Carnival and Culture Songs of Praise

Have you any idea where Europe's first Caribbean carnival was held?

Well, it was here, in Leeds

and every year it seems to get more spectacular.

But the city also hosts ballet, drama and many kinds of music

and we're keeping the beat in today's Songs Of Praise.

Well, with the big parade swinging through the streets tomorrow,

there are sequins to sew and feathers to fix. It's all great fun,

but you know Leeds has always known how to entertain a crowd.

Do you remember this?

The City Varieties Theatre, home to Britain's longest-running

television variety show, The Good Old Days.

CLASSICAL MUSIC PLAYS

Well, long before we had TV, on this stage,

a very young Charlie Chaplin clog danced.

Lillie Langtry performed knowing that the Prince of Wales had

sneaked in to watch her and Harry Houdini...

Well, he escaped.

And it was in this city in 1888

that the world's first moving picture sequences were filmed.

Two scenes were shot here using paper film on a single-lens camera

developed by the inventor Louis le Prince.

MELLOW JAZZ

But this is a city that loves music,

so it's no surprise that back in the '60s,

the UK's first full-time jazz course was established here,

at the Leeds College of Music,

and it's students from here who are warming up now

to provide some toe-tapping rhythms for our hymns this week.

We're definitely in for a happy day.

JAZZ BAND STRIKES UP

Leeds Carnival has its roots firmly in the sunshine of the Caribbean.

However, back in the 1960s,

the West Indian community here was very disconnected.

We needed something to bind us together

as people from all over the Caribbean.

Having an event where you don't need an invite,

everybody comes.

The best remedy for our homesickness is the carnival.

Most West Indians are very religious

and they didn't accept carnival,

for they think...well, they were saying we were doing devil work.

You know, because we're not sitting in a church singing and clapping.

My argument - life needs to be celebrated,

rather than we sit down with our head in the Bible reading.

And I do believe there is music in heaven.

So why not?

When members of Leeds carnival troupe celebrated

the start of the Tour de France,

they gave the first outing to new costumes by designer Hughbon Condor.

Both costumes had doves on,

and both costumes showed the dove in a highlight position,

flying above the whole crowd.

And of course there's one at ground level to have a much closer view

of the whole concert and the dove.

I wanted the doves to move, as well, so there was some flexibility,

not just static.

So I think it worked really well in terms of being able to create that.

It's all about celebration, it's all about niceness,

it's all about beauty, it's all about light.

So I suppose

if I was to describe it,

I would say that it's like a rainbow, the biggest rainbow

that maybe crosses Leeds in August,

on the August bank holiday, because

I think that's the one time that I see so many people come together.

So the streets of Leeds often resound with music,

not just from Carnival, but from solo performers like

Kristyna Myles, who was BBC Radio 5 Live's Busker Of The Year.

She's about to lead the congregation in a medley of the hymn

Blessed Assurance and a George Harrison song.

Sounds unlikely, but it works.

As buildings go, from the outside,

the former St Margaret of Antioch Church in inner-city Leeds

looks rather uninspiring.

But a wonderful surprise awaits you when you walk inside

with these neo-Gothic arches that draw the eye and lift the soul.

This is Left Bank Leeds, run by a collective of artists,

most of whom share a Christian ethos.

Local illustrator and artist Si Smith is part of the community,

so has curated exhibitions and shown his own work here.

Left Bank Leeds is this amazing old church

and it's used by the local community artists for exhibitions.

We have weddings here, parties, there's quite a few gigs

and things here.

So it's just a beautiful space that is

sort of part of the community now.

Now, you're an illustrator, you do cartoons more than anything.

-Quite a simple form of art really, isn't it?

-Yeah, yeah.

Hopefully it's sort of deceptively simple!

Tell me about Raised In Leeds, which was exhibited here.

Raised In Leeds was a piece that was commissioned

by the church Pastoral Aid Society

and they asked me

to illustrate the Stations of the Resurrection, which is

19 meetings with the risen Christ,

so it goes from the earthquake on Easter Sunday

through to Saul on the road to Damascus.

They asked me to illustrate those and they let me

update the story to modern-day Leeds.

It was lovely for me to be able to do that,

because it turned into a sort of love letter to Leeds.

It also means that people are connecting with it in a very

personal way and it's their personal surroundings here, isn't it?

Yes, and I think that's one of the great things about setting it

in the modern-day where it is, because those spaces,

they don't belong to me, they belong to everybody.

And I think as well, it's that thing of imagining yourself into the story.

