Diwali

Nottingham Castle is celebrating Diwali on Sunday 15 November, with a day of music and dance taking place in the Long Gallery. It runs from 11am to 4pm, and the whole thing is built around the festival's musical heritage, with live performances and free workshops running throughout.

On the music side, Kaafi Mahmud, Arijit Sen and Kamalbir Singh are performing Indian classical music. That's the listening part of the day, and it's paired with two dance workshops that you can actually join in with. Dr Chitra Acharya leads the Bollywood session, and Ankita Sethi takes the Kathak one, so there's a bit of both the high-energy Bollywood style and the more classical Kathak tradition on the go.

It's worth knowing who's leading those workshops if you're thinking of getting involved. Dr Acharya brings nearly three decades of community volunteering to her Bollywood teaching, and Ankita Sethi is a trained Indian classical Kathak dancer who completed her Masters under gurus Nandini Singh ji and Prerana Shrimali ji, and has been teaching Kathak for 15 years. Between them, they cover two very different sides of Indian dance.

Entry is standard admission to Nottingham Castle, which is £18 for adults, and kids go free up to 15 years, with a maximum of three per paying adult. The music and the workshops are part of that, so you can drift between the performances and the teaching throughout the day. It all takes place in the Long Gallery, from 11am to 4pm on Sunday 15 November.