10/6/2024

Bradford Voices Blog: Releasing our films and looking back

We are really excited to be able to bring you filmed versions of the short new plays we presented as part of our Bradford Voices Showcase, Talent Development and Community Co-creation event at Mind the Gap Theatre in March. These recordings are only a snap shot of the huge amount of work that was created in the Bradford Voices Project. So, while we celebrate their release, we also want to take you on a journey through all the other amazing things that were created.

Back in autumn 2023 we kicked off this hugely ambitious new writing project called Bradford Voices. This was across three stands, talent development, community co-creation and young people work, all with aim of uncovering local stories, hidden talents and loud and proud Bradford Voices.

One of the first things we got going with was an introductory playwriting course called Writers Studio Group. We were blown away by the demand out there for this kind of course and the huge number of applications we received. We arrived at a group of 25 writers (that’s a big group!) all of which had brilliant and very different ideas of stories they wanted to tell. We explored playwriting over 10 sessions including some incredible guest workshops from Kamal Kaan, Karim Khan, BBC Writers, Hannah Kumari and Vinay Patel.  The writers Studio Group culminated in April with performances of 18 short plays that were created by group members and performed by some fantastic Bradford based actors. These plays were really impressive with a huge range of topics and style. No one held back and all the writers put a huge amount of work into them. It takes a lot of courage, especially if you are a first-time playwright, to put your work out there, to give it over to actors and an audience. But all 18 plays stood proudly on their own. A job well done by our Writers Studio group.

Working with young people is core to what Freedom Studios does, so having their say in Bradford Voices was really important to us. We worked in four schools across Bradford district, Holy Family School, South Craven, Shibden Head, and St Francis Primary. In these schools we delivered theatre workshops and creating new story ideas with pupils. It was a delight to be able to create new stories straight from young people’s imagination and be able to share their performances with parents. We also started a new partnership with Bradford Youth Services and delivered a series of drama and rap storytelling workshops at both Toller Youth Café and Lower Grange Community Centre. These are regular sessions where young people come along and do different activities.  They made some fantastic work with the rap the created being recorded at the Toller music facilities. Bradford Youth Services were very happy with the partnership and as Mohammad Luqman said,

“The young people gained so many skills, especially the use of terminology and the use of language within the music they produce in the studio. They are now able to emphasises on their feelings and put these into words, whilst recording.” 

Freedom Studios Youth Theatre were also in on the Bradford Voices game. We run two group sessions on Saturday mornings for age ranges 11-15 and 15-19. They both created work that was performed at a separate young people focused Bradford Voices Showcase at Mind the Gap Theatre back in March. The 15 to 19 age group wrote and performed a piece called, Why Don’t We Talk Anymore. This was a beautifully heartfelt piece about friendship and being in the world as a teenager, with strong performances form all involved. The 11 to 15 group took the bull by the horns and created Bradford Voices News. This saw a roving reporter asking members of the public the question, who owns Bradford? This was as bonkers as it was brilliant, in a very surreal and multi-lingual performance. Also performed in that showcase event were short plays created by our Young Writers Group. This is the first time Freedom have held a writer’s group for young people (15-18) and the results were very impressive. Oliver Mellor, Leila Ginns, Owen Bolton and Viktorija Poremska gave us four very different but equally impressive pieces of performance writing. Some sure bets for future playwrights from our region.

Community Co-Creation was something relatively new for Freedom Studios, as a way to find new stories and new plays. It’s a very different way of playwriting as you really don’t know where the story is going to go or what you are going to end up with. But it is a great way of getting lived experience or a multitude of perspectives into a new play. We worked with three community groups including Bradford Belles and Equity Partnership as well as a group assembled through an open call with Bradford Producing Hub. These groups worked with three Bradford playwrights, Kamal Kaan, Kat Rose-Martin and Rebecca Glendening-Laycock. Ideas were generated from the groups and then adapted by the professional playwrights into short plays. As Rebecca Glendening Laycock said:

“Being part of the community co-creation project with Freedom Studios has been a really interesting and worthwhile experience. It was my first time working in this way with community groups and I really learnt a lot about how to best take everyone’s thoughts and ideas for the piece. In particular I learnt to fight the urge to cram everyone’s ideas into the piece out of a sense of wanting everyone to feel included and heard, so I learnt a lot about a playwright’s role in processes like this, and how to navigate it.”

Joining us on this community journey too were You Got Barz. This is an initiative set up by Kemmi Gill and Hassan Khan to engage young people in music. This was the first work they had done under the You Got Barz banner, and it was a privilege to partner with them. Music is a huge part of Bradford’s culture, it’s a different type of storytelling model but just as powerful, and a great way to make your voice heard.

Bradford Voices was a project that never questioned if Bradford had those unique stories or the talent to tell them. We knew that was true. It was to create an opportunity that might not have already been there to engage a whole range of people and bring their stories to life. We hope you enjoy the Bradford Voices Showcase films.