509 Arts

19/07/2025

🎭 LIFE CLASS - A joyful look at the ageing body and its many stories

🎶 A live performance with music, theatre, digital animation, a professional cast and a community chorus of 35 local older people.

📍 The Loading Bay, Bradford
📅 3–12 October 2025
🎟️ https://bradford2025.co.uk/event/life-class/ Life Class | Bradford 2025 (link in bio)

🤩 Commissioned by Bradford 2025, Book and Lyrics by Alan Dix with Mike Kenny
Music by Richard Taylor
Chorus Director – Em Whitfield Brooks
Musical Director – Mark Goggins
Set and Costume Designer – Hannah Sibai
Projection Designer – Paul Slater aka Fabric Lenny

Join us to celebrate ageing—real, raw, and radiant. ✨

17/07/2025

🎭 LIFE CLASS IS HERE 🎭

We’re excited to finally reveal what we’ve been creating behind the scenes.

Getting old is a journey that takes a lifetime. It can be a surprise to find that your body has changed in so many ways but you still feel the same inside. Life Class is a joyful and sometimes serious look at the ageing body and the changes that happen to us as we age.

A chorus of 35 older local people will accompany 6 professional actors and musicians as they sing songs, tell stories and cavort their way through the truth and beauty of getting older. Join us at the Loading Bay for 75 minutes of older people showing off their best bits.

📍 The Loading Bay, Bradford – 3-12 October 2025
🎟️ Find out more and book your place 🔗 509arts.co.uk/life-class

🖋️ Book & Lyrics: Alan Dix with Mike Kenny
🎼 Music: Richard Taylor
🎵 Chorus Director: Em Whitfield Brooks
🎹 Musical Director: Mark Goggins
🎨 Set and Costume Design: Hannah Sibai
🎥 Projection Designer: Paul Slater aka Fabric Lenny

🟡 Commissioned by Bradford 2025
🟢 Supported by Bradford Arts Centre , Theatre in the Mill , Arts Council England , Bradford Council

📲 Follow the journey 509 Arts

15/07/2025

👀 Something extraordinary is coming to the Loading Bay this autumn...

From the creators of Calderland and The Batley Variations, a brand new 509 Arts production is on the horizon.

Commissioned by Bradford 2025
Made by an award-winning team
Full of heart, music and surprise

Stay tuned to our channels to find out more 😁

11/07/2025

📣 Bradford’s 1st Heritage Festival starts today!

🗓️ 11–13 July 2025

Get ready for a weekend of discovery and creativity!!!!

From vintage vehicles to witch trials, weaving to walking tours – there’s something for everyone across the district.

📍 Full lineup & tickets 🔗 itsoninbradford.co.uk/collections/bradford-heritage-festival/

27/06/2025

🎟️ If you were lucky enough to get a ticket for our event at today’s Bradford Literature Festival — enjoy every moment!

509 Arts have spent two years gathering stories from the last generations of Bradford’s textile workers — from mill owners and spinners to weavers and lorry drivers. Their voices now live on in the Lost Mills Learning Zone(link in bio), a rich archive with over 80 hours of recorded history.

🎤 Artistic Director Al Dix and Producer Izzie Smith share powerful highlights from the archive and reflect on the legacy of textile life in Bradford.

21/06/2025

🚨 CASTING CALL 🚨

509 Arts is producing a show in the autumn for Bradford 2025 City of Culture. The theme is ageing and it will be musical, digital, tragical, comical and different.

We are looking for 3 older professional performers (over 60) to work alongside a community chorus of 35.

Full details here: 🔗 https://drive.google.com/file/d/1BxLqYvnZY3RGPwlUzOiQCujSfDOLOVlZ/view?usp=sharing

CASTING CALL SUMMARY

Location: Bradford, the Loading Bay
Dates: Sept - October 2025
Commissioning Partner: Bradford 2025
Fees: ITC/Equity Rates

Are you an experienced performer over 60 years of age with a strong singing voice? 509 Arts is casting a company of three diverse older performers to work with a community chorus on
a compelling music-theatre exploration of ageing in the 21st century commissioned by Bradford 2025 City of Culture. All voice types considered, and styles within the piece range
from opera to cabaret, music-hall to music-theatre.

