How would you choose to define ‘The Dash’ that separates the year you’re born from the year you die?



Come and experience Existence Theatre Group’s brand new, original, student-led performance, exploring themes of duality, necessity, legacy and fulfilment.

Set in Britain, ‘The Dash’ follows Edith, an obituarist who receives a mysterious unsigned and unpublished painting that holds a remarkable resemblance to her younger self.

Scarborough, presented by Leeds Arts Centre, is a play about a forbidden weekend away, where a couple does all the things you might expect a couple to do. But fear is in the air, and they daren't leave their seaside hotel. After all, at just fifteen years old, one of them is just a child... the other their teacher. 

The Hyde Park Picture House invite you to submit your short film to the BFI DIY Film Challenge, with a screening and networking event on 25th March.

For this challenge, we want you to Transform. This can be a physical transformation or a narrative transformation, we want you to run with this theme.

The winner of the DIY challenge will receive:

• £1000 BURSARY to put towards your career; whether to buy some kit, put towards studying or making your next short film

As we approach International Women’s Day I recall this phrase “Create whatever causes a revolution in your heart!” (Writer Elizabeth Gill). After witnessing an exhibit which did just that, I felt compelled as an artist to explore further.

As well as playing a key part in the stories of some of the city’s best known bands including the Kaiser Chiefs, Embrace, and Red Lorry Yellow Lorry, Old Chapel Music CIC - a not for profit community interest company which manages the studios in Holbeck - supports young people, up-and-coming artists and community groups, giving them access to the same facilities as established bands.

Residents since 1997 when as teenagers they were known as Parva, the Kaiser Chiefs still rehearse at Old Chapel Music Studios and have their own room in the extension they helped to fund in 2013.

The Wise Women manifesto was created by Dr Gillian Dyson-Moss, Dr Anne Schiffer, Dr Joanna Leah, and Lizzie Coombes, academics at Leeds Beckett’s Leeds School of Arts, to give voice to creative female researchers, especially those who feel frozen out as older women or as ‘early career researchers’.

The project has been funded by Research England and the Leeds Beckett Equity and Inclusion Research Fund.

As part of LEEDS 2023's signature project My LEEDS 2023, our 33 Neighbourhood Hosts  are planning celebration events in each ward of the city and are looking for people in their communities to apply for a small grant to show off their talents or create activities as part of it.

Taking place in parks, village halls, high streets and shopping centres, the events will shine a light on the creativity found on our doorsteps.

Leeds Libraries' colourful Mini Playboxes are packed with fun and engaging self-serve activities for children under five and their families to enjoy in the library. 

The Mini Playboxes are free to use and will be available at selected libraries in the children area throughout the day during opening hours. 

This year’s festival is supported by Leeds 2023, the citywide celebration of culture which will interweave themes of untold stories, radical acts, playful adventures and future generations.

The Festival is very excited to be hosting poet, playwright, memoirist, performer and broadcaster Lemn Sissay OBE (above) as he brings his memoir My Name is Why to Carriageworks Theatre (Fri 3rd March).  In it, Sissay reflects on his childhood, self-expression and Britishness, and in doing so explores the institutional care system, race, family and the meaning of home.

LEEDS 2023 and WOW - Women of The World Festival are on the lookout for young women and non-binary and gender non-conforming people to join them for a FREE twelve-week programme.

It’s an opportunity to develop skills in festival making and explore gender equality through activism and the arts. The WOWsers programme offers the chance to build new networks with other participants, artists, and activists, and to create their own event as part of a WOW festival in Leeds.