The opening event for the year-long Bradford 2025 UK City of Culture took place on Friday and Saturday.
RISE is a spectacular outdoor theatrical event that will take place in City Park and Centenary Square, launching the year-long programme. Bradford 2025 will celebrate contemporary culture in all forms and showcase the rich history and heritage of the area. Events, performances and activities will spread from the city to the towns, villages and green spaces across the district, running from January to December 2025.
Audiences for Rise will be greeted with a festival atmosphere as City Park is taken over by DJs, food trucks and entertainers ahead of the show, which is created by the district’s own magician Steven Frayne and directed by Kirsty Housley. The event will feature aerial performers, acrobatics and magic and will have local people, voices and stories at its heart. A 200 strong cast include poets and rappers, a community choir led by the Friendship Choir, the Airedale Symphony Orchestra and a multi-generational community ensemble of Bradford residents aged from 12 to 65.
Two major exhibitions will open in Bradford in January as part of the UK City of Culture programme – Nationhood: Memory and Hope, featuring new work by acclaimed Ethiopian artist Aïda Muluneh and Fighting to be Heard at Cartwright Hall Art Gallery explores connections between the ancient art of calligraphy and boxing, alongside rare items from the Arabic and Urdu collections of the British Library.
Also launching in January is DRAW! a nation-wide drawing project inspired and supported by Bradford-born artist David Hockney in which members of the public are invited to take part. The National Science and Media Museum reopens in January following a major £6 million development. It presents David Hockney: Pieced Together which explores the artist’s pioneering use of film and photography.
The internationally acclaimed Akram Khan Company will perform in Bradford for the first time, with performances of Jungle Book reimagined at the Alhambra Theatre. Based on the book by Rudyard Kipling, Khan and his team have reimagined the journey of Mowgli through the eyes of a refugee caught in a world devastated by the impact of climate change.
Cinema is celebrated through the programme in Northern Soul, a season of films from working-class northern women presented at Pictureville Cinema and curated by award-winning West Yorkshire raised writer director Clio Barnard. Asian Dub Foundation make a welcome return to Bradford to reprise one of their most acclaimed projects, their powerful soundtrack to cult classic French thriller La Haine, performed live to a screening of the film.
Created by Steven Frayne and director Kirsty Housley, RISE will be an astonishing show with local people, voices and stories at its heart. Performers include a community choir led by the Friendship Choir, the Airedale Symphony Orchestra, and a multi-generational community ensemble of Bradford residents aged from 12 to 65 – as well as Bradford-born poet, spoken word artist and playwright Kirsty Taylor, alongside locally based writers and performers Kemmi Gill, Nabeela Ahmed and Kenzo Jae, composer, conductor Ben Crick and composer and DJ Jae Depz.
The centrepiece of the exhibition is The Necessity of Seeing, a major new collection of constructed images by Ethiopian photographer Aïda Muluneh. Shot through her surrealist lens at iconic locations in Bradford, Belfast, Cardiff and Glasgow, Muluneh’s new work reveals the overlooked stories, forgotten histories and quiet moments that shape who we are.
Bradford 2025 is paying tribute to Dunbar, marking 45 years since the premiere of The Arbor and 35 years since her tragically early death. The Dreams I Had is directed by Erica Whyman, former deputy artistic director at the Royal Shakespeare Company, with dramaturgy from Bradford born and based, Kat Rose-Martin. The Dreams I Had presents staged readings of selections from her works, celebrating the explosive talent of this once-in-a-generation writer.
It is the first time all three spaces on the top floor of Salts Mill will be connected through an exhibition. The exhibition is curated by June Hill and Jennifer Hallam.