PLEASE SHARE!!!

18/06/2025

We've spotted that our event at Bradford Literature Festival is sold out 😭 please do add yourselves to the waiting list in case tickets become available.

In the meantime you can catch up on all things Lost Mills and Ghost Mansions on our learning zone, a rich and fascinating resource that explores life in bradford's textile industry from 1970's onwards, get on over and explore https://www.509arts.co.uk/project/lost-mills-ghost-mansions

12/06/2025

We’re heading to Bradford Literature Festival 🥳

509 Arts have spent two years recording the stories and experiences of Bradford’s last generations of textile workers. From mill owners and spinners to weavers and lorry drivers, the testimony of people who worked in the final years of mass textile production in the district has become an invaluable resource.

Students, teachers, historians, researchers, and interested individuals can explore over 80 hours of recorded and documented stories through the Lost Mills Learning Zone.

Join 509 Arts’ Artistic Director, Al Dix, and Producer, Izzie Smith, as they share their favourite extracts from the archive and reflect on Bradford’s textile legacy.

Date: 27th June
Time: 2-3pm
Location: Festival Hub, City Park, BD1 1HY
Tickets are £7, reserve your space - https://www.bradfordlitfest.co.uk/event/lost-mills-and-ghost-mansions/

06/06/2025

Royal Philharmonic Society Prize-winning composer and singer Stef Conner, reached out asking to feature Lost Mills and Ghost Mansions participants in her immersive, multi-layered sound experience performing at the Loading Bay this Saturday 7th June 1-2:30pm. Below are her words about the piece and a link to tickets 🙂

"My name is Stef Conner, and I’m a composer. I was commissioned to write a piece for the Bradford New Music Biennial, and was inspired by your interviews, so decided to construct my composition out of them. The piece is intended to be a celebration of the skill and resilience of workers in the textile trade, and it combines extracts from your testimonies with historical factory reports, folk songs, ballads, and medieval literature about the life experiences of people in this industry."

More event details can be found here:

1.30pm: Loading BayImmerse yourself in a multilayered sound experience infused with folk song

28/05/2025

Experience a captivating blend of archive film, projections, soundscapes, and powerful audio recordings from textile workers of the 1970s onwards, hear the real voices and stories of 👇

Shantaben Mistry, Steve Gregson, Jentilal Mistry, Jaz Oldham, Matloob Hussain, Eileen Mellor, Kate Rawnsley, Abdul Aziz, Abid Hussain, Edo Nannelli.

A huge thank you to the Yorkshire Film Archive and Bradford Museums and Galleries for their media contributions, and the Lost Mills and Ghost Mansions contributors whose stories feature in this piece.

Vocals by Nick Lewis & Mahjabeen Ahad. Visuals by Fabric Lenny & Bec Smith.

Ready to dive in? https://youtu.be/ri10TpRy2F0

Note -This video contains flashing images.

Step into the world of Bradford's late 20th-century textile industry with Unspun Stories - an immersive digital journey that had a successful run in March 20...

21/05/2025

Unspun Stories was a big hit at the Loading Bay in Bradford earlier this year. Created by 509 Arts and The Colour Foundry , the multimedia exhibition revealed Bradford’s textile heritage in a new and exciting immersive format, with translucent gauzes, projectors and a compelling soundtrack.

Audiences loved Unspun Stories, and now it can be viewed on screens at home! The full 20 minute version together with 5 short digital tracks have all been reformatted for video and are free to view and enjoy anywhere, anytime!

Head on over and experience the magic 👉https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLOgTcqNkPrveQ9VzJ95Lb40cWUauLOTE-

19/05/2025

UNSPUN IS LIVE 😮😮😮

Journey through incredible archive film 🎞️, guided by evocative original music 🎶, and hearing the poignant stories woven within the walls of the lost mills 🧵. This isn't just history; it's a deeply immersive experience crafted by 509 Arts and Colour Foundry, in partnership with Bradford 2025 and The Space Arts.

Watch the full film taking 20 mins or we've cleverly done a fabulous playlist that breaks the film down into sections, it's wonderful and not to be missed, take your time and let us know what you think 😍

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