Northern School of Contemporary Dance and Bonnie Bird Choreography Fund announce launch and choreographers for CoLab North

Northern School of Contemporary Dance (NSCD) and the Bonnie Bird Choreography Fund (BBCF) today announce - CoLab North, an artist development programme providing 4 choreographers with a funded opportunity to explore their practice over a nine-day choreographic lab. 

CoLab North is a paid opportunity for artists based in Northern England and engaged in diverse dance practices and interdisciplinary approaches, to nurture their choreographic study and receive industry specialist mentorship. 

The lab takes place from Monday 18 August to Friday 29 August 2025 and supports choreographers with nine days of studio space at NSCD to explore new work, ideas, or directions, either by themselves or together with a small number of dancers or a collaborator of their choice. Alongside studio time, the CoLab North programme will also include collective moments where the artistic teams gather for discussion and exchange. 

This August the following choreographers will be in attendance: 

• Mairead Rutter O'Connor who said: “I will be researching how absurdity, surrealism, and queer perspectives can reimagine romance, ritual, and identity through embodied, immersive performance. I am extremely excited to explore this with other artists—developing playful choreographic worlds that celebrate strangeness, challenge norms, and open new ways of thinking, feeling, and connecting.” 
  
  
• Xiaoyi Tong, who is focusing on: “I aim to explore how live-generated sounds can shape and disrupt choreographic language. I want to move away from music as the dominant sonic element in dance, and I will be also working with a theremin to investigate how shifts in sound and spatial interaction can shape new choreographic possibilities.” 
  
  
• Zoobin Surty, who remarked: “This project explores how deaf individuals navigate connection, intimacy, and isolation through the iPhone—a device that simultaneously bridges and deepens emotional distance. Grounded in Deaf studies, disability theory, affect theory, and media anthropology, the research investigates how digital technologies become emotional infrastructures for those who engage the world visually, physically, and vibrationally.” 
  
  
• Douglas Thorpe of Mad Dogs Dance Theatre, who said: “I am excited to be collaborating with a film maker for the first time to explore physical language that interweaves partnering, spoken text, and film. My research will focus on crafting intricate moments between two people — fragments of relationship, conflict, tenderness — using partnering to explore shifts in weight, intention, and emotional tone.” 

CoLab North connects to BBCF’s mission to support the research and development of new choreography and to NSCD’s ‘Northern Colour Artist Development Programme.’ 

The Lab will be facilitated by Sharon Watson MBE DL and produced by Mark Hollander. 

Sharon Watson MBE DL and CEO and Principal of NSCD comments: “Northern School of Contemporary Dance is proud to progress the summer programme this August alongside the partnership with the Bonnie Bird Choreography Fund. We are strongly committed to delivering dance, choreography, and artistic direction within the North and particularly in the Leeds area. We have always aimed as an organisation to ensure widened access and visibility outside of London where we can reach a different audience.” 

Brendan Keaney Brendan Keaney OBE, Artistic Director and Chief Executive, DanceEast who is speaking on behalf of the Bonnie Bird Foundation said: “We are proud to be collaborating with the prestigious Northern School of Contemporary Dance on this pilot programme.  Our Trustees and Advisors have been anxious to explore different ways in which the Fund can continue to support choreographic development, and we were therefore particularly excited when Sharon Watson first outlined her vision for a choreographic laboratory in Leeds. The opportunity to offer such diverse choreographic voices and particularly being able to focus on the North of England felt like an amazing opportunity. These are challenging times for Dance, and we hope this represents an important next step for future collaborations.”