CoLab
A fortnight festival of creativity and innovation.
No lectures, no classes, no assignments.
Every year, Trinity Laban’s atmosphere gets supercharged.
Guided by expert mentors, over 900 of our students come together with visiting artists from around the world to create, develop and rehearse projects.
You’ll build relationships across genres and disciplines, take risks, and experiment with ideas that couldn’t possibly work…
…or could they?
What is CoLab?
Projects often include an exciting range of styles and influences, exploring subject matters such as literature and art, community relationships, world-music, gender, and politics: from Motown to Mozart, ballet to Bollywood. CoLab has become renowned world-wide for its revolutionary approach.
CoLab is about helping each other develop our artistry.
CoLab 2024
79 projects took place over two weeks in February, including 35 student-proposed projects, four international co-creative projects, and three visiting companies. This year’s theme ‘Journey to the Heart’ prompted experimentation, risk-taking, and creativity, emphasising that collaboration in the arts is more important than ever. The fortnight-long festival saw students, colleagues, and guests explore and play outside of their comfort zone to reach new artistic heights.
International highlights included students working with musicians from Slovakia for the project Variations in Roma and Slovak Traditional Music, led by Trinity Laban alum Zoltan Gayas, creating arrangements through improvisation and exploration. Singapore’s contemporary dance group, The Presence Project, led by Trinity Laban alum and Honorary Fellow Peter Gn (PhD), collaborated with students to create the project No Detour at the Intersections. This multidisciplinary movement experience guided dancers and non-dancers through fun, in-the-moment contemporary dance routines and improvisations. Trinity Laban also worked closely with the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, based in Los Angeles, to bring together four separate projects inspired by the year’s theme – a true testament to the creative strength of our community.
Trinity Laban students also thrived working with UK-based companies, including Clod Ensemble, an internationally renowned performance company delivering an award-winning artistic programme with public engagement at its heart. Artistic Directors Suzy Wilson and Paul Clark joined forces with students on a project exploring the ensemble’s unique approach to interdisciplinary collaboration. During the festival, they journeyed into the heart of 27-years of performance making, delving into archive materials to foster connections and creating opportunities to find a shared language.
Showcases of the students’ work took place at Laban Building and Blackheath Halls – each a resounding success and reminder of the beauty of artistic collaboration.
CoLab 2023
74 wide-ranging projects explored subjects such as community, relationships, world-music, gender and politics, all centred on a revitalising and hopeful theme of ‘A Better Place’.
Students stepped into the spotlight for an explosive series of lunchtime concerts and evening showcases, beginning on Thursday 16 February and ending with an otherworldly finale at The Queen’s House, Royal Museums Greenwich, on Saturday 25 February.
Projects included TaSTE (Tracking and Smart Textiles Environments) exploring technologies that capture physical movement and transforming the human body into a musical instrument, a collaboration with the University of Southern California (USC) between USC choreographers and Trinity Laban composers, and Clod Ensemble’s project in which the audience share the dance floor with professional dancers and a live twelve-piece band Laban.
CoLab 2023, ‘Final Night’, was the culmination of extraordinary talent bursting at the seams on the verge of great accomplishments. Risk-taking creativity that perfectly encapsulates why new work is more important than ever.
I developed ways of working which I may otherwise not have thought of. For me, CoLab was the best part of my Trinity Laban experience.
Will Handysides, UK, BMus (Hons) Composition
CoLab 2022
With a theme of stories, CoLab 2022 was a riot of experimentation, risk-taking, and creativity that showed coming together to make new work is more important than ever. From puppetry to poetry, through innovation and tradition, the fortnight saw students, colleagues and guests collaboratively explore and play outside of their comfort zone.
I salute those who find a different way of working
Joe Townsend, Head of CoLab
CoLab 2021
CoLab 2021 is completely online and digital, so don’t expect the usual interactions, processes and performances.
However, human endeavour is infinitely more adaptable, ingenious and creative than the limitations of the tools we have to make our art.
I really believe that it is down to everyone in our community to make CoLab a unique rich learning experience as we support each other in making a new kind of creative experience. W
hether your project is the juxtaposition of art forms or an immersion in the skills of others, it is a challenge that we should all relish and even take delight in. And, as we emerge from solitude we will look back on this crazy and sometimes frustrating time and be able to say that we were there.”
Joe Townsend (Head of CoLab)
Project preview
Rome-based live-event producer, pianist and composer Dave Morecroft has been involved with CoLab for the last four years running Brexchange. For 2021, he focused on body percussion as a way to create sound without instruments, inspired by artists like Pentatonix. Theatre-maker, writer, poet and performer Claudia Creed mentored ‘Breaking The Binary’, a project exploring the roles and expectations of gender. Watch the adjacent video to learn more…
CoLab 2020
CoLab’s festival atmosphere results in an abundance of performance events across Trinity Laban and beyond. Students in previous years have taken CoLab to the National Maritime Museum, the Royal Opera House and even to Aarhus Royal Academy of Music in Denmark.
Trust the creative process.