Where Ideas Become Performance

At Oslo City Ballet, every creative journey begins in a Lab.

Stage Labs are immersive artistic residencies that bring together professional artists, emerging dancers, and creative collaborators to train, experiment, and create original choreography. More than workshops, they are spaces where new ideas are explored through movement, collaboration, and shared artistic curiosity.

Every Lab follows the same creative process—from class to creation—while each project develops toward its own unique artistic outcome

Our Creative Process

Each Lab is built around four stages:

Train
Participants begin each day with professional ballet or contemporary class, establishing a shared technical foundation and artistic language.

Explore
Through guided improvisation, creative tasks, and collaboration, ideas begin to emerge.

Create
Artists work together to develop original choreography, testing movement, structure, and storytelling.

Share
Every Lab concludes by sharing the work with an audience. Some Labs culminate in an informal studio showing, while others, such as Night Twitch, unfold as public performances in the city.

From Lab to Production

Stage Labs are where Oslo City Ballet develops new work.

Many of the ideas created during a Lab continue to evolve long after the initial sharing, becoming part of future OCB productions. Rather than separating research from performance, we view artistic creation as an ongoing process—one that grows through collaboration, reflection, and time.
Each production carries with it the history of the Labs that helped shape it.

Current Stage Labs

Night Twitch
A collaborative intensive over two weekends culminating in a large-scale public performance across Oslo.

Status: Public Performance

Selma and The Nutcracker
An ongoing series of Stage Labs exploring movement, storytelling, and collaboration as the foundation for a future family ballet.

Status: Research & Development

Why OCB Stage Labs?

We believe that great performances begin long before opening night.
By inviting artists into the creative process from the very beginning, Labs foster artistic growth, encourage collaboration across generations, and create meaningful connections between professionals, emerging dancers, and communities.
They are where ideas are tested, artists are challenged, and new productions begin to take shape.

Become an Oslo City Ballet

 Stage Lab Partner

Stage Labs thrive through collaboration.

We welcome partnerships with schools, dance academies, cultural institutions, municipalities,festivals, businesses, and individual supporters who believe in investing in artistic development.
Whether by providing studio space, financial support, expertise, or opportunities for artists to create
and connect with communities, every partnership helps transform ideas into meaningful artisticexperiences.

Together, we can create environments where artists are free to explore, communities are invited to participate, and new productions can grow from their earliest stages.

We'd love to hear from you.