Events at Manchester International Festival:
2019, Fabaret!
2017, Night Life
2015, We Only Happen At Night
2013, Drunk At Vogue
Our club night, Drunk At Vogue, was invited to host the launch party for Manchester International Festival at the Pavilion Theatre, Albert Square in July 2013. We styled the event as an immense disco and invited drag performers from The Family Gorgeous to work with us to produce a combination of extravagant nightclub meets stage show. The main draw at MIF 2013 was Kenneth Branagh's Macbeth. We opened the show with three back-lit, fan-blown, smoke-swathed drag performers in postmodern witch outfits, lip-syncing to Cerrone's 'Supernature'. At the end of the night we recruited audience members to join the 'Drunk At Vogue Community Gospel Choir' and brought them on stage in disco choir shawls and giant flags to close the show. It's a night people still talk about... The event was a sell-out and we were invited to return in 2015.
This time we formally collaborated with Cha Cha Boudoir to produce an event that combined a giant nightclub with Cha Cha's original stage performances, containing elements that referenced MIF commissions, including Bjork, Red Riding Hood and Alice in Wonderland, and subjects like paganism, transformation and transgender expression. We incorporated original voiceovers by performance artist David Hoyle to draw a narrative thread through the evening as we moved between DJ sets and stage extravaganzas. The title, 'We Only Happen At Night' referenced both the Geraldine Hunt disco classic and the unleashing of creativity that comes from Manchester's queer creative nightlife, of which we are a proud part.
2017’s Nightlife continued this tradition of bringing the nocturnal party scene to Festival Square to launch the festival, with some of the city’s finest young dancers, an eclectic playlist off disci, pop, and house, and a very dressed up crowd who knew the score by now!
In 2019 I was invited to produce a performance event for Festival Square and again returned to my super talented comrades in the queer cabaret scene to produce Fabaret!! blending music, drag, satire, dance, poetry and comedy for a fabulous cabaret of queer thrills.