Manchester International Festival

BLACKHAINE And Now I Know What Love Is

Devised and Choreographed by Blackhaine

DIECAST

There is something brutal and viscerally raw in Now I Know What Love Is. This latest unflinching offering from choreographer and experimental musician Tom Heyes, otherwise known Blackhaine is staged as part of the Manchester International Festival. This is a marmite piece not necessarily immersive in any traditional sense and its narrative is not easily explained as the audience is invited into to this “numb world”.

Blackhaine intentionally plunges the audience into a world where love is indistinguishable from violence, where tenderness coexists with terror, and where the physical body becomes both weapon and wound. The piece is a relentless assault on every level. Visually, sonically, emotionally, there is no escaping and any hint of a redemptive ending is fragile and uncertain. Here the narrative is pure sensation. There is no comfort to be found here but rather an invocation of feeling that stays long after the lights fade.

The performance opens in near darkness, soundscape throbbing with industrial menace as dancers slowly appear through the crowd moving blankly like zombies. Later bodies contort into jagged, frenetic shapes. Each movement seems torn from the flesh—jerking, spasming, collapsing. This is dance stripped to its rawest essence…survival. At times dancers pound the floor as though trying to summon the earth itself to respond. There is an urgency to the physicality that speaks of both personal and collective desperation, of lives lived on the brink. The sound design is punishing—waves of static, guttural noise, haunting synths—that builds and fragments, echoing the disintegration on stage. Lighting is stark, utilitarian: this is a space that refuses to comfort.

And yet, in the midst of this bleak landscape, there are fragile moments of strange beauty. The title Now I Know What Love Is hangs over the piece like a ghost. Love here is fragile and fleeting and always teetering on the edge of obliteration. The moments of guitar that creep in like cracks of light feel like a comforting homage to Vini Reilly and The Durutti Column but is just as quickly decimated by a screaming rant.

For some, the lack of narrative and the extremity of the aesthetic may prove alienating, however this is not a show that seeks approval. It is confrontational, even adversarial at times… there is no real guidance for anyone unfamiliar with immersive productions. For those willing to surrender to its fractured structure there offers something rare: a glimpse into the abyss.

In the end, Now I Know What Love Is is less about answers than about exposing discomfort. It scrapes away at the surface of performance, of identity, of the human condition, and dares you to look at what lies beneath. It is telling in an immersive performance that we the audience silently observe pain and possible death yet we do nothing to soothe or comfort. Faced with anguish we peer and occasionally photograph or film palpable distress before moving on to watch the next scene. Perhaps that makes us, the audience, the bleakest element of this production.

DIECAST 9th – 19th July 2025

FIND YOUR EYES

Dance, Photography, Theatre

Concept,Direction, Photography and Text by Benji Reid

Dramaturg Keisha Thompson

MANCHESTER ACADEMY

Part of Manchester International Festival

It is always good to see the work of local artists showcased at Manchester International Festival. It is absolutely brilliant when you see one of those local artists produce work that is so exciting and memorable that it easily becomes a highpoint of the Festival. Such is the case with FIND YOUR EYES as self-styled Choreo-Photolist Benji Reid skillfully blends the artforms of choreography, photography and music together in this new work. Set in a music venue this show is simply breathtaking on every level. At barely three minutes in there is a palpable feeling that this is something really special and when it ends 90 minutes later the standing ovation is immediate and resounding.

Benji Reid was originally a highly successful hip hop and popping dancer who worked with Soul II Soul before establishing his own dance company Breaking Cycles. His extensive dance knowledge and choreography skills are evident in this new work which showcases his skill as an award winning photographer. The focus of his work is primarily the Black British experience, Black masculinity and mental health and this production takes a deeply personal and unflinching look at abortion, suicidal thoughts and other family traumas.

It is absolute magic that abounds through this production. The audience is literally looking over Reid’s shoulder as he works softly coaxing expressions or poses from the performers. The imperceptible click of the camera shutter as resulting images appear on the screens. Lights are moved, fans blow, foil crinkles to make light dance or prism…the trick of his trade are unveiled and it feels awesome and exciting. The palpable thrill of being so intimately connected to this artform as the work emerges is genuinely thrilling.

The show opens with Reid tooling up with camera equipment, his back to the audience with vast projection screens either side of him. A bell rings once and so it begins…three Acts featuring intimate portraits, dancers showcasing everyday objects such as charging cables elevated to futuristic headpieces, a pole dancer morphing into a human kite and a deus ex machina bringing salvation to a pain ridden mother. The set design by Ti Green opens out with every Act to bring new possibilities like a box of magic tricks.

