Lauren Lovette, On a New Path

I caught up with Lauren Lovette—current Paul Taylor Dance Company resident choreographer and former New York City Ballet principal dancer—last week, right after she flew home to NYC after three months in Germany, where she made a full-length “Romeo and Juliet” for the Leipzig Ballet. She had to hit the ground running. The PTDC season opened the next night, and she has three works in rotation this fall. Two are premieres: “Chaconne in Winter” and “Recess,” and one, “Echo,” is returning from last year.

Paul Taylor Dance Company Artistic Director Michael Novak (center) with Resident Choreographers Lauren Lovette and Robert Battle. Photograph by Whitney Browne

Faye Arthurs: Hello Lauren! We haven’t spoken since June, when I interviewed you for a School of American Ballet Connoisseurship Series program about the Workshop performances. Back then we examined your beginnings: your path to your illustrious ballet career and the start of your choreographic career. Today, I thought it might be fun to talk about part two of your dance journey, your post-ballerina era. I’d love to hear about the new pieces, and I’m also so curious about how different the Taylor world is from the Balanchine bubble you and I shared?

Lauren Lovette: It is very different! But when I was young, I always wanted to do different styles of dancing—tap, hip hop, lyrical—but my parents couldn’t afford classes, and my body was for ballet. I got a scholarship just for ballet—so those classes were free. And I loved my ballet classes, I wasn’t storming in and upset every day, wishing I was somewhere else. Then I found the New York City Ballet, the jazziest form of ballet—you’re always stretching and reaching past the boundaries of the box. As far as dance careers go, I was so fortunate to have the one that I had.

I’d like to point out that NOBODY ever says I just had to do ballet because I had the ballet body. Most people say I loved ballet so much, but I just didn’t have the body. You’re an anomaly!

It was such a privilege! It was also a map for my life. I never went to school and I didn’t have any other skills that I knew of. I had a lot of grit and pride and energy, but I didn’t have another path. I just knew I wanted to live in New York. That’s all I knew.

Why did you want to live in NY?

The movies! I lived in California. Well I grew up half in North Carolina and half California, and we moved back and forth a lot. I always felt kind of other, maybe because I had never been to school.

Because you were home schooled?

Yeah. I always felt like NY . . . that’s where all the people are. That’s where the action happens, and where the people who are a little bit strange go. The misfits, the odd ones, you find your people there. It seemed like you could be free there. And I love people, watching people, being around people. I’m socially awkward often, but I like being in the vicinity of a lot of things going on. I feed off that energy.

I felt the same way. New York would take me!

Exactly. And I feel like my body was the map. That gave me the scholarship and the direction. Not everybody has feet that are good for pointe shoes. Mine were. They are perfectly square, the toes are flat! And they pointed. All this stuff outside of my control was a blessing. But I would find, while doing new choreography, that dance could be more than trying to be perfect. More than turnout and being on quarter and eighth and doing a bigger manège. Ballet is amazing, and I value it so highly, but it felt like a thing that my personality struggled with. I don’t get as much excitement out of sanding and refining a craft, I get excited about creating something new from scratch or trying something I haven’t done before. My whole life is like that: I like to make my gifts for people, I like to cook almost all my meals, I like to redesign my apartment over and over again. I like the creative life. And my favorite thing to do was be a part of the creation of new ballets.

Madelyn Ho, Ranaan Meyer, John Harnage in Lauren Lovette's “Chaconne in Winter.” Photograph by Whitney Browne

And you never wanted to try dancing in another style? Did you ever want to be IN the Paul Taylor Company?

I don’t think I could be a modern dancer. I mean that genuinely. I took some company classes when I joined as resident choreographer.

What a crash course!

I didn’t know what it would feel like to be a modern dancer. And ironically, my body is not cut out for it! My ankles…there’s not enough dorsiflexion. I can try, but I can’t go there. I have so much respect for what the dancers do and how they do it. One day of trying to do these tumbling coffee grinder air things to the ground, to the shoulder, and sliding across the floor, and doing these jumps from my knees to my feet…

These steps are in class or in rehearsals?

