A powerful dance opera by Gregory Maqoma exploring Black liberation, blending movement, live music and poetry.
Gregory Maqoma brings Genesis: The Beginning and End of Time to Aviva Studios from 22 to 24 October, and it's the work's UK premiere. It's a dance opera, so you've got movement, live music and poetry all working together on one stage rather than just one or the other. Maqoma is the choreographer, and the libretto is by Karthika Nair.
The piece is built around Black liberation, and it doesn't shy away from the heavy lifting. It draws on the revolutionary ideas of Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon and Steve Biko, and looks at the poetic defiance of migrant communities across the world. It's the kind of thing that asks you to think as much as you watch, with the movement and the words pulling from those names and those histories.
It's being staged at Aviva Studios, the home venue of Factory International, which opened in 2023 and was named by Time Magazine in 2024 as one of the 100 Best Places to Visit in the World. The season also marks the 20th anniversary of the Manchester International Festival, which started in 2007 as the first major arts festival dedicated solely to commissioning and producing ambitious new work. This is one of those commissions, and it's getting its first UK run here.
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Tickets start from £10, and it runs from 22 to 24 October at Aviva Studios in Manchester.