The three performers on stage embody grace and strength and fluidity. Slate Hemedi and Salomé Pressac are wonderfully present in every tiny movement they make whether it is being gently molded to hold a seemingly untenable position or to soar with balletic grace. Dutch Pole Dance champion Yvonne Smink adds to this otherworldly imagery by appearing to literally soar and fly off the pole. The whole performance is peppered with moments that make the audience gasp in wonder.

Benji Reid and Dramaturg Keisha Thompson have worked together in 2017 when he directed her one woman show Man On The Moon. The trust relationship is evident in the very personal natural of the text and content of this work. Moments when he speaks of his own trauma and that of his Mother when her body is devastated by a stroke are rendered here with sensitivity and tenderness. The whole feel of this production is of exploring the ritual of dance and photography in a way that feels prayer like and redemptive. The magic of animating life-force, building a moment and capturing it as a permanent image. This work like so much of the artists’ soars, Reid says of his work…”it’s like – not how do you fly, but why? Ask me why I’m flying.” FIND YOUR EYES is a beautiful exploration of human spirit whether we fly by choice or simply when we are momentarily untethered in this world.

Manchester International Festival 12 -16 JULY 2023

BENJI REID

All Right. Good Night.

Large Theatres, Performance Art

Written and Directed by Helgard Haug

Score by Barbara Morgenstern

Arranged by Davor Vincze

HOME

For Manchester International Festival/Factory International

MIF23 is once again working with German theatre company Rimini Protokoll. This time it is to present the UK premiere of the award winning All Right. Good Night. This is a deeply meditative piece which uses sound and text to immerse its audience in a reflection on disappearance, loss and how we as humans deal with uncertainty. Running at approximately 140 minutes without interval, this could be a daunting prospect but it is actually one of the highpoints of this Festival. Beautifully conceived and exquisitely rendered this piece interweaves two real stories of loss to highlight the fragility of life and the tenacity of hope even in the most desperate of situations.

Helgard Haug explores the uncertainty, grief and bewilderment faced by those who lost loved ones on Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing which disappeared from the skies in 2014. She draws parallels with her own experience of watching her Father descend into dementia around a similar time. The Father as he is referred to in this piece was a man who meticulously planned for his future and poignantly had already built flats for dementia patients. Plans and actual outcomes sadly often differ…people may queue up to board a plane that never arrives…parents may plan for the possible onset of dementia never knowing that the illness may rob them of the capacity to adhere to those plans.

On Stage are 5 musicians from ZAFRAAN ENSEMBLE MUSICIANS and the rest appear on screen and in recordings. The music by Barbara Morgenstern is beautiful and perfectly reflects each event and year that passes for the families in these two stories of loss. The use of projection screens at the front and back of stage help narrate the story as text floats across the gauze hinting at the fragility of life. When the music expands to include the full ensemble they are projected moving across the screen playing their instruments and loop around to surround those actually on stage. The overall effect by Marc Jungreithmeier is wonderfully playful yet hints at the ephemeral ghosts of those lost souls no longer tangible in this world.

The performers on stage ebb and flow…queuing up as a crackling tannoy makes flight announcements, they reappear to literally build a sandy beaches as others dressed in swimwear merges instruments with deckchairs and other beach paraphernalia and fragments of plabe wreckage. Waves lap on the projector screen and light becomes warm and sun drenched as the performers gaze out at the endless horizon. Years roll by as The Father moves from gaffes with birthday cards, confusion, terrors and rages to the inevitable loss of self. Meanwhile each day family members gather at the Malaysian Embassy in Beijing still hopeful of news of loved ones. Each reported possible cure for dementia reignites hope for families just as endless conspiracy theories continue to let individuals hold a glimmer of hope that one day they will be reunited with loved ones.

All Right. Good Night. was reportedly the last recorded words of the pilot on that fated flight. They sound eerily similar to the reassurances of a parent as they leave a child to sleep in the knowledge that the dawn of a new day reunites them. This production gently reminds us all of the fragility of life and the uncertainty that it evokes. Like this lush production it is to be cherished and fully appreciated in the moment…for that may be all any of us have, and perhaps that is ultimately enough.

Manchester International Festival. HOME 6 -8 July 2023