Three 1:1 coaching sessions. Just you, your work, and real momentum.

Your Mentor and Coach

Across the programme, you’ll meet with Babel’s Artistic Director, Joseph Lynch — an award winning director, coach, and creative strategist with years of experience helping artists shape raw ideas into funded, festival-ready work.

Joseph has worked as a cultural leader, mentor, director, teacher and facilitator with: Academy of Live and Recorded Arts, Arts Emergency, Barbican, BBC, Complicite, Central School of Speech and Drama, East 15 Acting School, HOME, London Youth, National Children’s Orchestra, National Youth Orchestra, Tamasha Theatre, University of East London, University of Arts London and more. 

He is a Fellow of Future Connected, a Lambeth Council leadership programme for emerging cultural leaders.  

He has worked with Clore Leadership, Clore Social Leadership and London Youth Rise Up Leadership Programme and was noted as ‘One to watch’ by the Observer for his ward winning production of You Must Be The One To Bury Me.

About The Sessions

These sessions are where the breakthroughs happen.

Whether you need dramaturgical support, clarity on what your work actually is, tools and tips on creative processes, support navigating the industry, connecting to other leaders or help navigating next steps — this is dedicated time to reflect, recalibrate, and move forward with precision. No fluff. Just focused, high-impact support to help your work land.

Workshop 1:
Generation & Emergence

19th - 20th May

Focus: Tools for creative ignition, how to to begin and develop

This workshop centres on the earliest phase of the devising process — when ideas are raw, intuitive, and unformed. Through guided improvisations, devising tasks, games, and task-based movement creation, you’ll develop physical vocabulary and generate new material in response to creative prompts. The emphasis is on bold experimentation, creative risk-taking, and building up your capacity to create in the unknown. Artists will leave with a range of starting points and emergent fragments that can be carried forward.

Workshop 2:
Composition & Construction

4th - 5th August

Focus: Composition, structure, and conceptual development

In this second intensive, the focus turns to shaping and structuring your material. You’ll explore how ideas gain form — testing spatial arrangements, sequencing, rhythm, and narrative logic through compositional exercises. Guided by dynamic compositional and creative exercises, reflective practice, peer exchange, and directorial and choreographic tools, you’ll deepen your craft and arrange material into structured scenes, images, or scores. Artists will leave with a clearer sense of their work’s internal architecture and direction.

Workshop 3:
Depth & Dramaturgy

6th - 7th October

Focus: Performance layers, intention, and audience connection

The final workshop focuses on performance-level decision-making — interrogating what your material is doing, why it matters, and how it communicates. Through dramaturgical enquiry, physical tuning, and detailed feedback, you’ll explore presence, transformation, and resonance. This is about sharpening your material’s edges and expanding its depth — layering in meaning, tension, and nuance. Artists will leave with a more embodied understanding of what their work is saying and how to ready it for public sharing or further development.

Build the skills to fund your work — and make bold ideas possible.

This isn’t a generic info session.

You’ll get direct, practical guidance from a specialist who’s helped secure over £1 million through Arts Council England bids. Together, we’ll break down what funders actually look for, how to write with clarity and conviction, and how to structure a bid that serves your vision — not dilutes it. You’ll leave with real tools, actionable insight, and the confidence to write applications that cut through the noise.

Because funding your work shouldn’t feel like a mystery.

Time and space to build — without the financial friction.

All Creation Space participants get discounted access to rehearsal studios at Chisenhale Dance Space and other Babel partner venues. Whether you need a room to stretch an idea, revisit workshop material, or carve out time for focused development, this support makes that possible. It’s not a residency. It’s not prescriptive. It’s flexible space for self-directed making — because space shouldn’t be what stops the work from growing.

Bring Your Work To Life

In early 2026, you will be invited to share your work-in-progress at a supported scratch performance, hosted by Babel.

This is more than a casual showing — it’s an opportunity to test your ideas in front of a live audience, connect with other makers, and be seen by programmers, producers, and funders who can support what comes next.

Whether you share a moment, a scene, or a score, this is your chance to put your practice in motion — and get it in front of the right people.