News

A huge congratulations to the winners of our 2024 Innovation Award: Hope O’Brien, Caitlin Howe, Harshita Parekh, Alessandra Felci, Kornélia Nemcová, and Shannon Hill.

The Innovation Award is an exciting opportunity for final-year undergraduates to pitch an idea for an original project. We support successful candidates to turn their idea into a reality by providing funding, mentoring from Trinity Laban alumni, and expert guidance from industry professionals.

Launched in 2019 and open to all final-year undergraduate students at Trinity Laban, the competition provides a unique opportunity for emerging artists to access professional development support as they establish themselves within one of the fastest growing sectors of the UK economy. Made possible by The Higher Education Innovation Fund (HEIF), each winning project receives an award of up to £4,000 to use on development, and will benefit from a specially tailored mentorship programme.

Find out more about the winners, their projects, and their mentors below.

Winners:

Hope O’Brien and Caitlin Howe (Eye to Eye)

Hope O’Brien and Caitlin Howe are in their final year of the BA in Contemporary Dance and have formed the collective Eye to Eye. It aims to create interdisciplinary art, derived from research around social issues, particularly through a queer feminist lens. Working across dance, textiles, fine art and poetry, the collective believes a multimedia approach can build informative projects that speak to the complexity of human experiences. They want to utilise this range of skills to create safe spaces and open up conversations about challenging topics. Eye to Eye will be utilising the Trinity Laban Innovation Award to build a multimedia collection of research about consent.

Hope and Caitlin say: “We are excited to begin creating our Consent Event, this work is very necessary, and we are incredibly proud to have the support of Trinity Laban to make it happen.”

Harshita Parekh

Harshita Parekh, a British- Indian classical pianist, started her musical journey at the age of 8, under the guidance of Yuriy Chubarenko and is currently under the tutelage of Alexander Ardakov. Harshita is the founder of BM Piano & Music Theory Lessons, a practice which has been running for almost five years. Coming from a background where studying music is not common practice, she continues to introduce students to the journey of piano playing.

Alongside her studies, Harshita’s work focuses on exploring connections between classical piano and Bollywood music. Her project, ‘Bollywood at the Piano’ – Bach, Beethoven and Bollywood!, aims to explore how Bollywood music can be performed in classical settings and provide a new perspective on the piano.

Harshita says: “I feel very honoured and privileged to receive this year’s Innovation Award in a project which has been a vision for many years. I am grateful and excited to receive mentorship and recognition to start this new journey.”

Alessandra Felci

Alessandra Felci is an Italian-Swiss dancer and artist who discovered her passion for dance at the age of 7. She had the opportunity to train at the Accademia Ucraina di Balletto in Milan and later at the Ashkenazy Ballet Centre in Switzerland, where she passionately performed in ballet performances and international competitions. In addition to her dance journey, she also attended the linguistic high school and graduated with top marks. She continued her dance studies at Trinity Laban, where she received a scholarship for admission. Here, she developed and is still developing my technical ability, performance skills, and choreography, and she has begun to grow her artistic voice. In the last three years, she has had the opportunity to share her own creative work and perform on a variety of occasions. Finally, starting in September 2024, she is very enthusiastic about joining the company MA Emergence for which she has been selected. Her project is called Dance Has No Age.

Alessandra says: “Winning the Innovation Award fills me with immense pride and excitement. As a creative, I feel grateful for this opportunity and for the people who believe in me and will help me bring my project to life. This recognition energizes me to continue striving for excellence and pushing for more creativity.”

Kornélia Nemcová

Kornélia Nemcová is a London-based composer and musician from Slovakia. Her work often involves multidisciplinary collaborations, while aiming to bring about awareness of social issues and groups who are otherwise overlooked. The Stories of the Silent Voices project series will highlight music and art for social change, incorporating direct journalism and research from subject matter experts. The first one is premiering soon: A Woman’s War is a performance about the untold stories of Ukrainian women who had to flee Ukraine after the full-scale invasion of 2022, that directly incorporates spoken accounts acquired from interviews.

