FlexN at Manchester International Festival 2015, with Boohoo

Manchester International Festival 2015 is currently taking Manchester City Centre by storm – a bi-annual cultural festival running from 2nd to 19th July, there are a plethora of shows, exhibitions, art galleries and music performances taking place. If you’ve been in or around Manchester over the past couple of weeks, you won’t have been able to miss the posters and flags across the city, and, if you’ve been around Albert’s Square and the Town Hall, you will have been dazzled by the beautiful fairy lights, event teepees and colourful decorations around it’s central point.

Festival Square photos taken by Manchester International Photos – all other photography in this post is my own.

It’s an incredible event for Manchester; our town is full of such brilliant talent that it’s only fair we get to celebrate it and show off about it every two years!

This season I was invited by Manchester based fashion company, Boohoo, to see one of MIF2015’s most highly rated headline shows; Flexn. So, on Saturday 12th July I got my glad rags on – wearing all Boohoo of course, but more to come on my outfit tomorrow – and headed into the city centre to see what it was all about.

Flexn is taking home at the Old Granada Studios from the 14th July to Saturday 18th – so there’s still time to grab tickets whilst you can! The venue is perfect for the event; it’s huge, rustic and industrial, which turned out to perfectly represent the atmosphere of Flexn. The show itself takes place within one of the massive empty studios, which used to be used to film Coronation Street in, which is pretty impressive (and very Manc!).

Usually when you go and see any type of show or performance, you take your seats and wait patiently for the lights to fade and the audience to fall silent before the curtain rises and the show stars. Flexn is not like that. We arrived fifteen minutes early, sitting ‘frow’ of course, and the stage was already full with dancers freestyling to hiphop music. They did this right until the show was due to start at 8pm, so the audience was already pretty energised before the show ‘officially’ began.

So, what is Flexn exactly? It’s a street dance show, with a combined cast of 20 dancers, a mix of Manchester talent and New York hip hop crew D.R.E.A.M led by Brooklyn-based Reggie ‘Regg Roc’ Gray. Although ponds apart in distance, in moves and talent, you couldn’t tell each from the other. Honestly, I think it’s such a cool idea in any capacity to bring talent together to collaborate and push the boundaries of what each person might already know – as a blogger, it’s something I try and do myself often

Aside from the obvious incredibly high standard talent (I mean seriously, after watching this I’m kinda embarrassed to ever dance again!) there are two things I really liked about Flexn. The first is that the show told a story… I love a good dance show, yeah, but to hold it together with a storyline takes it to the next lovel, and this one tells us about love triangles, racism, gang fights, court, prison and freedom. It just helps to tie everything together and give it a purpose, which I loved.

The second thing I loved was that everyone seemed to have their own starring part. Everyone go a ‘go’. So often with dance shows (I used to dance – so I’ve seen more than my fair share!) there’s one or two star dancers who take over the show. I do understand it – obviously you’d wanna put the best at the front – but after a while it kinda gets boring and unfair. In Flexn, there was no feeling of that whatsoever. It felt like almost everyone had their chance at a solo, which made the show feel inclusive and well-rounded.

The music throughout was also so mixed; between instrumentals of classics such as U2’s With or Without You to Lil’ Wayne’s God Bless Amerika, which helped to keep things interesting. Between switching between solos and ballards, to full cast performances, the whole time I was kept entertained and honestly, kinda moved in some places. I’m not a gal to shed a tear, but I did catch feelings at some points.

One of my favourite parts of the story was the love triangle between Phlo, Sam I Am and Dale ‘Goodsoul’ Coleridge. This was set out pretty early on in the show and felt like a modern mix between contemporary dance and street dance. It was pretty powerful. And I’m not gonna lie, there’s something kinda hot about seeing a guy all angry and strong on stage…

Another particularly poignant section was a quiet moment when the dancers quite literally acted out a ‘ball and chain’ formation after a prison scene. Aside from prison, it was a reflective metaphor as a soundtrack of ‘leaders and followers’ played out in the background. Pretty moving.

Over all, the whole show was so full of energy and excitement, with the audience cheering, clapping and also kinda bopping along throughout. At the end, ringleader Reggie ‘Regg Roc’ Gray jumped on stage and we were treated to a preview of him ‘flexing’ as he also led the rest of the flexers in an encore of freestyling. It was best ad-hoc climax to the performance that there could have been.

Flexn is still running at the Old Granada Studios, with the final performance taking place on Saturday 19th July, so I would totally recommending picking up some tickets – at £12 each it’s well worth it. Thank you to Boohoo for inviting me – more on what I wore tomorrow!