And it's very easy to think about the Resurrection and think about...

it happened a long time ago and a long way away, to a very old people.

Whereas this way, the Resurrection is about now and I like that idea.

# When the trumpet of the Lord shall sound and time shall be no more

# And the morning breaks Eternal, bright and fair

# When the saved of Earth shall gather over on the other shore

# And the roll is called up yonder I'll be there

# When the roll is called up yonder

# When the roll is called up yonder

# When the roll is called up yonder

# When the roll is called up yonder I'll be there

# Let us labour for the Master from the dawn till setting sun

# Let us talk of all His wondrous love and care

# Then when all of life is over and our work on Earth is done

# And the roll is called up yonder I'll be there

# When the roll is called up yonder

# When the roll is called up yonder

# When the roll is called up yonder

# When the roll is called up yonder I'll be there

# When the roll is called up yonder

# When the roll is called up yonder

# When the roll is called up yonder

# Ooh

# When the roll

# Is called up yonder

# I'll be

# There, yeah

# I'll be

# There. #

There's music for all tastes in this city,

from one of the great prizes in the classical world,

the Leeds International Piano Competition,

which is held at the Town Hall...

..to a thriving contemporary music scene, reflecting

the tastes of the large student population that is here in the city.

Now, this is the world of MC hip-hop artist

and producer Andy Brooks, also known as Testament.

HE BEATBOXES

'Testament means like, an agreement, a contract, a covenant.'

And it was almost me saying...

I agree, I'm going to try and use music

in a way that's going to glorify God

and hopefully not just inflate my own ego.

'Hip-hop is a whole urban culture using...

'Very much associated with rap,

'which is basically rhyming poetry over a beat.'

'And beatboxing, which is also part of hip-hop culture,

'is making crazy sounds with your mouth -

'normally imitating drums and various instruments.'

Struggling with stuff like suffering, God only knows,

that's why I put my trust in Him because I...I don't even know.

'If I get on the mic and I start rapping about my life, God,'

who I everyday try and make the centre of it -

sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail -

but God, Jesus, Christianity is going to pop up

because that's my raison d'etre, that's what gets me

out of bed in the morning, it's what gives me hope.

That's what keeps me going when everything goes a bit pear-shaped.

So...every song I've ever released will have a reference to God in it.

Sometimes that's not deliberate!

'It seems to me that

'if you're trying to put Jesus at the centre of your life,

'even if you're talking about shoes,

'somehow, God is going to come into that.'

Faith is the thing that gets me through and is the ray of light

because sometimes the world can be quite dark and oppressive

and we need hope....

And so far, God has not let me down

and I have faith, even in the storms.

Um...it's God that sustains me.

Art and artists add flavour to this city,

from Yorkshire-born Henry Moore

with his world-famous sculptures

to Leeds Art Gallery, which houses one of the best

collections of 20th-century British art in the country.

This takes a bit of practice, doesn't it?!

'But it's photography that interests professional artist

'Steve Rayner, who explores themes of spirituality,

'drawing his inspiration from 19th-century photographic techniques.'

Take an ordinary piece of darkroom photographic paper...

Which is...that colour.

It's starting to go blue immediately.

And if you lay that down on top of there

and put that on top of it like that...

Clip it together...

What's this technique called?

It's called lumen printing, L-U-M-E-N...

-Lumen meaning light.

-Yes.

So how long do you have to leave it like that before you see a result?

What colour was it when we took it out of the packet?

Well, it was white, and it's quite deep blue now.

Well, we've already got a result.

It's really a matter of how long you choose to use it.

If we were to take that off there now,

we would have an image of that fern already.

Right, so can you give me an idea of what it looks like then, later?

This is one I did the Blue Peter thing on!

This has been going for about an hour and a half

and you can see it's gone from blue to a sort of purply-brown colour.

Nobody has ever seen this before,

this is the first time and it looks like that.

-SHE GASPS

-The colours are stunning!

-It brings out the extraordinary in the ordinary, doesn't it?

-Yes.

I'm making something primarily for me

and if I make something that I like,

that makes me feel good on the inside,

I hope it makes other people feel good too

and that does, generally speaking, seem to happen.

I think if you work too hard at it,

you end up with something that looks laboured.

Now, I recognise this in other disciplines

that you do actually have to put a lot of work in,

but at the same time, I think it should be something

that you enjoy yourself and something that feels good to you.

For lots of us, of course,

art is just something that's colourful and a nice shape and

we hang it on our wall in the living room, but what does it mean to you?

