World Menopause Day: Menopause Bus to tour Manchester with choir on board raising awareness

A musical Menopause Bus will be touring the streets of Manchester using song to highlight a topic which is sometimes not spoken about publicly for fear of embarrassment.

The bus will be out and about at locations across Manchester and Salford for two days to mark World Menopause Day.

It’s a collaboration between SICK! Festival, which uses the arts and culture to explore issues around mental and physical health, and its partners along with musicians from Manchester and Switzerland.

Here’s what you need to know about the unusual way of raising awareness of women’s health - and where you can see the bus.

What is the Menopause Bus?

The Menopause Bus Tour is part of SICK! Festival’s 2022 programme and it is hoped it will be a vehicle for sharing women’s experiences of the menopause and generate discussion.

An international choir made up of a diverse range of women with lived experience will be onboard the bus singing about the menopause.

The bus will make appearances at a variety of locations over two days, including on World Menopause Day itself.

Choral director of The University of Manchester’s Harmony Gospel Choir, Tosin Akindele, and Swiss singer and composer Sibylle Aeberli have composed new songs especially for the tour based on the experiences of people personally affected by the menopause, a topic that many keep under wraps or are too embarrassed to speak about publicly.

It is hoped that the bus’ appearances and the choir’s songs will help to spark discussion about the menopause as well as raise awareness of it.

Where and when is the Menopause Bus appearing?

The Menopause Bus will initially be taking to the city-region’s streets on Saturday 15 October.

It will be at Harpurhey Shopping Centre between 1pm and 2pm and will then be at The Lowry Arts Centre in Salford between 3.30pm and 4.30pm and between 6pm and 7pm.

It will then be out and about once more on Tuesday 18 October, which is World Menopause Day.

It will appear at University Place on Oxford Road between 1pm and 2pm, Piccadilly Gardens from 3.30pm until 4.30pm and St Ann’s Square from 6pm to 7pm.

Who has created the Menopause Bus?

The Menopause Bus is part of the 2022 programme for SICK! Festival, which explores issues around health through art forms including dance, theatre, film, spoken word as well as through discussion and debate.

It weaves in perspectives from researchers, clinical practitioners, public health professionals, charities and those with lived experience of the issues being addressed and commissions work from artists in Manchester and across the UK and the world.

The Menopause Bus is a collaboration between the festival and WildWuchs Festival in Switzerland, and is funded by Pro Helvetica and Wild Wuchs with support from Manchester City Council, Arts Council England and The Lowry.

The composers are Tosin Akindele, who as well as her work at the university founded Manchester-based gospel music organisation Voices Be, and Sibylle Aeberli who is a freelance singer, guitarist, actress, composer and lyricist from Switzerland.