Encounter intriguing and inventive music and dance in our live events programme.
Running from May to July, our summer season takes Trinity Laban talent to venues across the capital to celebrate innovative new works and contemporary voices across artforms.
Highlights include a new opera, two festivals, three musical theatre productions, a host of new dance works and a rousing call to climate action.
Hope 4 Justice
Co-created by composer Eska Mtungwazi, Young Person’s poet laureate Cecilia Knapp, choreographer Sarah Golding and hundreds of local young people, Hope 4 Justice will highlight global and local climate concerns and look to the future with hope. The cross-artform piece featuring dance, music and spoken word will be presented at Catford’s Mountsfield Park as part of Lewisham Borough of Culture 2022 in partnership with Lewisham Music.
Dance
An annual highlight, Dance Legends (Thu 30 Jun – Fri 1 Jul) features a selection of works by choreographers who have made significant contributions to the development of contemporary dance. This year’s programme includes Protima Chatterjee Unfettered Mind, Candoco’s Still by Nigel Charnock and experts from Studio Wayne McGregor Autobiography performed by second year students.
This season also sees dance students from across our programmes present new work, starting with two programmes of original choreographic work by second-year BA (Hons) Contemporary Dance students Mon 9 May & Tue 10 May).
Third year students will delight and intrigue audiences with theatre-based and site-specific dance works, films and installations for Dance in Situ (Wed 18 Jun) in a culmination of their artistic exploration and choreographic investigation, before presenting work which has been developed through intensive periods of creative exploration with professional choreographers including Diva Kasturi in the second instalment of Commissioned Works (Tue 14 Jul).
Across two weeks, the Faculty of Dance presents the annual Graduate Showcase (Mon 18 – Fri 29 Jul), spotlighting new work from artists studying on our masters and research degree programmes. Expect experimental and investigative pieces, drawing on collaborative and interdisciplinary practices that incorporate live performance, film and video, installation, and documentary processes.
Festivals
Changemaker Festival at Blackheath Halls (Thu 26 – Fri 27 May) celebrates the diverse and rich work of our BA (Hons) Music Performance and Industry students.
Curated by Douglas Finch, New Lights Contemporary Festival of Piano and Contemporary Music returns to our King Charles Court campus for a riot of experimental music making (Mon 20 & Tue 21 Jun). The festival has earned a reputation for showcasing a diverse range of composed and improvised contemporary music for keyboard, electronic and multi-media performance. Each day will feature a series of performances from students, alumni, composers and guest artists, and will culminate in an interactive improvisational ‘happening’ across multiple spaces.
Continuing their successful UK Tour, Nic Pendlebury and Trinity Laban String Ensemble bring A Change of Season to Latitude Festival in Suffolk (Thu 21 & Fri 22 Jul). A response to the climate emergency, the programme reimagines Vivaldi’s iconic masterpiece The Four Seasons and revives Hollie Harding’s immersive and eco-political Melting, Shifting, Liquid World, exploring the seasons as they should be and contemplating what they may become.
Productions
In their last shows before transitioning into the profession, third year musical theatre students take to The Albany stage to present two movie-inspired shows: Carrie the Musical (Fri 20 May – Sat 21 May) and Footloose the Musical (Fri 27 – Sat 28 May).
Based on the Stephen King novel Carrie with music by Michael Gore and Lyrics by dean Pitchford, the show centres on a teenage girl with telekinetic powers whose lonely life is dominated by an oppressive religious fanatic mother. When she is humiliated by her classmates at the high school prom things take a turn and chaos is unleashed on everyone and everything in her path.
Based on the classic 1980s film, Footloose tells the story of city boy Ren who moves to a rural backwater in America where dancing is banned. He decides to break loose and soon has the whole town up on its feet.
In June, it’s the turn of second year students who present Andrew Lippa’s heart-warming and magical Big Fish at Blackheath Halls (Mon 20 – Sat 25 Jun).
Devised by Head of Vocal Studies Jennifer Hamilton, Strozzi! brings to life the intriguing world of seventeenth-century Venetian composer Barbara Strozzi in a collage of words and music (Thu 7 – Sat 9 Jul).
Concerts and competitions
Open to student ensembles across our Faculty of Music, the Carne Trust Chamber Competition showcases the technical and creative skill of our musicians. In the final, Beyond the Bell, Bolling Quartet, Meridian Guitar Quartet and Waldstein Quartet will compete at St John Smith Square for a share of the generous prize fund (Wed 22 Jun).
Continuing our Black Culture 365 programme, composer and recitalist Althea Talbot-Howard presents the British premieres of original compositions and new realisations of music by Chevalier de Saint-Georges, Coleridge-Taylor, and Sancho at St Alfege (Thu 30 Jun).
Trinity Laban Symphony Orchestra will take Cadogan Hall audiences on a tour of early twentieth century London through the eyes and ears of Vaughan Williams with ‘A London Symphony’ under the direction of Gerry Cornelius, before being joined by Soloists’ Competition 2022 winner Kyle Nash-Baker for Beethoven’s Piano Concerto No.3 (Tue 28 Jun).
Trinity Laban’s Sinfonia Strings and Wind Ensembles come together at Blackheath Halls (Thu 12 May) to perform Handel’s Water Music, directed by Walter Reiter.
To mark the end of another successful academic year, our junior departments will mount shows and presentations in July. Junior Trinity takes to the stage at Cadogan Hall for a concert and prizegiving ceremony (Sat 9 Jul), while Laban Theatre hosts the Centre for Advanced Training End of Year Show (Sat 9 Jul) and the annual summer show for participants from our Children’s Creative Dance Classes (Sat 2 Jul).
For full listings, ticketing info and booking visit our What’s On page.