Class, they do a lot of Paul’s repertoire in class. It’s empowering. There’s no mirror, it’s all music and impulse. It feels communal, groups roll into each other. You’re just picking up where someone left off and trying it your way. The music is live and the musicians—drummers, pianists—play music based off the energy in the room. It’s so different from what we’re used to: get the combination, get the music, oops, the tempo’s not right, let’s fix it. It’s completely different. I had a great time learning it. And I love being in the studio where something new is being made the best. I always have. And I get to do that when I’m choreographing, with so many different types of people and dancers. And I really didn’t want to dance anymore because of the performing!

Really? What do you mean? Did you have performance anxiety at City Ballet?

Oh my God, Faye. How could people not know?

Because you always hit every turn so calmly! You did so many of the very hardest roles, like Aurora, and you were solid as a rock!

I definitely forgot an 8 of choreography with Gonzalo [laughing] in that! I would black out all the time, I would just forget. My partners know it more. I had the hardest time internally; I don’t think I slept much of my career because I was so nervous. And because my career went so fast and so sharply upward, I was never comfortable or at ease. I was always stressed out by the next performance. And the moment never made me stronger. Certain dancers, like Tiler Peck, the show will give her an even more amplified performance. It’s even better than in rehearsal, how does she do that? But for me that never would happen.

But it did, though!

But I felt like a noodle inside, I couldn’t feel my legs and I was melting down and sometimes blacking out in my brain. But I would still get through it pretty well, I still did a good job.

You sure did. You danced beautifully!

In the end, I can’t recall so many performances I actually enjoyed. It was always something that I got through. And I was tired of feeling like that.

Wow, I had no idea.

I always felt this conflict with whatever’s higher because my body was meant to do this thing, and the path was so clear, and the scholarships were laid out, and it was the only path forward, so I knew it was the path. I couldn’t have confused it with, oh she should do mathematics, or, this one’s going to NASA! [laughing]

The ballet red carpet was rolled out for you.

Totally. I was meant for it. But every day of my life I would feel this frustration. Why am I made for this career when I hate this element of it so much? And it’s the element that IS THE THING! I’m so much happier if I’m not really being seen by so many people.

But on some level, isn’t it almost more exposing when your choreography is being seen?

It is, but I can have a meltdown by myself in the audience [laughing]. It doesn’t get in the way of the performance. I haven’t let anybody down.

That’s fascinating! So you found a new job that was the best part of your old job, how great!

I feel so lucky. If people didn’t want to see my choreography anymore for whatever reason, maybe I would want to go back into a dance studio and just take classes. I don’t think I could ever not be in the studio space; I love being in a dance studio. But my number one choice in that space would be to be alongside dancers and figuring out what they should do next.

So when you choreograph on the Taylor dancers, with those amazing grounded things they can do, do you feel that you are harnessing their skills or do you pull them in a different direction?

I feel like I never want to pull them to me, except for when it comes to pushing them on speed. Maybe it’s the Balanchine in me, I don’t know, but there’s always a desire to crystallize the music—to define it as clearly as I can. My favorite dances are very connected that way: the music and the dancing are so close. It’s not ever a wash, and unless it’s a purposeful pause, it’s not like me to want to skip over a whole phrase or a handful of bars. If I hear a lot of things in the orchestra, I want them to happen in the body. So sometimes I push the dancers on speed, and they complain that there’s so many steps!

But the things that they can do are the things I wish I could do. There is this very real respect for what they excel in and what their style is. I know the “Esplanade” music so well, because I’ve danced Balanchine’s “Concerto Barocco.” But there’s something about when that third movement comes in “Esplanade,” it’s what I always wanted to do to that music: run run run and jump across the stage into someone’s arms! In bare feet! The liberation! It’s something that feels so relatable and also idealistic. It’s something that everyone in the audience can feel and it brings you back to a younger self.

