Manchester International Festival is back and so is MIF Daily – our curated guide to the festival! We’ll tell you what to read, watch, listen to and do to make the most of MIF25.

MIF Daily is filled with top tips, recommendations and free events to help you navigate the busy festival. Head behind the scenes with interviews, studio visits and editorials, taking you out into the city and far beyond.

Look out for MIF Daily on Factory+ from Tuesday to Sunday throughout the festival.

Come rain or shine, we’ll see you on Festival Square!

Read: Welcome to MIF25

We live in these very challenging and strange times, a time when hope, joy and wonder seem to exist as distant memories as we constantly battle to just survive the madness, the tyranny, the hate, the oppression of irrationality. In a recent conversation with New York- based artist Kaneza Schaal for our Artists in Times of Upheaval series, she reminded us that as artists, perversion is our superpower. Ironically, perhaps it is precisely in times like these that we must lean into the unimaginable, the unknowable and the unthinkable to find that in the dark alleyways, in the private conversations, in the reimagined assemblies, we discover our re-enchantment with life and living that dreaming allows.

So, this Festival, we invite audiences to Dream Differently – a journey that began with conversations about the unknown and unknowable with such a diverse range of artists from around the world, inviting us to enter worlds, cosmologies and proposals of futures that allow us to rise above the storm, to see beyond our current conditions. This collection of artists and commissions you will encounter asks us to see beyond the familiar, to resist the hegemony of our present experience, to transcend the narratives of multipolar traps. They remind us that more than ever, it is critical that we hold firm to our belief in community, to be there for each other and to hold up and celebrate visions that continue to inspire us and give us hope about possible futures that we want to be part of, even when everything around us tells us otherwise.

Kee Hong Low, MIF25 Creative Director

Watch: In the Studio with Jonathan Watkins

It’s the official opening night for A Single Man – an original contemporary ballet by Jonathan Watkins, based on Christopher Isherwood’s masterpiece.

We caught up with award-winning director and choreographer Jonathan Watkins to talk about authenticity and queering ballet. Introducing his company Ballet Queer, Jonathan talks about breaking away from the rigidity of tradition and gender in ballet.

A Single Man runs at Aviva Studios until 6 July and stars singer-songwriter John Grant and acclaimed former Royal Ballet Principal Ed Watson.