August Blog
Kala Sangam’s August Blog
Welcome to the August edition of the Kala Sangam Blog!
Capital Update
Lots has happened at our building this month!
A beautiful new roof has been finished on the South wing. You’ll soon be able to see this for yourself as scaffolding comes down and moves to another part of the building. Inside there’s been major progress – we’ve now got a big hole in the floor where new central staircase is going to go! The pit for our brand new, accessible lift has also been dug out, with the new lift shaft ready to be installed.
Keep your eyes on the building hoardings over the next month too as some very special artwork, and the first look at our new Bradford Arts Centre branding, will be going up very soon!
Samanata Commission
Kala Sangam and Jaivant Patel Company are delighted to announce Raimu Itfum as the recipient of the Samānatā South Asian Queer Performance Seed Commission for 2024.
Raimu will receive £2800 along with studio time at Kala Sangam and mentoring with Jaivant Patel to support the development of his project. Raimu will be developing a theatrical piece exploring the duality of hypersexuality through a Modern South Asian Queer lens. A sharing of work will take place in 2025.
Read the whole news post here
Artist Advisory Group
Following a public call out, Kala Sangam is excited to announce the nine artists who will form the company’s first Artist Advisory Group. The group, which includes dancers, writers, musicians and theatre makers, will advise and support our programming team as we move towards the opening of Bradford Arts Centre next year.
Meet them and read more here
Alex at Edinburgh Fringe
Alex Corwin spent at few days in Edinburgh seeing as many performances as possible…19 in total! She was blown away by Akash Odedra’s Songs of the Bulbul (part of the International Festival). Telling the story of a captured bird that sings itself to death, it was a stunning piece of contemporary Kathak dance set to Sufi inspired music. She also really enjoyed My English Persian Kitchen, Revenge: After the Levoyah and Pali and Jay’s Ultimate Asian Wedding DJ Roadshow.
Upcoming Events
Latterhand: Beck
Fri 27 Sep | 7.30pm | Bradford Club, 1 Piece Hall Yard, Bradford BD1 1PJ | Pay What You Decide
BECK is a musical and visual exploration of the river that runs through our city – Bradford Beck. Expect stunning visuals from fixed cameras at significant sites along the Beck’s route, starting in Thornton and running up to where it joins the River Aire in Shipley. An immersive soundscape, combining field recordings with live piano and violin, will complement the flow of the Beck both above and below ground as it weaves through the city.
Bradford Club sits almost directly above the Beck as it flows under the city centre so this one off show is in the best possible site for an fresh look at our the heritage of our city.
Latterhand are a Bradford based audio visual duo who make site specific performance work. Their pervious work, From Stone, which featured movement from dancer Chemaine Cooke, was performed at Kala Sangam in Autumn 2022. Book your tickets here
We have more events to be announced soon, so make sure to sign up to our newsletter here to be the first to hear about them!
What Have Our Staff Been Up To
Fay turned 30 on the 17th of August and to celebrate she had a garden party at her house with all her family, friends and some staff members! She went to see Six the musical at the Lowry which is about Henry the 8th and his 6 wives. She also went to Scalby on the bank holiday weekend to celebrate her and her cousins birthday.
Jess went on a family holiday to Lanzarote, and had 3 of her paintings on show in The Bingley Gallery Summer Exhibition. She has also been listening to Fontaines D.C’s new album, and is excited to see them live in December with her sister!
Amer and her family had a fantastic holiday in Dublin with an action-packed itinerary including museums, galleries, the Guinness Storehouse, Dublin Castle, Dubh Linn Garden, the National Botanic Gardens, a lot of shopping, along with great food and drink, music and a visit to the cinema to see ‘A Quiet Place – Day One’. The cream on the cake was a surprise visit they made to her husband’s family farm, that he visited as a kid and a reunion of family not seen for many years!
Dave also celebrated his birthday with his friends. He went out for a meal and some drinks and spent a week off work gardening. He is also really happy that football season has started again and is looking forward to watching his beloved team Manchester United.
Arts and Heritage Update
Claire from Kala Sangam
This month the Women Empowerment project has seen the WomenZone ladies trying 2 different art forms to express themselves – textiles and embroidery. Within these sessions, the ladies created their own designs to be placed onto canvas bags or to turn into an embroidery piece. The ladies loved both sessions and are keen to explore different forms of embroidery in future!
u3a have completed all of their Getting to Know You sessions for their u3a: Heritage and the Future project and are now about to move into trying art forms over the coming months. August has seen u3a take part in a planning session to help them to understand and explore their ideas about their final piece more. Everyone is looking forward to seeing how this develops and the art forms they are going to try!
Gemma from South Square
Gemma ran a summer school for young people with a selection of creative workshops and sessions, and a trip to Yorkshire Sculpture Park! They had a tour of the park and learnt about their history and the exhibitions they have on, and even got to create and draw some sculptures. The project was to look at the viaduct in Thornton and they worked with artists and musicians to create their own work to go on the Viaduct through a performance made by the young people.
Lauren from Keighley Creative
I’ve been delivering my summer programme of outdoor workshops across Keighley with ‘The K-Town Cart’; popping up in parks a few times a week, to collaborate with the community on fun craft activities. These have included storyboard making, embroidery to make a community quilt, and heritage tree decorating. I couldn’t have done this series without the support of some amazing local facilitators!
I’ve also been out with the cart in residential areas, to talk to local people about what they would like to see in their area, and how they might want to celebrate their community heritage. I’ve met some amazing people with incredible stories and artistic talent and am looking forward to seeing how the community can help develop and decorate the cart!
Education and Outreach Updates
Over the summer holidays as part of our Outreach work, Kala Sangam has delivered several workshops at Ravenscliffe Youth & Community centre as part of their HAF2024 summer programme. These workshops included a graffiti workshop by Leigh, a tote bag making workshop by Musarat and a break dancing workshop with Tranquil Productions.
Here’s what some of the young people had to say about the tote bag workshop:
“It was a fun, calming and relaxing workshop”
“I enjoyed learning the different techniques and seeing how they turned out”
“I enjoyed experimenting with different tools and colours”
Volunteer Call Out
Volunteers! We want to hear from you!
Fancy getting involved in our exciting Arts and Heritage project with Kala Sangam, South Square Centre, Keighley Creative and Bloomin’ Buds Theatre Company?
We have plenty of benefits for volunteering with one of our amazing hubs!
Click here for more information
Rohingya Project
We are currently looking for some more participants to take part in our We Are Rohingya project. If you know anyone from Bradford’s Rohingya community who would be interested, or are Rohingya yourself and would like to take part in sessions to explore Rohingya history and celebrate your heritage, please email claire@kalasangam.org or zahid@allstarents.co.uk It would be great to work with you!
Our Classes
Don’t forget that our Bollywood and Kathak Classes start in September at Bank House! You can find out about Bollywood classes here and Kathak classes here
