Manchester International Festival are delighted to be collaborating with The National Theatre of Scotland for the first time to work with leading artist Claire Cunningham to present ‘Thank You Very Much’, which will premiere at MIF in July 2019 before touring to Glasgow later in the year.

Forty years after Elvis left the building, the King is back.

This ambitious and powerful new work from Claire Cunningham uses the phenomenon of Elvis tribute artists as a springboard to explore impersonation, identity, acceptance and the challenges of being yourself.

Thank You Very Much invites you to join an evening informed by the experiences of an international company of leading disabled performers.  Through the lens of the competitive world of Elvis tribute artists, among the messiness of navigating society’s ideas of normality, the ensemble takes apart the myth of how bodies should be and have been trained to be. With her characteristic wit and honesty Cunningham asks us all…what is “the wonder of you”?

Glasgow-based choreographer-performer Claire Cunningham is one of Europe’s most acclaimed disabled artists. Thank You Very Much is her first work for MIF. The National Theatre of Scotland first collaborated with Claire Cunningham on Ménage à Trois (Paterson’s Land at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and touring) in 2012.

Claire Cunningham is a performer and creator of multi-disciplinary performance based in Glasgow, Scotland. One of the UK’s most acclaimed and internationally renowned disabled artists, Cunningham’s work is often rooted in the study and use/misuse of her crutches and the exploration of the potential of her own specific physicality with a conscious rejection of traditional dance techniques (developed for non-disabled bodies).

More details about ‘Thank You Very Much’, including how to buy tickets, will be released in March 2019.

MIF announced three other commissions for the 2019 festival in October, to find out more and book TREE created by Idris Elba & Kwame Kwei-Armah, BELLS FOR PEACE by Yoko Ono and DYSTOPIA987 by Skepta, click here.