This year sees the city celebrate its rich, diverse creativity. Magician Dynamo, AKA Steven Frayne, and director Kirsty Housley discuss collaborating to shine a light on the arts of their home city β and offer hints on what to expect.
S lathered in mud, the magician formerly known as Dynamo emerged from a five-tonne mound of earth. It was and Steven Frayne had just buried himself alive, a magic trick that even Houdini never successfully performed. In the coffin-sized pit he dragged himself out of, Frayne left behind the weight of expectation that came with his alter ego, having spent two decades creating impossible, death-defying performances as Dynamo: floating above the Shard; walking across the Thames; levitating below Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro.
Created with more than collaborators, Rise is taking place in City Park with live music, poetry, aerial acrobatics and magic for two nights only. Bringing huge investment, city of culture aims to use the arts as a transformative tool, driving creative and economic revival.
Theatres and galleries are not the only spaces being taken over for the diverse programme. Art and sculpture will pop up under expansive skies across Penistone Hill Country Park. An immersive sound-walk from Opera North will complement singing and performance workshops across schools. Housley is leading the operation with a mighty set of spreadsheets and boundless generosity for everyone involved. She specifically praises poet and dramaturg Kirsty Taylor, who has been key for drawing in local contacts they might not otherwise have found.
Housley describes the project as an act of cross-pollination, with local writers and performers including Kemmi Gill, Nabeela Ahmed and Kenzo Jae. Rise celebrates the unsung heroes of the community, an idea Frayne feels personally attached to. Growing up on the Delph Hill estate in Bradford, he was taught magic by his grandad as a way to escape bullies.
