Summary
Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance is a specialist institution of international standing that integrates elite education of professional dance, music and musical theatre artists; leading research and creative practice; professional performance programmes showcasing established and emerging talents; innovation support and CPD for cultural enterprises and practitioners; and a prominent role in facilitating lifelong public participation in our art forms.
Throughout its history, Trinity Laban has been characterised by risk-taking, creativity and a mission to reach out to all sections of society as a force for cultural and social progress. Its stature and reputation as a receptive collaborator and innovator make the Conservatoire a sought-after partner among professional companies, public and third sector organisations and government agencies.
Institutional context
Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance is an international centre of excellence in the performing arts. Throughout its history, Trinity Laban and its precursor institutions have been characterised by risk-taking, creativity and a mission to reach out to all sections of society as force for cultural and social progress. Knowledge exchange is integral to Trinity Laban as an outward-looking, creative and collaborative organisation. Our vision for knowledge exchange is:
To make Trinity Laban’s knowledge, expertise and facilities available to our industries and communities to promote transformational artistic, societal, educational and economic outcomes.
We view the arts as a force for both personal fulfilment and societal good, and seek to place music and dance at the centre of civic life. Our 2022-2025 Knowledge Exchange and Public Engagement Plan sets out four priority areas: Civic and Public Engagement, Arts Industry Engagement, Graduate Enterprise and Employability, and Knowledge Exchange Policy and Practice. The principles and values underpinning all our knowledge exchange activity are that:
Everyone has the right to participate in the arts and to explore their own creativity
Diversity and inclusion in the arts will increase the sustainability of our art forms and influence societal change
We have a mission to inspire and effect change in the professional arts sector and wider society
We value sustained and meaningful partnerships
We have taken a strategic lead nationally in professional and organisational development for arts companies and freelance practitioners and educators, and in community engagement in music and dance. Our artistic programmes at the Laban Theatre, Blackheath Halls and partner venues showcase performances by leading national and international artists and new work developed through commissioning and support for artists, alongside the work of our students and staff and the artistic achievements of our local communities. Trinity Laban is constantly working in multiple ways to understand and overcome the barriers facing under-represented groups in accessing the arts. We collaborate with local authorities, music hubs, SMEs, other HEIs and arts organisations to serve diverse communities and target those least likely to access cultural opportunities. We operate a programming policy across music and dance that champions inclusive practice by embracing a rich mix of artistic and curatorial voices.
Trinity Laban works as a catalyst and partner with other organisations, sharing experience and capacity to mutual benefit. We act as a broker and enabler for organisations and individuals to connect not only to the Conservatoire’s own expertise and facilities but to many different communities of practice within our wider network, drawing in our HE staff and students, participants, professional companies and freelance artists, and policy and funding bodies. Across our knowledge exchange programmes, we embed rigorous research and evaluation methodologies in order to explore and disseminate effective practice and optimise value to partners and beneficiaries.
Every year, our public and industry engagement programmes reach a broad spectrum of individuals and organisations. The following infographic sets out participation figures over the past three years.
Figure : table of public engagement statistics 2019-2022
For further information, please send queries to Contact@trinitylaban.ac.uk
Local Growth and Regeneration
Summary of approach
Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance has a strategic commitment to increasing access to the arts, education, employment and opportunity in its local community, and encouraging investment in the infrastructure and wellbeing of SE London where diverse neighbourhoods include thriving cultural activity alongside pockets of disadvantage and deprivation. Working in partnership with local authorities, and industry and community networks and agencies, Trinity Laban is an important source of expertise, talent, resource and space to nurture a growing creative industry cluster that is a vital economic contributor in an area largely lacking large-scale employers. We act as a cultural anchor institution, contributing to local growth and pride for residents, businesses and visitors through participation in and engagement with the arts.
Aspect 1: Strategy
Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance was established with a founding principle to be a significant resource to its local and regional community, and an exemplar for the role of the specialist HEI in supporting the cultural economy. Contribution to local growth and regeneration has always been central to its institutional purpose and strategy, and it retains a core objective ‘to make Trinity Laban’s knowledge, expertise and facilities available to our industries and communities to promote transformational artistic, social, educational and economic outcomes.’
