BRADFORD city centre will be transformed into a sea of colour and entertainment next month as a special mini festival is brought to the city.

Illuminate Bradford, staged by Bradford Council. will feature three days of spectacular outdoor entertainment, which will include dancers and acrobats performing in the streets, multimedia shows and interactive light installations.

The festival follows last year’s successful Forest of Light installation in City Park, and will once again take place in City Park and around Bradford city centre from Friday, October 13, until Sunday, October 15.

One of the attractions will be staged by cutting-edge 3D projection specialists the Colour Project. The art-piece will tell the story of Bradford rich and fascinating history using a futuristic light, sound and movement show.

The Luminarium, which has been created specifically to be shown in Bradford, will be projected onto the front of City Hall throughout the festival.

Breathtaking aerial acrobatics will form the centrepiece of a new show created for the festival, performed in partnership by award-winning British Asian fusion arts company Nutkhut and aerial acrobatics specialists The Dream Engine.

The collaboration, titled Zamana – which means ‘time’ in Urdu – will see high-energy dynamic dancers performing a routine while an aerial acrobat performs above them, suspended from a huge helium balloon.

An interactive musical instrument, the Illumaphonium, will be set up for people to play during the festival. It features a tuned collection of illuminated aluminium chime bars, which respond to touch by generating constantly-changing patterns of light and sound.

There will also be a number of other interactive light installations around City Park and the city centre to try.

Bradford-based master puppet-makers Cecil Green Arts will be collaborating with Hebden Bridge-based puppeteers Handmade Parade to create 16 beautiful and quirky lantern sculptures which will grace City Park.

Some of the Illuminares sculptures will be almost six metres tall and will move and interact with the audience.

When dusk falls, three large sculputres will become animated, as if by magic, with the faces of members of the audience, and entertain crowds by lip-syncing to mysterious soundtracks as part of the Talking Heads installation.

A similar piece, Lightweight, will capture and animate people’s faces, projecting them onto an eight foot tall inflatable video sphere, which will stand out against the night sky.

Irritating roadworks will be transformed into artworks by the Bureau of Silly Ideas, a light installation with subversive silly twists aimed at raising a smile from motorists as they are stuck in traffic.

While all the attractions and performances are going on, a number of colourful and illuminated stilt-walkers and roaming jugglers will parade around City Park, entertaining and engaging with passers-by.

Funfair rides will also be set up in three different locations around the city centre, and there will also be food and drink stalls selling a range of meals and refreshments.

All the attractions are free to attend and take part in.

Councillor Sarah Ferriby, executive member for Environment, Sport and Culture, said: “This year we are staging something really special.

“Illuminate Bradford is going to be wonderful and is packed with interesting and fun things to see.

“Events of this kind bring people into the city centre and offer our communities important opportunities to share positive experiences together.

“The event is free and everyone is welcome.”

The Illuminate Bradford festival follows on from the similar Forest of Light art installation which took over the Mirror Pool in City Park in October 2016.

The installation, put on by French light artists T.I.L.T., featured 59 gigantic, plant-like sculptures filling the city centre with shades of red, orange, gold and green light, from swaying red-tipped reeds to huge scarlet flowers, wild thistles, and golden rain-like shards which appeared to fall from the sky.

Crowds flocked to see the exhibition and walk among the lights, and it is hoped this year’s Illuminate Bradford will capture the imagination of the people of Bradford in a similar fashion.