Manchester International Festival Heads to a Close this Sunday

Manchester International Festival heads towards its closing weekend with a livestream for New Order + Liam Gillick, the opening of Boris Charmatz' 10000 Gestures and artist Phil Collins' remarkable celebration of Manchester hero Friedrich Engels.

Part of tonight's performance of New Order + Liam Gillick: So it goes.. will be streamed LIVE from Old Granada Studios, introduced by artist Liam Gillick and curator Dave Haslam. Watch live and online from 9.10pm at mif.co.uk/live.

Tonight also sees the first performance of 10000 Gestures, a new work by choreographer Boris Charmatz. For this highly ambitious piece, staged in the vast, atmospheric space of Mayfield, a 25-strong ensemble of dancers will perform, in succession, 10,000 gestures - none repeated, every one unique.

MIF17 is brought to a close on Sunday with Ceremony by artist Phil Collins, a major public event welcoming radical thinker Friedrich Engels back to Manchester, the city where he wrote The Condition of the Working Class in England, in the form of a Soviet-era statue, driven across Europe and permanently installed in the centre of the city.

At 6pm on Sunday 16 July, performers, musicians and the people of Manchester will create an extraordinary live film to bring MIF17 to a close, mixing footage from the statue's journey with live coverage of its inauguration. The welcome celebration will also include a soundtrack by Mica Levi and Demdike Stare, a new anthem by Gruff Rhys, and stories of today's Manchester workers filmed by Collins during his year-long MIF17 residency. Those outside of Manchester will be able to watch this event live at mif.co.uk/live

The New Order + Liam Gillick and Ceremony livestreams are the latest in a series of online activity for MIF17 which has gathered audiences of over 300,000 worldwide for events including What is the City But the People? and Interdependence, the Festival's talks programme. Manchester International Festival has worked closely with the BBC to bring audiences world-class performances online using BBC Live - the online platform used by the BBC for its coverage of the Rio 2016 Olympic Games and the General Election.

Audiences have been able to enjoy livestreams of MIF productions, updates from behind the scenes, expert opinion, the best of social media, imagery and highlight clips from across the festival, plus over 100 commissioned creative responses from #creative50, a community of emerging artists from Greater Manchester.

MIF shows continue in theatres, public places, found spaces and galleries across the city. For more information visit mif.co.uk.

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