This overarching goal is reflected in specific aims for local contribution in Trinity Laban’s Knowledge Exchange and Public Engagement Plan 2022-2025, including:
To act as cultural catalyst in our communities, promoting and enabling participation, regeneration, prosperity and social cohesion
To strengthen and capitalise on our existing partnerships and establish new relationships and collaborations that promote and enable the dissemination and application of TL’s knowledge
[There is significant overlap and synergy between strategy and activity for local regeneration and for public engagement, notably in respect of arts participatory and health work which addresses local social needs. To avoid duplication, commentary on that work can be found in the public engagement narrative.]
Trinity Laban is an international conservatoire that operates in global, national and local spheres, but its most in-depth and longstanding knowledge exchange programmes and partnerships exist in its home boroughs of Greenwich and Lewisham. It prioritises growth and regeneration in SE London both as its home base, and as an area historically underserved in the arts. Trinity Laban has attracted funding and creative enterprise to the vicinity; promoted social inclusion and cohesion; bolstered the visitor economy; and enhanced the physical environment.
The Conservatoire has strong relationships with its local authorities which operate at governance, strategic and operational levels. Councillors from Greenwich and Lewisham sit as co-opted members on the Conservatoire’s Board of Governors to ensure that institutional planning at the highest level takes account of identified community needs, and works in concert with local economic, social and cultural priorities. Trinity Laban has contributed to borough strategies for the arts, health and sustainable communities. The Conservatoire is engaged in key regeneration locations such as Bellingham and Downham in Lewisham, and Woolwich in Greenwich.
Trinity Laban champions meaningful partnership as a way to understand the ongoing and changing needs of its local residents. Since 2021 the Conservatoire has been part of a Civic University Agreement (CUA) with London Borough of Lewisham as one of the 12 anchor organisations. The network is hosted by Goldsmiths University and aims to improve the lives of those living, working, creating and learning in the borough through joined up working. Partners include those from the education, cultural and community sectors alongside public sector, health and housing providers. The work focuses on four priority areas: Educational Opportunities; Economic Prosperity, Jobs and Growth; Culture, Health and Wellbeing; and Environmental Sustainability.
The CUA supplements our ongoing contribution to the SHAPESLewisham Creative Enterprise Zone for Deptford and New Cross, an initiative of the Mayor of London to provide investment and support for artists and creative businesses which aims to retain creative talent from the borough’s education institutions and increase affordable spaces for the fast-growing creative sector. The Conservatoire is an active member of other local networks including the Lewisham Education and Arts Network, Greenwich Cultural Forum, and World Heritage Site Partnership. These associations promote shared understanding of local issues and coherent planning to address them.
Alongside these standing mechanisms for gaining intelligence to inform our local strategies, Trinity Laban communicates directly with intended beneficiaries of growth and regeneration initiatives. For example, in 2021 it commissioned external consultants Producer’s Attic to produce a report on Supporting Dance Artist’s Practice and Production at Trinity Laban, looking at evidence, reflections and recommendations to inform the development of dance artist support interventions contributing to the local enterprise hub.
106 local artists were canvassed with 79 survey respondents, 17 focus group participants, 5 interviewees and 5 TL round table members. This research has underpinned subsequent activities such as the Thrive programme described below. The Conservatoire has also held public consultations on its plans for a new development adjacent to its Laban Building in Deptford that will expand public access to its services and facilities.
Aspect 2: Activity
Trinity Laban’s approach to local growth and regeneration encompasses four broad strands of activity, built on identified need and governed by its specialist mission and expertise:
1. Support for the local cultural industry sector
Trinity Laban provides organisational development and innovation support for local artists and arts companies. Some examples of recent and ongoing work are:
New artistic product development
The Conservatoire offers bespoke resources to support creation of artistic work and ease the path of that product to market: cash commissions, high-specification creation space and equipment, practice-based expertise, and advice on production marketing and audience development. Examples include:
Providing tailored facilities for hire for rehearsals and recordings, used by ensembles including Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia, Britten Sinfonia, London Philharmonic Orchestra, and English National Opera (including filming their TikTok opera)
Providing professional performance facilities including box office and marketing expertise for performances at Blackheath Halls
Resident artists programmes which allow professionals to draw on both our physical spaces and our artistic resources (staff, students and alumni) to experiment and create e.g. in 2020 resident artist in Dance Theo TJ Lowe developed Let Me Move , a powerful response to the restrictions of the pandemic which was followed in December 2021 by a new work Let Me Move continued: Part 2, an integrated music and dance work was presented at the Laban Theatre.
