IJAD Dance Company — Innovation Lab

IJAD Dance Company makes live performance work at the intersection of technology and the body. We know from practice what is at risk and what must not be replaced.

This is our third Innovation Lab Day, a designed live environment for artists, venues, funders, technologists, and academics in the sector who want to join the conversation, including live international funding opportunities and competitions outside the UK. Whether you make work, program it, fund it, or build the technology that shapes it, this day is designed for you. It is about turning thinking into action.

It’s a day built around one question, sharpened across seven sessions:

Who is at risk in this sector right now, and how do we build the infrastructure before those risks become embedded?

The challenges facing the sector aren’t new. Rising costs, risk shifting downward, and forms of knowledge that remain undervalued. But their convergence is creating new forms of uncertainty that can’t be addressed in isolation and increasingly can’t be ignored.

This day moves beyond diagnosis toward action with human-centred creativity at its heart. The morning will focus on AI and intellectual property, audience data, and systemic failure; the afternoon will work toward designing a UK ecosystem in collaboration with local and international partners.

The conversation is political and intentionally open at times, but the purpose is clear: to agree on how we address these challenges together, and to leave with practical actions and connections.

The seven sessions

One question. Seven sessions. One room.

MORNING  AI and intellectual property: who is at risk here?

MORNING  Risk mapping: where is it concentrated, where is it displaced?

AFTERNOON  Audience knowledge and power — The Audience Agency

AFTERNOON  System tensions lab: what breaks when these systems don’t align?

AFTERNOON  Responsive panel: funders, venues, technology

AFTERNOON  Design sprint: build a piece of the ecosystem that doesn’t exist yet

CLOSE  Living document — seeded in the room, open beyond it

Partners and contributors

We are bringing together voices from across the ecosystem — including our partners on the HAMLET project.

• The Audience Agency
• Waag Futurelab
• Immersive Arts
• Further speakers to be announced

Pricing

£50 - Artists and independent practitioners (£35, earlybird pricing until 31st May)

£100 - Organisations, venues, funders and technologists (£85, earlybird pricing until 31st May)