Guest Director Anoushka Shankar announces huge multi-arts line up for Brighton Festival 3-26 May
7 world premieres include Wembley written by Nikesh Shukla (The Good Immigrant), Nikesh Patel (Starstruck) and Himesh Patel (Yesterday) in the aftermath of the 2024 riots
15 Brighton Festival commissions include mass public art project that invites anyone and everyone to draw their ‘New Dawn’
An incredible programme of South Asian music, dance and performance including Meera Syal, Aakash Odedra, Aditya Prakash, Aruna Sairam and Arooj Aftab
Other highlights include Nadine Shah, Rebecca Solnit, Martin Parr, Max Cooper, Hofesh Shechter and more
(Asian independent) Brighton Festival, the largest annual curated multi-arts festival in England, has revealed its programme for 2025. This year’s Guest Director, the Grammy-nominated and genre-defying musician, composer and activist Anoushka Shankar was inspired by the theme of ‘New Dawn’, working with Brighton Festival to shape a programme that imagines a hopeful future after a difficult time, celebrating our collective ability to recover, take action and come together to change the world for the better.
Brighton Festival, a major event in the international arts calendar, has a long tradition of attracting some of the most exciting performers from across the globe, this year as far afield as India, the US, Australia, Peru and Italy, as well as promoting local artists, and presenting fresh, challenging new work. This year’s Festival takes place 3-26 May, with 120 events across music, theatre, dance, circus, visual arts, film, literature, debate, outdoor and community throughout the city and beyond.
How dark it is before dawn is a major new participatory event for Brighton Festival 2025 in which artists Doyel Joshi and Neil Ghose Balser of Howareyoufeeling.studio invite anyone and everyone to draw their ‘New Dawn’. The hundreds or thousands of drawings will be showcased in a final, major exhibition at The Old Courtroom showcasing the city’s collective ideas for a new dawn and way forward. Drawing materials will be available in locations across Brighton and everyone can get involved.
Anoushka Shankar says:
“For Brighton Festival 2025, we look towards a New Dawn. Together with the Brighton Festival team, I’ve been shaping a programme that envisions a hopeful future – an emergence from the dark of night into the glow of early morning. For years now there have been many reasons to worry, to lose hope. But we have the power within us to create an alternate future. That’s what Brighton Festival 2025 is about – let’s come together to reflect, lift each other up and take action. This is a festival for everyone to participate in, to connect with, to feel part of. I can’t wait.”
Shankar has invited artists who have inspired her over the years, including mesmerising Pakistani-American vocalist Arooj Aftab and Mercury Prize-nominated singer songwriter Nadine Shah. World premiere and Brighton Festival commission Wembley is a new performance piece written by acclaimed author and screenwriter Nikesh Shukla (The Good Immigrant) and actors Nikesh Patel (Starstruck) and Himesh Patel (Yesterday) in the aftermath of the UK’s 2024 race riots, wrestling with their place in this country and calling for change.
Anoushka Shankar herself performs her new album, Chapter III: We Return to Light. With 30 years’ performing and eleven Grammy nominations, Shankar has spent her career redefining conventions in the sitar and in world music. This performance marks the culmination of her recent trilogy of mini-albums; following Chapter I: Forever, For Now and Chapter II: How Dark it is Before Dawn, it completes the cycle, looking towards a new dawn – a time of strength, wisdom and change. The event is supported by major supporters, the Bagri Foundation.
Shankar will co-host and perform in a specially curated version of Brown Girl In The Ring, supported by Dishoom Permit Room. The platform, founded by Sweety Kapoor, celebrates female talent across music, film and culture – featuring an exceptional cohort of award-winning poets, actors, dancers, musicians and activists including Mona Arshi, Nikita Gill, Asha Puthli, Meera Syal (CBE) and Indira Varma.
In Room-i-Nation, supported by the Bagri Foundation, young virtuoso of South Indian Karnatik music Aditya Prakash combines live music, sound, video projection and personal stories to reflect on his experience growing up as an Indian man in America, offering a hopeful look at bridging cultures and musical traditions.
In dance, award-winning choreographer Aakash Odedra’s spiritual and captivating solo piece Songs of the Bulbul is inspired by the Persian myth of the caged bulbul bird’s final song, combining Indian classical dance with Sufi kathak and Islamic poetry to create a work of ‘exquisite beauty and sadness’ (The Scotsman). And renowned Bharatanatyam dancer Mythili Prakash presents Jwala, a spellbinding solo performance exploring fire as a symbol of destruction and rebirth, part of the international programme supported by Brighton Festival principal supporter The Pebble Trust.
Brighton Festival co-commission Theatre of Dreams is the thrilling new work from the world renowned Hofesh Shechter Company, that dives into a world of fantasy and the subconscious, revealing hidden fears, hopes, desires and emotions, accompanied by live musicians performing a cinematic score. AYNA is a world premiere from British-Turkish choreographer Ceyda Tanc, set in a nightclub with a live DJ and featuring an all-female cast, weaving Turkish folk traditions and athletic contemporary dance to explore our universal desire for love and belonging. In circus, with support from The Pebble Trust, Australia’s Circa return to Brighton Festival with their visionary Humans 2.0, combining acrobatics, contemporary dance and a pulsing electronic score to deliver a groundbreaking show that pushes physical limits to their extremes and questions what it means to be human.