Offering free or highly subsidised facilities for musicians to record or stream during Covid used by artists including Nicky Spence, Nardus Williams, Jessica Walker in a new commission for Lichfield Festival, and The Hermes Experiment, whose repertoire included new commissions by Eleanor Alberga, Trinity Laban alum Ayanna Witter-Johnson and Raymond Yiu
Partnerships enabling young singers from the Jette Parker Young Artists Programme (Royal Opera House), Harewood Artists (English National Opera) and locally based organisation Song Easel to develop their skills leading masterclasses with Trinity Laban and other Conservatoire students, and performing in recitals at Blackheath Halls
Employing artists and creative teams to perform and produce within our professional performance programmes, and to act as workshop leaders for community engagement projects
Building professional artists’ skills and post-pandemic recovery
Trinity Laban delivers artist development programmes that enable freelance artists to build sustainable creative careers by diversifying their skills base in response to current economic demands and arts and social policy drivers, and hence build the collective capability, capacity and adaptability of the local creative sector. Flexible provision includes both in-person and online modes and novel approaches such as action learning sets, MOOCs and summer schools.
As the performing arts begins to recover from the impact of the pandemic, Trinity Laban’s continuing professional development programmes have offered vital support to the industry, particularly the freelance workforce that underpins the capacity and resilience of the UK’s arts sector. In 2021-2022, the Conservatoire received funding from the Creative Enterprise Zone to run Thrive, a professional development programme targeting early career freelance dance professionals to sustain or create at least 33 jobs for every 100 participants. The programme responds to a demand for affordable and appropriate training opportunities for dance artists to develop an entrepreneurial mindset and skills and maintain their professionalism. To date it has offered subsidised business skills and professional development classes creating 330 opportunities to participate and providing the CPD needed to support dancers to continue their work as micro businesses.
Work with museum sector to promote visitor engagement and cultural tourism
Trinity Laban has institutional partnerships with Royal Museums Greenwich and the Horniman Museum Lewisham. It delivers regular performance projects at these venues to animate collections and engage wider public interest and involvement. Every year, we feature an object selected from the Horniman Museum. Placed on the ramp in the Laban Building, it inspires some of the programming at the Horniman Museum and Garden’s Summer Festivals, including commissioned work and participatory opportunities and performances.
2. Graduate and student contribution to local enterprise and social regeneration
There has been rapid expansion of the creative and digital sectors in Greenwich and Lewisham in recent years, fuelled by the attraction and retention of emerging talents by resident specialist arts HEIs. Graduates regularly go on to form companies, many growing from collaborations and projects undertaken at Trinity Laban. The Conservatoire offers guidance and training on how to operate a creative business, both within curricula and through the careers and alumni services. Since 2019-20, it has run an Innovation Award scheme which offers final year undergraduates seed funding and mentoring from prominent industry figures to develop a creative business proposition with criteria emphasising contribution to local productivity and social and economic return. The award is made at the end of the final year of UG study and the mentoring provided in the 10 months after graduation thereby easing the awardees’ transition into the next stage of their creative career.
Student/graduate involvements in knowledge exchange support place-making, innovation and community cohesion through the varied and extensive interventions in the locality as artists, educators and volunteers. The Institution systematically facilitates community and industry engagement and offers many voluntary and credit-bearing placements connecting to local partners such as Entelechy Arts, Horniman Museum, Streetwise Opera and Lewisham & Greenwich NHS Trust. Students also contribute to skills development of young people from disadvantaged backgrounds, addressing barriers to highly skilled employment and diversifying the talent pipeline into the creative industries sector.
3. Place shaping and reclamation/improvement of the public environment
The dual relocations of Laban and Trinity College of Music respectively to the Laban Building in Deptford and the Old Royal Naval College were pivotal to the revitalisation, through culture, of an area that had suffered greatly from post-industrial decline and economic deprivation. The Laban Building development reclaimed a contaminated brownfield site, and was credited as the key driver in the regeneration of Deptford Creekside. The Conservatoire’s renovation and occupation of King Charles Court brought back public access to a landmark building, helping to open up a World Heritage Site to residents and visitors to the benefit of the local cultural economy.
