The Belfast International Arts Festival has opened its 64th edition, marking the first programme under new artistic director and CEO Chris McCreery.

The festival features events across music, theatre, dance, visual arts, and talks, with a new immersive strand added this year. McCreery said festivals are about gathering, an act he described as powerful and human in an increasingly fragmented world.

McCreery was appointed after working in arts and culture in Northern Ireland for almost two decades. He attended Portora Royal School in Enniskillen, where he said music and literature were valued.

The festival opened with Senegalese band Orchestra Baobab, who have been performing for more than half a century. The music programme includes Radiohead guitarist Ed O'Brien presenting his Blue Morpho project at the Ulster Hall.

A collaboration with Belfast TradFest, The Devil’s in the Dance Hall, features traditional music, dance, theatre, oral history and a big band, inspired by rural dance halls in Ireland and attempts to suppress them. The Lyric Theatre is celebrating its 75th anniversary as part of the festival.

A dance piece, Our Voice Together Now, marks the culmination of three years of collaboration between artists from Belfast, Cairo and Palestine. Michael McEvoy worked with three Egyptian dancers, and Cairo-based choreographer Shaymaa Shoukry presents The Light Within with three Palestinian dancers.

The festival closes with Nōs and develops a relationship with Luail, Ireland’s National Dance Company. McCreery said the festival provides a window onto Belfast’s creativity and brings international perspectives to the city.