Street Arts for the 21st Century
Manchester International Arts (MIA) was created in 1988 to present international, multi-cultural and animatory street art events and festivals in Greater Manchester – mostly outdoors and mostly free.
Over the last 23 years our energy and imagination has been devoted to
organising large and vibrant street festivals and special events in urban
centres and parks, transforming spaces and offering countless opportunities for
public engagement. Our major projects in Greater Manchester have included Ona Catalana, Streets Ahead, The Commonwealth Games Festival, The Garden of Delights and Feast - picnic by the lake.
More recently we have extended our network, collaborating on outdoor festivals
across the North of England, taking the ‘Streets Ahead’ festival concept to Liverpool for Capital of Culture 2008, programming large-scale street theatre
performances in Huddersfield and Dewsbury, working with Dance Initiative Greater Manchester (DiGM) on Manchester’s
Bi-annual Urban Moves Dance festival and with our partners Kendal Arts International where we continue to develop the Lakes Alive programme
of events across Cumbria, a legacy trust funded programme of events and part of the cultural Olympiad of the 2012 Olympic Games.
Across all of our work, we have brought
many of the most wonderful, engaging, imaginative and colourful street theatre and outdoor performance companies from
the UK and overseas, often for the first time, to Greater Manchester and the
wider region.
Our festival work has an all-important goal -
'To create an
exciting, energising atmosphere in a town or city centre that maximises its
existing potential (i.e. shops, cafes, restaurants, open spaces and squares) by
the addition of carefully chosen special events and street arts.'
We choose the arts as a starting point (though it is obviously possible to use
sporting activities, markets and other types of event). We believe that the
interaction between performers and audience and, as importantly, between the
audience and each other, is best guaranteed this way. It is this interaction
that sparks the ‘animation’.
Our founders and joint artistic directors are Anne Tucker and Jeremy Shine, who
have both worked for many years in a variety of different areas of the arts, in
Greater Manchester and London. Additionally, we use a team of freelancers with
experience in artistic planning, production and event management.