Trinity Laban continues to invest in public-facing facilities and the physical regeneration of the public realm. Over the past five years, the Conservatoire has been undertaking a wholesale refurbishment of its concert hall, Blackheath Halls, part of London’s oldest purpose-built cultural complex, described by its patron Jools Holland as ‘play(ing) a pivotal role in the community on so many levels and for so many age groups.’ This renovation has re-established a high-quality community arts centre, with the best possible physical environment for creation, presentation, participation and enjoyment of the arts. Improvement is continuing, and we have been successful in raising philanthropic support for works to the exterior of the building, which are substantially upgrading the exterior appearance of the building and making further enhancements to the experience of those visiting the Halls, including signage, information provision and enhanced disabled access. As well as its own financial commitment, the Conservatoire has now secured close to £3m in external investment from philanthropic and public source for this programme.
Similarly, in 2022 we completed the refurbishment of our three most prominent venues at King Charles Court, home to our Faculty of Music and a designated Scheduled Monument. The works costing £200k were funded from our ‘Transform KCC’ philanthropic campaign, with generous support from individuals and grant-giving bodies. The schedule of work for the Carne Room, Peacock Room and the Loggia was approved by Heritage England and included redecoration, furnishing and improvements to heating and lighting in order to improve their amenity and make them more welcoming and comfortable for visitors attending concerts and other events.
4. Social inclusion
The Conservatoire uses arts participation to build community cohesion and health. As noted, its extensive work in this area is described in the public engagement narrative.
Aspect 3: Results
Trinity Laban employs a standard evaluation framework and systematically collects data and feedback on its activities. External evaluators are employed where appropriate to offer an objective view of programmes. Recent evaluation of the Thrive professional development programme for dancers, undertaken by Clearcut Consultants, highlighted the value of an affordable offer for early career artists emerging from the pandemic and back into the workforce.
Feedback on the Thrive Programme included:
“It was amazing to make professional connections with other early-career artists and recent graduates who understand how it feels to be starting your career in the midst/ aftermath of a global pandemic”
“I felt that I had connected with other dancers from all over the country. Many of us will now stay in touch and are planning on attending other workshops together. These intensives have helped me to feel supported and connected with my peers and the larger dance network here in the south/south east.”
Positive outcomes of Trinity Laban’s work are reflected in both feedback from our partners, funders and industry contacts, and in quantitative measures:
In the past three years, over 1,200 artists and arts educators have received training/ CPD from Trinity Laban.
The Conservatoire has been consistently successful in securing external investment into its locality, amounting to over £3.5m in the past five years.
It attracts many thousands of audience members to its professional and community performances which fuels the night time economy and supports the growth of cultural tourism as a key financial contributor; there were over 83,000 attendances at TL events in 2021-22.
Since 2019, it has provided placement and volunteer opportunities to 234 students.
Trinity Laban has had limited capacity to track volumes and outcomes of graduate start-ups and projects. However, case studies of TL Innovation Award recipients from 2019-2022 evidence consistent recognition of the benefits delivered: enhanced knowledge and understanding of industry demands through the professional mentors, space to innovate and sustainable creative business propositions:
“The Trinity Laban Innovation Award has allowed me to step into the dance industry with confidence and encouragement. It has hugely shaped my early professional development in these early stages and has allowed my company Hallomai Dance to connect with communities across London”
“The Trinity Laban Innovation award gave us the opportunity to make important connections within the local community. The support from our mentor really helped us to take on this new challenge with confidence and we are forever grateful for the opportunities that we have had since receiving the award.”
The Conservatoire disseminates results and learning internally and externally through a combination of:
Reporting to its Board and management and academic committees
Publication of research and evaluation reports, some commissioned by industry experts
Conference presentations and sharing within local and sector networks
CPD for staff, students and professional practitioners
Public & Community Engagement
Summary of approach
Public and civic engagement is integral to Trinity Laban, which places the relationship between the professional arts and wider society at the centre of its mission, structure and operation. Drawing on participants’ own creativity as co-producers, the Conservatoire is at the forefront of community engagement in music and dance, with priority strands focusing on work with children and young people, intergenerational programmes and projects with older people, opportunities in the arts for people with disabilities, and the use of the arts to promote health, well-being and social cohesion. Our artistic programming showcases the creative achievements of our local communities as well as making professional performances of the highest international standard available to our audiences in South East London and beyond.