Kornélia says: “The transition into industry after university is tough for any artist. The Innovation Award smoothens that transition, while allowing me to tackle more ambitious, professional and impactful projects.”

Shannon Hill

Shannon Mairead Hill is a multidisciplinary artist. She has a strong passion for dance, circus, and bringing about constructive change in the larger creative industry. The project Atypical Creative has a specific interest in bridging the gap in the transition, from student to professional life. The main objective will be to help students become more confident, experienced, and educated about the evolving creative industries. While also providing them with the chance to interact in person, exchange knowledge and first-hand experience with one another. She plans to use the innovation award to host multiple events aimed at encouraging students in building their careers whilst still in education.

Shannon says: “I consider myself incredibly blessed to have this opportunity and to provide something that I think will help future generations of creatives. I am very excited, huge thanks to Trinity Laban for your support!”

Mentors

Becky Dell 

Becky Dell is the Conductor and Co-Founder of the Citizens of the World Choir, the UK’s leading refugees and allies choir. The choir has performed at Glastonbury Festival, regularly on the BBC, at Buckingham Palace for the Platinum Party at the Palace (winning a BAFTA for Best Live Event), The Royal Opera House and on the Great British Bake Off. She also runs a Music Academy in Blackheath and Greenwich and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Kate Scanlan

Kate is a Creative Producer working in the cultural sector since 1998. She has a track record of producing pioneering projects and curating transformative events with artists, young people and communities.

She is the Founder of Scanners’ Inc, a creative non-profit that creates connection in public spaces through culture, retail partnerships and the arts. Events like The Bridge, Popin’ Pete’s Pop Shop, Sofa Sessions and Fit Street bring people together and create joy. In a time when we’re lonelier than ever, this work boost mental health, provides positive intergenerational activity and makes a positive economic impact.

Kate is joint Creative Director/CEO of East London Dance with Tia Hassan, and together they have been Creative Directors for MOVE IT for nine years. She has also producer for Breakin’ Convention, Fuel, Sadler’s Wells, Battersea Power Station, Studio Wayne McGregor: Random Dance, EcoWorld London, Rambert, Lendlease Elephant Park, Croydon Council, English National Opera and others. Kate is a Clore Fellow and gives guest lectures at a range of organisations including Goldsmiths, Ravensbourne, UEL, Swindon Dance, Matthew Bournes’ Re:Bourne and for Shechter II.

Roswitha Chesher

Roswitha is an award winning director and film maker and has had many films and installations screened extensively both nationally and internationally, at various venues and film festivals. Her most recent collaboration with choreographer Rosemary Lee, a seven screen installation ‘Orchard Portraits’, was recently on show at Limerick City Art Gallery.

Originally trained as a dancer and choreographer, she enjoys bringing that knowledge to her work in all aspects of film making. Looking, watching and giving contributors time and space, capturing, editing and framing their presence. Roswitha has had the wonderful opportunity of collaborating with a really diverse mix of contributors and artists and enjoys the richness that this brings to her work.

Luke Birch

Luke began training at the Northern School of Contemporary Dance and completed his BA Hons degree at Trinity Laban. In 2009, he joined post graduate dance company Edge at London Contemporary Dance School. Professionally, he has performed for a variety of companies (Punchdrunk, Flexer and Sandiland, Janine Harrington) internationally alongside working with visual artists performing in galleries (Tate, Hayward Gallery). His choreographic work has been shown at Canterbury Festival, Saddlers Wells (Damn Fine Dance at Elixir Festival), The Place, Siobhan Davies Studios, Move it 2016 and Arts Depot. His most recent work commissioned by Loop Dance Company is currently touring the UK. Luke also has a passion for teaching and has delivered classes and workshops with Greenwich Dance, The Place, Independent Dance, Laban, London Studio Centre, Salzburg Academy of Experimental Dance, Shobana Jeyasingh and Candoco.