Bradford Arts Centre: Opening Season Highlights and What’s on in 2026

As we reach the end of 2025, we want to reflect on the great success of our opening season. Since we opened our doors to the press on the 6th of October, held our launch event on the 7th and finally opened to the public on the 8^th, we have welcomed more than 4000 people through our doors! The atmosphere has been nothing short of electric here at Bradford Arts Centre.

Jam Packed Opening Performances

We kicked off our opening season with the world premiere of Jaivant Patel Company’s performance ‘ASTITVA’, in which we welcomed over 160 people into the building for two evenings of dance showcasing a rare and moving portrayal of British-Indian gay men.

We then had a full weekend building takeover from the team at Bradford South Asian Festival, with nearly 1500 people attending a range of events, from Rangoli to Garja-making, cooking classes and even a sing-along showing of Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge to mark its 30th anniversary.

Following on from our jam-packed opening weekend, we had a sold-out performance of ‘Otherhood’ followed by ‘The Long Summer Day’ by Mobius Dance, one of our three associate companies.

BRAVE Festival transformed our building into a carnival with dancing, steel pan drums, poetry, baton twirling and folk tales.

Natalie Davis and the team behind ‘Bring It Back’ transported our building back in time to the booming Bradford club scene from the 90’s and 00’s for 3 sold out shows, a family friendly showing and even turned our main reception into a post-show DJ set, with music from Bradford’s best mixers and selectors.

MOV Dance Theatre premiered their new show ‘Voices’, along with a curtain raiser from our Roma Voices group. This group was formed as part of our two-year Arts and Heritage project, where community groups explore what heritage means to them through multiple art forms. It was great to have them join together for a wonderful performance about song, dance, storytelling and collaboration.

We also had Srishti Dance Creations’ Nina Rajarani bring EkatA, a beautiful honouring of movement, music, emotion, and identity through Bharatanatyam dance.

We hosted Tranquil Productions ‘Tech Styles 10’ to celebrate 10 years of uniting the UK’s and the world’s finest Bboys, Bgirls, Crews, DJs, MCs and Graffiti Artists.

To finish off November, Toussaint To Move brought their touring performance of ‘FREE’ to our stage, for an evening of immersive performance accompanied by original music with strong reggae and hints of jazz influences which even had our audience up dancing and singing along.

Akshay Sharma, one of our Kala Sangam commission recipients, shared an intimate work in progress performance of his work ‘Leave To Remain’ exploring belonging, transformation and location.

Our building was filled with Qawwali songs from Zahir Abbas Qawwal who brought their talents to the stage for a sold out performance, and they even had time for some audience requests too!

The last weekend of November saw Common/Wealth take over Bradford Arts Centre for their 29% Festival. On the Friday evening, they hosted Recharge – an evening for young women, girls and people of marginalised genders, and on Saturday, young people took over the building for daytime raves, rap battles, performances, spoken word, murder mysteries and DJ sets. It was great to welcome so many young people into the building and see them engage in the arts in so many ways!

In December, Meera Patel, who was awarded our other Kala Sangam commission, brought three preview performances of ‘Attuning’, a new piece of work exploring a new interactive experience through classical Indian dance and music. The performance was created to be brought to life through tactile and immersive methods for blind and visually impaired audiences.

To round off our opening season, we had Joss Arnott Dance transform our theatre into a Mad Hatters tea party with ‘Meet The Hatter.’ We had over 200 people join us for this uplifting story of self-belief and happiness which left our young people feeling magical and inspired!

Community & Education

As part of our Education and Community offerings, we successfully delivered our 5th School’s Annual Takeover – our first as Bradford Arts Centre! Over the course of two weeks, we hosted nearly 800 students from 12 different primary schools.  They participated in workshops led by 8 freelance artists covering activities such as carnival dance, disco freestyle, rap writing and dhol drumming. Additionally, 2 schools joined us for special daytime performances of Meet The Hatter.

Our new Education and Community room  was bustling with activity over Half Term. We  launched our first Play, Move Create session for parents, carers and their little ones. Families enjoyed creative crafts, sensory stations and story sharing in our reading nook.

We also ran two popular Family Makespace events:

A spooky-themed session featuring lots of seasonal and Halloween crafts, which engaged over 50 young people and their grown-ups.

A Mad Hatter-themed workshop, perfectly tying in with our performances of Meet The Hatter by Joss Arnott Dance. Children and their grown-ups made their own hats inspired by the show!

We are looking forward to hosting more sessions like these in the new year.

New Classes and Schedule: We’ve been busy adding new classes to our schedule, including Dhol Drumming and Jazz Dance, as well as a brand new collaboration with Bradford Active Dance. We have also continued popular sessions like our Bollywood and Kathak classes. We will be adding even more classes soon, so keep an eye out for our 2026 schedule!

Venue Hire, Corporate Events & Creative Partnerships

Our first season demonstrated that Bradford Arts Centre is the premier destination for unique and impactful venue hire in the district. It’s been great to welcome our regulars back as well as brand-new communities and conferences. We held a two-day conference in October for IETM Creative Europe, in partnership with Bradford2025, with 150 people from all over Europe in attendance.

We also turned our Main Hall into an exhibition space for a three-day City of Counterculture event with lots of local artists and musicians taking part. They used the space to showcase Bradford’s underground arts and cultural scene, with memorabilia from exhibitions, gigs and shows from grassroots music venues in the district.

Screenings and an awards ceremony were held in October on behalf of Bradford International Film Festival – including a special 50th anniversary screening of The Rocky Horror Show filled with sing-alongs and dressing up. Finally, we had a number of workshops for the National Film & Television School throughout October and November, as well at the Bradford Producing Hubs Visual Arts Social.

Ready to host your next event in a creative, centrally located venue? Spaces for 2026 are filling fast. Visit our dedicated Venue Hire page today to explore our rooms and facilities.

What’s next at Bradford Arts Centre

Thank you to everyone, artists, audiences, partners, and colleagues, for making this opening period so unforgettable. The energy has been incredible, and we are carrying that momentum straight into 2026! Our Spring Programme is already taking shape, promising even more diverse and exciting work. We’re thrilled to confirm the return of our annual Arts Iftar, and we have secured a packed calendar featuring stand-up comedy, powerful South Asian dance, captivating contemporary dance, and a quirky one-woman performance about modern dating and relationships. The details and dates are being confirmed now, so keep a very close eye on our ‘What’s On’ page over the coming weeks as we drop the full line-up. We can’t wait to welcome you back for an unforgettable 2026!