Aspect 1: Strategy
Since its creation through the merger of Laban and Trinity College of Music in 2005, Trinity Laban has placed public engagement at the heart of its mission: a founding aim was ‘to provide a model of the mutually beneficial interaction of academic and public uses of the specialist institution and its resources (human and physical), and the coherent delivery of cultural and educational strategies’.
Public engagement is embedded in the delivery of courses, the design of buildings and in a business model that combines excellence in Higher Education with world class research and our role as cultural provider. As a specialist institution with a large proportion of teaching staff maintaining active parallel careers as arts practitioners, the Conservatoire operates across educational and arts sectors, acting as a presenter and enabler of professional performance alongside our core HE provision and programmes of community learning. Public engagement activities allow us to share our resources, engage with our wider community and evolve in response to the changing world around us.
Our latest 2022-2025 Knowledge Exchange and Public Engagement Plan sets out the following objectives for civic and public engagement:
To act as cultural catalyst in our communities, promoting and enabling participation, regeneration, prosperity and social cohesion
To enhance health and well-being through public engagement in the arts
To offer excellent artistic experiences to our local and regional communities
To increase public engagement and participation in our art forms
To strengthen and capitalise on our existing partnerships and establish new relationships and collaborations that promote and enable the dissemination and application of TL’s knowledge
Figure 1: Two young musicians participate in Trinity Laban's Animate Orchestra – a Youth Orchestra for the 21st Century
Public engagement strategy is overseen by a KEPE Board, reporting to the institutional Academic Board. It has a membership including representatives of senior management, public facing departments, academic faculties, professional services and the student body.
Internal governance is supported by evidence drawn from evaluation and consultation inputs. Our evaluation framework records responses from individuals to our programmes and we regularly canvas the views of participants through focus groups, feedback forms and online surveys. Participant voice is enhanced by Advisory Groups recruited from individual programmes, and by encouraging participants to take leadership roles, facilitating dialogues with Trinity Laban as to their needs and how best we may respond to them. Examples include:
Youth Steering Group within My London Dance & Social Action project to listen to vulnerable young people
One Voice steering group for older people’s programmes
Consultation with charities and community stakeholders (e.g. Lewisham Carers, Phoenix Community Housing Association)
Trinity Laban staff are active in local arts and education organisations and forums such as the Lewisham Live Partnership, Lewisham Education and Arts Network, Greenwich Cultural Forum and Lewisham Cultural Strategy Group; external networking is central to our understanding of, and planning for, community needs.
Public Engagement is vital to the achievement of Trinity Laban’s equality objectives and is well represented in the membership and business of our Equality and Diversity Board. In turn, our EDI goals shape our public engagement priorities, and are integral to our planning and programming decisions. Important community and industry partnerships with organisations such as Black Artists in Dance, Black Lives in Music and Candoco enrich our approach and challenge us to achieve inclusive and equitable access to, and experience of, our public participatory work.
Public engagement is embedded in teaching with cross delivery between Public Engagement and HE academic staff to share skills and knowledge. Professional services departments are explicitly charged with supporting public engagement. Thus the core resources of the Conservatoire underpin community and public engagement alongside philanthropic funds raised and income generated (for example, from ticket sales or participant fees, which are heavily subsidised). The mixed model adds value for community beneficiaries, and ensures maximum return from our investment which is coherently planned across public and private funding sources.
Aspect 2: Support
Trinity Laban has established teams of specialist staff with public engagement remits, including: 25 staff across its Community and Artist Development and Children and Young People’s departments; artistic, technical and front-of-house staff to run its performance venues; and a team to manage public hires and building tours. Direct institutional expenditure on public-facing staffing and activity amounts to c.£2.5m per annum. The Conservatoire also offers world-leading performance spaces and facilities for community use including its theatres and concerts halls, studios and instruments.
Extensive support is available for staff and students involved in public engagement activity. Regular CPD/training for hourly paid teachers promotes best practice, covering safeguarding, mental health awareness, inclusive practise (SEND), racial equity, safe dance practice, and digital delivery. The Conservatoire offers four graduate internships in its public facing departments providing a formal 11 month programme of work experience, CPD and mentoring.
Trinity Laban delivers marketing and communications campaigns across all its channels for performances and community engagement, internally and externally. Our website and social media platforms promote our services to the wider public and provide public communication channels. Our website sets out our public offer in a dedicated section which since the pandemic has a strand – Take Part At Home – enabling direct involvement in creative dance and music-making online, supplementing the numerous in-person opportunities.
