Organisers of this weekend's Keighley Arts and Film Festival are celebrating the success of the event after hundreds of people enjoyed more than 40 events across the town.
Highlights were a lantern parade in Cliffe Castle park, with 400 taking part; a performance to a packed house of Sufi music by top the renowned Qaiser Mahmood Qawwali Group; and a Peace Meal attended by 100 people at Keighley Shared Church.
Festival favourite Irene Lofthouse returned for a sell-out Royal Arcadians subterranean tour of the Low Street shopping area, and the Peace Artists entertained shoppers and visitors with their high-energy musical performances.
Events took place at venues throughout Keighley, including Cliffe Castle, Airedale Shopping Centre, the Musician Centre, Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, the town’s Carnegie Library, the Picture House and the Keighley Creative hub on Hanover Street.
Vacant shop units in the Airedale Shopping Centre and Royal Arcade were turned into pop-up Drawing Boxes, with townsfolk able to add their artwork to the walls of the units.
The Bradford Belles brought their anarchic extreme sweeping, dusting and street dance to the town centre, and Bollywood dancer Deeba Amin gave a demonstration for shoppers in the Airedale Centre. Stand-up comedy, music and production workshops and spoken word performances took place, and Good Food Keighley and the Healthy Growth Initiative provided free meals at the Hanover Street hub.
Friday evening’s Peace Meal, with a theme of Journeys into Keighley, brought together people from the town’s different faith communities for a dinner and a screening of Louisa Rose Mackleston’s film Ruth & Safiya at Keighley Shared Church.
The Rev Canon Mike Cansdale, rector of Keighley, said: “It was so encouraging to see the diversity of Keighley present in the gathering and to have such a positive atmosphere. The film was excellent and opened up a really important subject.”
The movie follows an unlikely friendship between Ruth, an isolated pensioner in her 80s who visits her allotment daily, and Safiya, a teenage Syrian refugee that is struggling to adapt to her new life in Bradford.
Javed Bashir, cultural heritage and diversity lead for Keighley Creative, KAFF’S organisers, said: “The aim of this event was to build bridges between people who might not normally have an opportunity to meet each other, and to replace ignorance and fear of the unknown with increased familiarity and a sense of the richness that diversity can bring.
“This interfaith dinner gave people a chance to socialise, enjoy good food in the company of their neighbours and discuss ways in which they and their faith communities could build stronger connections with each other.”
The town’s MP Robbie Moore, Bradford Council leader Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe and former MP John Grogan visited the festival and chatted with organisers.
Madeleine O’Reilly, Keighley Creative’s festival and events director, said: “It has been a joyous weekend with mixed communities coming together to celebrate arts and culture in so many different formats.
“We’ve seen people meeting; people expressing themselves. We’ve heard of people learning new things about different communities, different cultures, different types of performance. We’ve had so many joyful encounters, with pop-up acts and the planetarium and the joy of the Drawing Box – seeing all that artwork developed by the people of Keighley throughout the weekend.
“And it’s just the beginning. There will be more in the future.”
Madeleine added that the festival had been really blessed by a great team of volunteers, who engaged with all the town’ communities.
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