Sinéad O’Connor dance show to open in Manchester this summer

A new production based on the life and music of  Sinéad O’Connor is set to be unveiled in Manchester this summer.

The Surge: An Ode to Sinead O’Connor is a new dance production from director and choreographer Sonya Tayeh (Moulin Rouge! The Musical). It’s described as a “meditation on voice, protest and the courage to live a life that defies the norm” and will feature O’Connor’s music, alongside spoken excerpts from her 2021 memoir, Rememberings.

“Sinead has been a part of my life since her first album arrived blaring out car windows in Detroit, where I’m from,” Tayeh told Crack. “All of those memories came flooding back when she passed.

“I was heartbroken. I then had this sudden vision of 10 women standing in a straight line at the edge of a stage and I was hearing (her song) ‘Troy’ in my ears. That’s when I knew this was the next art quest and Sinead is the path.”

O’Connor’s life will be told through the use of dancers, whose “collective presence challenges conventional ideas of ageing in dance”.

“Sinead is such an in-depth storyteller, such a poet, both in song and in text. To me, Sinead O’Connor’s music is rooted in a sense of a desire for freedom, an unrelenting righteousness and a quest for a spiritual awakening,” she added. “The depth of emotion in her music is unmatched.”

The show forms part of Factory International’s spring 2026 programme at the celebrated Aviva Studios, and will debut on June 25 in Manchester’s The Hall. You can find ticket details here.

It was also confirmed last year that a Sinéad O’Connor biopic is in the works.

According to Variety, the film will focus on O’Connor’s early life and career, where she rose to an unlikely, at times controversial pop star, breaking out in 1990 when her cover of Prince’s ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’ became a Number One hit.