The international theatre programme, supported by The Pebble Trust, includes Peruvian theatre company Teatro La Plaza’s defiant reinvention of Shakespeare’s Hamlet, performed by a remarkable community of actors all with Down syndrome. From Italy, The Gummy Bears Great War is a short, unique, charming exploration of the absurdity of war, played out on a table with real candy gummy bears.
The legendary theatre director Emma Rice and her company Wise Children take on Alfred Hitchcock in a riotously funny reworking of North by Northwest that turns the original thriller on its head.
Leading American feminist writer Rebecca Solnit joins former Green MP Caroline Lucas to talk about her new collection of essays No Straight Road Takes You There, making her case for the power of collective action. In a Brighton Festival Exclusive, writers Shon Faye and Torrey Peters come together to discuss queer and trans love and desire alongside their new books Love in Exile and Stag Dance. Internationally renowned author Robert Macfarlane presents his most personal and political book yet: Is a River Alive? explores the idea that rivers are living beings, taking readers on an exhilarating journey from Ecuador to Southern India, to Quebec.
The Brighton Festival Film Unit screens its new documentary film about music education hub Create Music’s Orchestra 360, a music group for children and young people with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities supported by major sponsor Mayo Wynne Baxter, alongside its two other films, plus a special live performance from the Orchestra.
In classical, Anoushka Shankar performs her father Ravi Shankar and American composer Philip Glass’s pioneering album Passages, for the first time since the BBC Proms in 2017, alongside an ensemble of Indian classical musicians and the Britten Sinfonia. And the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and Brighton Festival Chorus play the UK premiere of Academy Award-winning film composer Rachel Portman’s new concerto, Tipping Point, as part of a nature-themed programme that also includes Sibelius’s orchestral hymn to the Finnish forests and American eco-activist composer John Luther Adams’s choral prayers to Mother Earth.
A special performance supported by the Bagri Foundation brings together two incredible talents for the first time: Aruna Sairam, a giant of Indian classical music and Ganavya, a rising star who melds South Asian sounds with spiritual jazz.
In contemporary music, supported by Graves Son & Pilcher, ground-breaking electronic artist Max Cooper brings his most ambitious show yet to the Concert Hall: an immersive experience of luminous sculptures created with projections, lights and lasers accompanying his legendary ambient and beat-driven soundscapes. And Shiva Soundsystem’s founder Nerm welcomes his friends and top secret star guests to the decks for a super special closing party for Brighton Festival 2025.
In the world premiere Beside the Sea, photographers Martin Parr and JJ Waller have come together to create a ground-breaking exhibition of supersized photographs that can only be seen from the top deck of a bus fixed to the flat roofs of many of the city’s bus shelters.
For children and young people, Future City: Brighton 2125 calls all young makers, inventors and creators to come to Brighton Dome Corn Exchange to build a Brighton & Hove of the future using recycled materials. Supported by Brighton College Prep School, Pocket Shakespeare is a celebration of the ‘best bits’ of Shakespeare with former Children’s Laureates Michael Rosen and Chris Riddell, with live illustration and a lot of laughs.
Without Walls returns with plenty of free, family-friendly events in outdoor locations across Brighton and Crawley including Hydropunk, a fun and interactive installation in which participants must work together to conserve and recycle 1,000 litres of water; Eshu at the Crossroads, which brings the vibrancy of Yoruba culture to life with dance, puppetry and music, and Go Grandad, Go!, a hip-hop dance and theatre show exploring intergenerational family relationships.
The Children’s Parade, supported by Brighton Girls, is back for opening weekend, and, after its roaring success last year, Brighton Table Tennis Club returns with a Table Tennis Day for the whole family, with 20 tables, music and food, and Paralympic medal winners Will Bayley and Bly Twomey.
Lucy Davies, Chief Executive of Brighton Dome & Brighton Festival says:
“Brighton Festival 2025 is a magnificent body of work – inclusive, generous, global, confident, inter-generational, classical and very cool. Anoushka Shankar has guided, created and curated a very brilliant set of projects which radiate care – for one another, the planet, art, music, ourselves. There are unique events in here which will be memory-making – lucky people of the future will be able to say ‘I was there.’ That is what Brighton Festival is all about. I’m honoured and excited to share it with the world.”
Brighton Festival 2025 is indebted to the steadfast support of funders Brighton & Hove City Council and Arts Council England; Principal Supporter The Pebble Trust; Major Supporter the Bagri Foundation; Major Sponsor Mayo Wynne Baxter; Higher Education Partner University of Sussex; and wider supporters, donors, patrons and members.
Dean Orgill, Chief Executive at Mayo Wynne Baxter says:
“Mayo Wynne Baxter has been serving the people and businesses of Sussex for generations, much like Brighton Festival’s enduring legacy of enriching our community through the arts. This year’s ‘New Dawn’ theme resonates deeply with our commitment to progress and inclusivity. We are thrilled to once again sponsor Brighton Festival, celebrating the power of arts and culture to connect and inspire all.”
Dr Alka Bagri, Trustee, Bagri Foundation says:
“We are delighted to support Brighton Festival 2025 under the artistic direction of Anoushka Shankar. This year celebrates the vibrant heritage of South Asian talent while fostering meaningful creative collaborations. It is exciting to champion such dynamic programming, and we cannot wait for audiences to discover the transformative power and rich storytelling traditions of South Asian music.”
Brighton Festival takes place from 3-26 May 2025. Visit
