvey, Elbow

Visual artist Marina Abramovi is asking audiences for a whole 4 hour commitment to see her work of 15 live artists, as an exploration of time poverty, while Gustav Metzger will be uprooting 21 trees to highlight the brutality in which we treat the earth.

Along with the international names the festival has invited work and contributions from local people communities, not so much northern social realism more like northern social surrealism.

Manchester’s favourite son, Guy Garvey gets to fulfill his lifetime ambition of working with the Halle orchestra, with Salford composer, Joe Dardell, helping to orchestrate Elbow’s work: "It’s a love letter to the city, thousands of international students and communities choose to come here, they choose Manchester and they fill the city with new life".

Manchester International Festival 2-19 July 2009

Victoria Baker