Transform, the international performance festival that happens in Leeds, is inviting 10-12 people from the Leeds City Region to be part of a focus group that will help them to shape the 2025 festival.

“It took us fifty-odd years to learn that it wasn’t really about what we thought it was about,” says Joi Gresham, Director and Trustee of the Lorraine Hansberry Literary Trust. Gresham is talking about the ending of Lorraine Hansberry's seminal work A Raisin in the Sun, which begins an English tour this month at Leeds Playhouse.
 

Light Night Leeds will take over the city on Thursday 24th and Friday 25th October 2024, showcasing spectacular projections, interactive installations, and absorbing street art to 200,000 visitors as part of the UK’s largest light festival. We want you to be part of our team for the 20th edition of Light Night Leeds this year.

Transform are looking for eight young people aged 18–25 with a passion for the arts and an interest developing a career in the sector to join their team as Young Curators. It’s an opportunity to learn, develop new skill and shape the programme of a major international arts festival taking place in October 2025. 
 
With support from the Transform team, you will:   

In 2017, Leeds local, Ruth Berkoff, had a brain haemorrhage. A perimesencephalic brain haemorrhage. She didn’t know anyone else who’d had one before, so she felt alone.

It got even worse when the neurologist said that there was little chance she’d go back to her dream job (being a gnome, getting people to high five her giant carrot).

Whether your preference is for salsa dancing or sleepovers, the Howard Assembly Room is the place to be this summer as the central Leeds music venue prepares for two very different HAR Lates.

The Leeds-based SI Leeds Literary Prize is a biennial award for unpublished fiction by UK-based Black and Asian women. The prize aims to act as a loudspeaker for underrepresented voices and to connect writers with new audiences and opportunities.

Perhaps not yet, but a community of playful spirits is organising the first city-wide DIY Festival of Play and Creativity for this Autumn Half-Term. Leeds is already known for its playful pioneers, and this year, we're planning a feast of fun to brighten the winter months. Our organising crew includes library workers, community members, council workers, artists, and residents — all dedicated to making play a priority. We've hosted three community meet-ups — drawing over 100 local participants from various backgrounds — including individuals and business owners.

ACCA Dance Theatre are Leeds based dance theatre making work that reflects and comments on the contemporary society via funny, thought-provoking dance theatre performances and participation activities. Their style has a physical backbone, drawing on character and conceptuality to investigate the topics which inspire each project.

Now they have a question for anyone aged 18+, female identifying, who loves dance and theatre and wants to perform in front of an audience...

Remembering What’s Forgotten has launched a new poet in residence opportunity for Leeds-based, emerging poets of black and South Asian heritage who wish to explore and centre lived experience narratives of mental ill health and amplify the importance of racial and social justice.

An eight-week residency, supported by a bursary, the role is open to Leeds residents with lived experience, of all genders and ages, from 18+, to produce an original piece of work.