The thing I mentioned about it feeling good,

making someone feel good inside.

It has resonances with spirituality

and the spiritual dimensions of life because the way in which

people respond to art, there is an element of reverence to it...

which isn't always, I think, appropriate.

But the way in which people respond to art, it does something

to them on the inside, otherwise they wouldn't bother with it.

So it actually does something that they feel is important.

I actually think that that is in some way related

to the spiritual dimension of life,

or the spiritual aspect of life.

-So do you think it's time to unveil my great work of art?

-Absolutely!

-Here we go, then.

-Gosh, it's changed to be quite dark.

-It was blue when we first...

-We'll just pop it down here and...

-Would you like to take the top off?

-Oh, yes, please.

There we are.

If you just peel the plant off the paper...

Ah! Look at that!

-Gorgeous.

-Absolutely right.

# Every little step I've made

# Has brought me through this far

# It hasn't been an easy road But look at where we are

# I bought my funfair ticket

# It ain't always what it seems

# Fast, slow, merry go

# Some things still out of reach

# So I'm going to keep searching

# I'm going to keep preaching

# I'm going to keep pushing

# Because heaven knows

# I've never been a fan of being uncomfortable

# Scares me half to death and leaves me vulnerable

# But I'm stepping out The chance is mine to take

# I hope I'm brave enough

# To learn from my mistakes

# So I'm going to keep searching

# I'm going to keep reaching

# I'm going to keep pushing

# Because heaven knows

# I'm going to keep looking

# I'm going to keep trying

# I'm going to keep on trusting Waiting, hoping, praying

# Because heaven knows

# There's no cutting corners now It's going to take hard work

# It may require me to lay down my blood, sweat and hurt

# So I decided today this is my decree

# Whether they take it or leave it

# I'll be nobody else but me

# No, no, no, no-oh

# So I'm going to keep searching

# I'm going to keep reaching

# I'm going to keep pushing

# Because heaven knows

# I'm going to keep looking

# I'm going to keep trying

# I'm going to keep on trusting Waiting, hoping, praying

# Cos heaven knows. #

Leeds is the only English city outside London with its own ballet

and opera companies - the Northern Ballet Theatre and Opera North.

It also has a prestigious list of literary sons

and daughters like playwright Alan Bennett,

novelist Barbara Taylor Bradford and poet Tony Harrison.

In fact, poetry means a lot to a group who meet near here

called Survivors' Poetry.

'When there've been very difficult feelings

'and experiences in depressive times,'

I sometimes found that

actually expressing it in words,

on paper,

'is a way of sort of getting it out.'

There are two ways to look at your reflection

The first one is to...

'When I first started going to Survivors' a few years ago,

'there was quite a mixture of people

'and there still are people of different ages,

'people from different backgrounds, but the thing we have in common'

is that we've all experienced some kind of mental health issues.

What were some of the lowest moments that you remember?

I felt as if I was trapped

and I was frightened of everything.

I couldn't watch the television, because I was frightened of it.

I couldn't go out because I didn't feel safe to drive

and I was frightened to get on a bus. I couldn't go shopping

because I was frightened of going in a shop...

"This is my heavy, graceless form

"My solid legs, my belly like a heap of sand...

"But take note: this will weigh you down."

I think a lot of what I'm doing is expressing how I'm feeling

and how I'm experiencing the world

and God and other people.

You are revealing within that group some of your inner demons

-in a way, aren't you?

-Mm.

-Does that make you feel vulnerable?

It could do, but because it's such an accepting group,

and because we don't in any way criticise each other

or each other's poetry,

there isn't any judgment there at all.

And does God feel very real and present in your life?

Now, there are things that I couldn't do when

I was suffering from depression

and in the church context,

I do all sorts of things, even leading services sometimes.

I feel that the gifts that God has given me,

I'm much more able to use now and express who Jesus is for me

with other people in the church.

Father, we give You thanks for all who enrich our lives

with their creative talents.

You are the Word and the author of life stories.

You are the artist and know us in our true colours.

You are the source of light and life.

Inspire us to use all our gifts in Your service,

through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Well, Kristyna Myles is ready to sing us on our way now

as she leads the congregation in another musical medley,

this time of traditional gospel songs.

So we're going to finish, as we started,

with our toes tapping and our voices singing praise.

From Leeds and from me, bye-bye!

Next week, in a special junior edition,

David is joined by the winner of The Voice, Jermaine Jackman.

CBBC's Hacker T Dog visits Newcastle's Catholic Cathedral

and there'll be great family songs to sing along to.