Creative director of Bradford’s Kala Sangam arts centre on the name change and City of Culture 2025

The situation was made even more delicate by the fact that Kala Sangam’s current creative director Alex Croft is, in his own words, “a white middle-class male”.

But speaking to The Yorkshire Post, Croft says an extensive consultation process run by a firm called Out of Place and involving hundreds of people across different community groups in Bradford demonstrated consistent support for a change; while the reception to the formal name change announcement has been “overwhelmingly positive”.

He says: "It backs up what Out of Place told us they had found as part of our wide-ranging consultation.

“That was that actually the majority of communities in Bradford from all heritages want us to be proud and shouting about the fact that we are from Bradford.

“We knew there were people for whom Kala Sangam was a really special name that meant a great deal to them. But most people seem to have reacted really positively.”

The company was originally founded back in 1993 by husband-and-wife Dr Shripati Upadhyaya and Dr Geetha Upadhyaya. Dr Shripati had a special interest in the creative use of arts to help people with disabilities, while Dr Geetha was an expert in the Indian classical dance form of Bharatanatyam. They originally ran the organisation from their home in Leeds before moving it to new premises in Bradford in 1996.

When the organisation moved into St Peter’s House, Bradford’s former General Post Office, in 2008 it started to broaden its focus and the process was accelerated in 2017 when Croft arrived after Dr Geetha left her role as artistic director.

Part of the impetus behind the name change is to make the organisation’s purpose clearer to the general public ahead of a major redevelopment of their headquarters in the historic St Peter’s House, which used to be Bradford’s General Post Office.

In addition to that, the name change also seeks to tackle the delicate subject of what the 39-page consultants’ report describes as a “problematic” part of the existing name.

In Sanskrit, 'Kala' means arts (while 'Sangam' means a meeting point) but in some communities it means ‘black’. In 2017, an opinion article in Pakistani newspaper Dawn called for an end to the word being used as an insult.

The article said: “Many South Asians both in the United States and in South Asia use terms like ‘kala’ to derogatorily refer to African-Americans and peoples of African descent.”

Croft was previously Arts Council England’s dance relationship manager for the North and says the Kala Sangam role was “a dream job”.

Croft says: "I’ve not said this publicly before but in my interview I said I want to kick the doors of the building open and really make sure we got the people of Bradford into that space.

"The name change and the capital redevelopment is almost the culmination of that work. It has gone really well but I probably didn’t realise quite how ambitious it was when I was pitching it.”

He says he and the organisation have treated the concerns about ‘white-washing’ its roots with utmost seriousness.

"It is one of the reasons why we have taken so long to do this piece of work and have had independent consultants to deliver it.

"We made sure we spoke to a huge diversity of communities across Bradford including a lot of South Asian communities. We have been constantly challenging during this process to make sure the evidence really stacked up that we did need to change the name.

"It became very clear early in the process that ‘Kala’ was the confusing, problematic area of our brand. We did look at whether we were able to just maintain ‘Sangam’ but ultimately it was about making it as clear and accessible to communities, including people who don’t speak English as a first language.

"We did all these community consultations and there was only one where those groups didn’t say to us, ‘You should just be called Bradford Arts Centre’. That includes Indian classical dance artists, older women who were born in Pakistan, refugee communities.

"There was a real diversity of people and the consistent name that came through was ‘Bradford Arts Centre’. It took us by surprise. We were expecting probably to be presented with a range of choices but we were told, ‘We’ve listened to everybody and there’s only really one name that everyone says you should be called’.

“There is a little bit of a perception that somehow this is my process and that genuinely isn’t the case. We’ve got an extremely diverse staff team who have been consulted throughout and the whole process has been led by our board, who are South Asian-led with six out of 10 of our trustees of South Asian heritage.”

Croft says he hopes those concerned about the name change take the opportunity to read the full consultants’ report on the Kala Sangam website.

"People will see we have tried to approach this as sensitively and appropriately as possible.

"A lot of the time it is my role to shut up and listen to other people whose opinions are more valid and appropriate than mine. I hope people who have a day-to-day engagement with myself and Kala Sangam see that. But we are not idiots – I know optically what sometimes it can look like when mine is the voice representing Kala Sangam.”

With Kala Sangam’s building due to close to the public from November for major redevelopment scheduled to finish in mid-2025, there are plans to keep the Sangam part of the name by using it as the name of either the organisation’s new theatre or studio space.

Croft says he is excited about what is ahead: “We go from having one studio available every day for arts or outreach or education to having five available every day. There are major access challenges to our building for people in wheelchairs at the moment. Two new lifts will open access throughout the space. It really will be transformational.”

While the building work is taking place, the organisation will move to temporary offices in the Little Germany part of Bradford and are planning a series of performances in other spaces in the city.

Should all go to plan, the new and improved Bradford Arts Centre will open during the 2025 City of Culture year and play a central part in it.

"Success for me would be is that by 2026 we have new local people coming into our building. It might be some on a regular basis, some just for one show or a workshop. We want that combined with no-one telling us ‘I didn’t think that space was for me’. That for me is the measure of success.” ​​​​​​​