Trinity Laban is constantly working to understand the barriers facing under-represented groups in accessing the arts, and the need to work in multiple ways to overcome these barriers. Examples of how we reach out to new, hard-to-reach users include:
Publicising our services for older people through GP surgeries and social prescribing services
Being part of community events e.g. Bellingham Festival, Lewisham People’s Day
Targeted referrals, for example working with partner schools, organisations and the Music Hub to refer young people into My London: Dance and Social Action, Animate Orchestra and Greenwich and Blackheath Halls Youth Choir
Activities on site at schools and integrated into existing community provision e.g. youth service providers
Using peer ‘advocates’ across our programmes
Partnership working e.g. with Phoenix Community Housing Association for Bellingham Dances
Figure 2: Trinity Laban's Youth Dance Company
Scholarship, research and professional development allocations of hours within academic contracts can be assigned to public engagement and performance work. Internal reward and recognition mechanisms include schemes for conferment of academic titles (Professor and Reader scheme) and annual awards for teaching and supporting learning with criteria that provide scope to recognise outstanding professional practice and knowledge exchange on an equal footing with teaching and research.
Students can gain both academic credit and financial reward for public engagement through paid roles and the TL Innovation Award which has provided seed funding and mentoring for social enterprises.
Aspect 3: Activity
Trinity Laban has an extensive programme of public engagement activity of nearly 20 years standing, governed by its strategic objectives as follows:
1. To act as cultural catalyst in our communities, promoting and enabling participation, regeneration, prosperity and social cohesion
We work with local authorities, music hubs, SMEs, other HEIs and arts organisations to serve diverse communities and target those least likely to access cultural opportunities. Participatory music and dance activities in campus and community settings include:
Programmes for children and young people
Regular music and dance classes (aged 2 – 18)
Careers/skills development projects such as U.Dance Platform and Youth Dance Day and Young Women in Jazz
Targeted projects such as My London: Dance & Social Action exploring how dance can effect change with vulnerable young people, and Hope 4 Justice a large-scale cross artform performance project co-created with 1400 young people addressing the climate emergency
Figure 3: Hope 4 Justice performance as part of Lewisham London Borough of Culture 2022
Programmes for Adults
Weekly classes and creative projects in our buildings and community: Ballet, Contemporary, Hip-Hop, Pilates, Yoga, Blackheath gospel choir, community chorus and orchestra
Summer Programmes in Musical Theatre and Dance
Programmes with targeted groups in the community e.g. 999 Club for those affected by homelessness
2. To enhance health and well-being through public engagement in the arts
Programmes for older people including those living with dementia and in care settings
Weekly voice and movement sessions for people over 60 at Trinity Laban and community venues
Performance/creative projects for our older people’s groups, including intergenerational projects with our students within our annual CoLab festival; yearly sharing of work at Trinity Laban; and performances at local community events such as the Bellingham festival
Activities and projects for people with specific health conditions and in health settings
Dancing for Health - Weekly dance classes for adults with acquired brain injury or stroke.
Singing for Parkinson’s and Singing for Lung Health – regular music sessions targeting specific health conditions hosted by local partners
A programme highlighting the benefits of dance for children and young people
Dancing Ahead – Research-informed dance project for children at risk of poor resilience & mental health
Dance Ability - Weekly dance classes for children with disability and their siblings
Dance projects in schools and in the community including Bellingham Beats in one of the most disadvantaged areas in Lewisham with very high levels of poor health
3. To offer excellent artistic experiences to our local and regional communities
The Conservatoire operates its own venues, Blackheath Halls and the Laban Theatre, that offer a combination of professional, community and student performances. It also takes performances to a range of external and site-specific venues and tours work nationally and internationally. Total annual attendances average 77,000, of which over half are free of charge. Prominent artists and ensembles presented have included Company Wayne McGregor and the Royal Opera’s Jette Parker Young Artists.
4. To increase public engagement and participation in our art forms
An important aspect of our participatory work is opportunity for the public to perform in our professional venues and engage directly with leading artists. Blackheath Halls Community Opera brings together a professional creative team with community participants to produce a fully staged annual opera. Other examples include Hope 4 Justice a music and dance collaborative project by and with young people, performed in a local park.
Public participation in our art forms increases through the significant reach of our ongoing and project-based activities. Centres of Advanced Training in Dance and Music enable young people to progress into further training and careers in our art forms.
