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Slathered in mud, the magician formerly known as Dynamo emerged from a five-tonne mound of earth. It was 2022 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. Now working under his own name, Frayne’s latest project takes him out of the spotlight. “I’ve learned over the past few years to move from focusing on the magic in me,” he says, “to being a conduit to helping other people see magic in themselves.”
Bradford-born Frayne is working with acclaimed director Kirsty Housley on Rise, an enormous outdoor spectacle for the opening act of Bradford’s year as city of culture. Created with more than 100 collaborators, Rise is taking place in City Park with live music, poetry, aerial acrobatics and magic for two nights only. They’re rehearsing in a sports school hall, the only space large enough for them to fit. “The way I look at it,” Frayne grins, “this is Bradford’s equivalent of an Olympic opening ceremony.”
Bringing huge investment, city of culture aims to use the arts as a transformative tool, driving creative and economic revival. “Bradford is a city chock-full of amazing artists,” enthuses Housley, whose award-winning, highly collaborative work, which includes co-directing Complicite’s The Encounter and Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, sweeps across form and genre. “At the moment there’s not a load of infrastructure to support that, so often people leave,” she says. “But there’s so much creativity here.”
Inspired by the landscape, heritage and population of what is one of the UK’s most diverse cities, the programme for Bradford 2025 includes a new intergenerational project with choreographer Akram Khan and Dance United Yorkshire, a nationwide drawing project supported by Bradford-born David Hockney, and a local showcasing of the Turner prize.
Theatres and galleries are not the only spaces being taken over for the diverse programme. Mike Kenny’s Olivier award-winning adaptation of The Railway Children will be performed on the Keighley and Worth Railway line where the film of the classic novel was shot. 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. The artist-led platform Dialled In will host a celebration of contemporary south Asian music and club culture, reflecting a large part of the makeup of the city’s population. “It’s going to show Bradford in all its glory,” Frayne says.
Despite its rich artistic pedigree, Bradford rarely gets namechecked in Britain’s cultural history. “It’s not like being from Manchester or Leeds,” Housley says, “where you’ll see yourself and your city in books, music and film. If you’re in Bradford, you don’t see yourself reflected back.” With Rise, and the wider city of culture programme, they want to change this.
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. “We’re trying to funnel as much as possible out into the city,” says Housley. “It’s really important that people don’t feel events like this are gatekept.”
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. “I was just this kid on the council estate, in a one-bedroom bedsit with a dad in jail and a mum who was struggling to make ends meet to keep the lights on,” Frayne says. “Somehow she managed to find a way for us to survive and in all of that I managed to find a way to use my imagination, which is all I had.”
As a teenager, Frayne found solace in the local youth club. “It was the first place where my magic was embraced and they helped me develop it,” he smiles. He was back at the youth club filming for his TV special Dynamo Is Dead, where he talked candidly about his struggles with mental and physical health, when he was asked if he’d be interested in taking part in the celebration of Bradford as the new city of culture. “Bradford’s my town,” he says, pumping his fist to his chest with pride. “I immediately wanted to be involved.”
They’ve wanted to reach far and wide for their participants, to champion the voices of those who quietly make a world of difference. “We put a call out for young people to be part of this,” Housley says, “with a person who’d had a positive impact on their life.” Twenty of these pairs now make up the show’s community ensemble: parents and children; grandparents and grandchildren; support workers, teachers and youth workers, all in pairs with young people. “The thing that runs through all of it is celebrating the people who change your life and support you, and how that relationship is often mutual,” she says. “Someone supports you for a bit and then you support them. Then there’s a whole city supporting one another.”
Bradford was the first city in the UK to introduce free school meals and is an official city of sanctuary, actively aiming to create a sense of welcome for refugees and asylum seekers. In efforts to invite as many people as possible to the city of culture works, a huge number of the events, which run across the whole year, are free.
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This culture of support is threaded through the show in its poetry and performers, but also through its aerial acrobatics, created with the collaboration of movement director Lina Johansson. “I work a lot with physical performers,” Housley shakes her head, “but they’re not normally three metres up in the air on a pole. It’s extraordinary and terrifying.” When a production uses counterweights, where the heft of one person is balanced by the other, the mechanics tend to be hidden backstage. For Rise, it’s all visible. “It means you make the act of supporting someone real,” says Housley. “You don’t hide the effort it takes. These are not easy times we’re in. It’s important to acknowledge the struggle.”
Of course, the action will be enhanced with Frayne’s touches of magic, though they’re both reluctant to give details. “Magic is all about surprise,” Frayne holds up his hands in defence of his secrecy, “but I’m hoping this can show people that we’re all magical in our own way. It doesn’t have to be tricks. It can be helping your next-door neighbour do a task they can’t do on their own.”
For Rise, tickets are just £2, with free tickets for under-16s and over-60s. Part of the show’s inclusion is the rejection of one single aesthetic. “We’re working really hard to keep it feeling like a bit of a mashup,” Housley says, smiling. “Rather than trying to get the community ensemble in one colour scheme, someone’s in leopard print, someone’s got a matching outfit with their daughter, someone’s in bright pink, someone’s got a hat that’s patterned like a mushroom. Everyone looks like themselves.” Alongside the live orchestra, they’ve got music production from DJ Jae Depz, weaving in all of Bradford’s different sounds.
They hope, Housley says, that everyone in the audience will be able to see and hear something that makes them go: “Oh yeah, that’s me.”
“It’s made by us and for us,” Frayne beams. “This isn’t about one massive blow-out party to introduce Bradford city of culture and then things get forgotten about. It’s about starting a journey with the people of Bradford for as long as they want to come with us.”
For more information on this year’s city of culture visit bradford2025.co.uk
