A new production by Tony Award-winning choreographer Sonya Tayeh will feature in the spring 2026 season of premieres at Aviva Studios, alongside new visual art, theatre and music works.
Factory International has revealed plans for the world premiere of The Surge: An Ode to Sinéad O’Connor, a new dance production that will debut at Aviva Studios in Manchester from 25–27 June 2026. Created by Tony Award-winning choreographer and director Sonya Tayeh and presented in collaboration with The Joyce Theater in New York, the work marks the first major stage production devoted to the life and music of Sinéad O’Connor.
Conceived as a response to O’Connor’s uncompromising artistry and public defiance, The Surge explores themes of resistance, identity and spiritual reckoning. The piece is performed by an ensemble of ten women, whose collective presence challenges conventional ideas of ageing in dance. O’Connor’s recorded voice weaves through the performance, drawing on her songs as well as spoken excerpts from her memoir Rememberings, creating a sonic and emotional throughline for the choreography.
“Sinéad has been a part of my life since her first album arrived blaring out car windows in Detroit, where I’m from,” Sonya told Crack Magazine. “All of those memories came flooding back when she passed. I was heartbroken and had this sudden vision of ten women standing in a straight line at the edge of a stage and I was hearing Troy in my ears. That’s when I knew this was the next art quest and Sinéad is the path.”
“[She] is such an in-depth storyteller, such a poet, both in song and in text. Her writing has such an abstraction to it that feeds the way I see dance and the themes within this work. Even if not a linear path, both evoke such a strong point of view solely because they came from her,” she continued. “Playing Sinéad’s music in a dance studio does something to the psyche. It feels as though she’s saying, ‘Here’s where you pour it all out and see what’s left’. Joy and grief, strength and sorrow, faith and family, integrity and self-righteousness, and on and on.”
The premiere sits within Factory International’s spring 2026 programme at Aviva Studios, a season that brings together new work across visual art, performance and music. The wider line-up includes a major exhibition by Ai Weiwei, his first large-scale presentation in the North of England, alongside a newly commissioned performance piece by Sue Buckmaster and Gregory Maqoma, and the UK debut of the Pulitzer Prize-winning opera Angel’s Bone. Collectively, the programme reflects the organisation’s focus on ambitious, interdisciplinary work developed in partnership with international artists and institutions.
Aviva Studios will also host a music programme throughout the spring, spanning experimental and alternative genres as well as high-profile live shows, alongside a series of contemporary classical performances. Running parallel to the public programme, Factory International’s artist development schemes will continue to support emerging and early-career practitioners through training, mentoring and access to creative space.
Tickets for the spring 2026 season go on sale to members today (Tuesday, 20 January), followed by general release on Tuesday, 27 January.
For more information, visit Factory International’s website.