Our portfolio of work is financially sustainable as it is funded through a mixed model of income generation, public funds and trusts and charities. This approach enables the programme to be adaptable and responsive to local needs and national imperatives as they arise.
Aspect 4: Enhancing practice
Trinity Laban operates an evaluation framework for participatory work based on underpinning values – Artistic Excellence & Authenticity; Ownership & Creative Engagement; Health, Wellbeing & Social Impact; Access & Progression. It systematises the collection/analysis of qualitative and quantitative data from across our programmes, evaluating all aspects of public engagement from setting up an activity to participant experience and impact. Many projects are longstanding over a period of years, enabling a virtuous cycle of undertaking activity, evaluating, and fine-tuning models. The framework itself is regularly evaluated and was most recently reviewed and refined in 2022.
Since 2011, the Conservatoire has employed a dedicated research fellow to investigate its public programmes and provide rigorous academic underpinning for its practice. Research on arts and health work has verified: the multi-faceted impact of dance on health and wellbeing; transformational effects of the arts for participants; the importance of diverse stakeholder input in devising arts programmes and research studies, and the value of alternative means for disseminating findings for improved empathy and understanding of health conditions. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, research exploring remote arts delivery identified the value of online and hybrid modes of engagement for supporting and widening access to the arts.
Figure 4: Headway dance session for people with brain injury
Participant testimony is a critical means to validate that Trinity Laban’s distinctive approach and aims are reflected in the authentic experience of those engaged in a project. Recent evaluations give many examples of strong alignment between goals and participant responses:
“apart from being beneficial to me on a physical level, it is also having a really positive impact on my sense of calm and wellbeing [… and] on my ability to cope with stress […] I'm very keen to continue singing after these sessions end as I really believe it is making a huge difference”. (Singing for Good Health [lung health] participant)
“Using your human skills, human abilities, and being welcomed as humans. There is a warmness and an acceptance […] combination of being, seeing and doing that is us. Then we realise that we’re accepted, we rejoice in our own abilities, and we share in others […] being together is what we experience.” (Singing for Good Health [Parkinson's] participant)
“Within this group I have the liberty, encouragement, and guidance to move my arms/legs/hips in ways that I know will help me. It's almost like musical physiotherapy” (Singing for good Health [Pain Management] participant).
Overarching data on reach and demography is collated and published annually in the strategic report of the Board. Figures show that in the past three years:
48,265 people created, performed, watched or participated in our community programmes
21,108 of participants were children and young people
1,234 of participants were disabled children or young people
1,722 of participants were older people aged 60+
230,792 attended our public performances
Aspect 5: Building on success
At both an institutional and departmental level, Trinity Laban reflects critically on progress against its public engagement objectives in light of community needs and feedback, research findings, quality benchmarks and understanding of best practice. Research into the multi-faceted impact of dance on health and wellbeing described above produced a series of recommendations that have been incorporated into programme delivery and research activity. The call for more co-research with participants and practitioners was central to the design phase (2021-2022) of a research project that explores the lived experience of chronic pain, along with the recommendation of cross-sector research with health partners has also been included within our arts and health research. We have paid closer attention to how evaluation results are shared, feeding back to the stakeholders involved through consultation, which provides further opportunity for their perspectives to shape the future of our work. Recognising the importance of hybrid delivery as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic has led to greater flexibility for participant engagement and transformed how we think about arts and health research projects.
Trinity Laban has sought out opportunities to collaborate within the sector to investigate and disseminate successful approaches, particularly in the area of arts and health where our advanced practice and research strength has led not only to joint projects of the kind noted above but to a number of written reports, book chapters and conference presentations.
Internal reporting is extensive, ranging from presentations by Public Engagement artists at our institutional Teaching Excellence conference and Public Engagement briefings at cross-Faculty events, to the annual report of the KEPE Board to Academic Board to individual project reports and evaluations. Public engagement heads are part of the Dance and Music Management groups, providing updates on activity and facilitating potential collaborations with faculty and HE programmes. We recognise a need to bring together this information and share and assess all evidence holistically across relevant staff teams. The Children and Young People’s Dance department is trialling an annual internal report on activity and outcomes which could provide a model for a consolidated institutional report on public-facing activity and learning.
Note You are currently viewing the latest version of this narrative statement. View the previous version as published in previous iterations of the KEF (KEF1 and KEF2)