As Bradford prepares to kick off its celebrations as the UK city of culture, we take a look at five highlights for people to put in their diaries.

Bradford UK city of culture opening ceremony

Rise

The magician Steven Frayne, better known as Dynamo, will kick things off on Friday with his city centre show Rise. He’s done some jaw-dropping feats before: hovering above the Shard, walking on water and levitating below Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro.

But Frayne has talked about this hometown show as something special; a performance that will be “Bradford’s equivalent of an Olympic opening ceremony”. It will involve more than 100 people, who have been crammed into a sports hall to rehearse the show that will involve live music, poetry, aerial acrobatics and – of course – magic. Tickets are £2, with free tickets for under-16s and over-60s.

10 and 11 January 2025, Bradford City Park

Andrea Dunbar: The Dreams I Had

Last year a mural of Andrea Dunbar, Bradford’s most famous playwright, appeared in the city centre. It was the latest in a string of releases and pieces that have celebrated the writer from the Buttershaw estate who created Rita, Sue and Bob Too – a play that not only painted an indelible image of her home town but also changed her life significantly.

Adelle Stripe’s novel about Dunbar, Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile, is being reissued later this year, while Clio Barnard – who directed the verbatim documentary The Arbor, about Dunbar’s life – has programmed a season of films directed by or about the lives of northern women. The Dreams I Had presents staged readings of selections from her works, celebrating Dunbar, whose first play (written when she was 15) premiered 45 years ago this year.

12 Mar 2025, location to be announced

Bassline Symphony

The year offers plenty of interesting musical offerings: a live score of Mathieu Kassovitz’s classic La Haine by the Asian Dub Foundation; Richard Hawley and the Black Dyke Band; Kokoroko and others collaborating for the Big Brass Blowout. But perhaps the most intriguing is Bassline Symphony, which takes over St George’s Hall on 9 May.

Bassline house has been the dominant sound in Bradford for a couple of decades, first mutating out of speed garage and then splintering into myriad offshoots. Blazer Boccle, S-Dog and Bad Boy Chiller Crew have taken the sound into the mainstream and the charts, but this event is headed up by veterans of the scene, including Bradford’s TS7, the Niche mainstay Jamie Duggan and Bassline’s most consistent champion, DJ Q. They will be backed by the arranger Katie Chatburn and Opera North’s orchestra, as the classical world collides with the north’s answer to grime.

9 May 2025, St George’s Hall

The Bradford Progress

At the event’s press launch, Charles Hazlewood introduced his collaborative piece Bradford Progress, in which he will team up his para-orchestra with Jeremy Deller for a “sonic journey” that will be staged across the district and involve local musicians.

“This thing might start far out somewhere on a moorland crag, someone singing or someone playing, and that person moves, and then they encounter another musician who perhaps joins them,” said Hazlewood. “And bit by bit, this thing grows in scale and scope, exponentially.

“This thing is gradually snaking its way towards Bradford, getting ever larger. So by the time it arrives in the centre of Bradford, there should be one big last, giant hurrah.”

The event takes place in May, and if Frayne is providing the showstopping launch, then Bradford Progress could be its offbeat centrepiece.

May 2025, location to be announced

Memories of the Future

Many of Bradford 2025’s biggest names are homegrown, from Frayne and Zayn Malik to David Hockney and Common Wealth, but one event is inviting someone whose work has never been performed in the city before: Akram Khan.

Working alongside Helen Linsell of Dance United Yorkshire, the dancer and choreographer presents a new work, Memories of the Future, that features 60 dancers drawn from communities across Bradford, “spanning cultures and generations”. Khan and company will take over the Alhambra Theatre in July.

5 July 2025, Alhambra Theatre