“Esplanade” and “Barocco” are highly musical because Taylor, like Balanchine, is highly musical. So that approach is not such a departure for the dancers. Can you tell me about the new ballets’ scores?

Both Michael [Novak, PTDC Artistic Director] and I wanted to work with Time for Three again, I loved working with them last season. They have this beautiful piece of music called “Chaconne in Winter”—it really feels electric. It starts smooth and soft, then it sharpens in the middle—it’s nearly rock and roll.

It’s based on Bach, correct?

Yes! These three humans are so cool. They have the finest technique, but they have this desire to push classical music a bit. To say “yes, and.” It’s okay to love classical music and the Grateful Dead. I went to see them at Carnegie Hall last year and it was superb, but they also talked between sets. They are relatable and humble; they don’t make the music so precious. And it just goes together with movement so well. You want to jump up and down and dance when they play. They even can’t stop moving when they play!

Will they be in the pit or onstage?

I’m putting them onstage this time. In “Echo,” the piece that I made last fall, the pit goes up and down. But this one is shorter, and it’s just a duet, so Brandon Baker [the lighting designer], he made two worlds onstage, but not in the way of music on one half and dancing on the other. He made these pods with pools of light, that the music lives in, and the dancers come like creatures out of the wings—like figures coming out of the musicians’ imaginations. I made it in December of last year, so it was cold and I was seeing a lot of snow. And snowflakes are so cool because right when you think they’re gonna connect the wind swirls them around and it’s rare for them to touch other snowflakes. But when they do connect, they have a sharpness that I thought was just like this music that starts floaty and windswept then turns into an attack. Anyway, they’re these snow creatures that are my version of Snowflakes in the “Nutcracker.” And I have two dancers who are meticulous.

Madelyn Ho and John Harnage.

Yes. They’re so detailed. The precision they expect out of each other, and their partnership, is wonderful. It has been fun to play with them. And they’ve been working on this for so long now, we’ve thought about it long enough.

It needs to get born!

Yes! And with the music live onstage with them, it’s going to be such a moment. I’m really looking forward to it. And I’m dedicating it to Stephen Reidy.

Tell me about that. He’s the chair of Works and Process at the Guggenheim, and he was on City Ballet’s board. Did you connect during your time at City Ballet?

Oh yeah, I’ve known him for a while now. And I knew his wife before him. She passed away and I left City Ballet at about the same time. It’s been really beautiful to witness what this man has done for dance, and how he pushes it forward with curiosity. And he’s the reason that I have my job, he was dedicated to having new work at Taylor.

Did he bring you over from City Ballet?

I don’t know, maybe so. I don’t know whose idea it was first, I think Michael’s? But I was supported because of Stephen. And it’s not just me; he also does stuff for BalletCollective and the Guggenheim. His heart is in it all. I wanted to give him something that was personal, but uplifting. I hope he likes it. It’s going to be really special to be finally honoring him publicly, at the Taylor gala. I’m looking forward to it, not because I feel I owe him, but I want to give back a little bit of what he’s given to me.

That’s lovely. And the music for your other piece is by a composer I’d never heard of: Errollyn Wallen.

Oh yeah, she’s cool. And this piece of music I found because of Russell Allyn. Do you know him?

I don’t think so. Should I?

He was the music librarian at City Ballet when we were there, the person who always set up the scores in the pit. I started working with him because of Cameron Grant, the City Ballet pianist.

Oh yes, I know who you mean! And how nice of Cameron, he’s such a great musician and a kind man.

Yes. He felt I would benefit from having a friend who really knew music. Russell and I would sit in his little office right on the fifth floor by the main hall. You know that little closet right by the bathrooms?

Haha, yep!

We would drink green tea from his little electric kettle and hang out and listen to music. We started putting together files and making a master list for me of things that I liked and would push me as a choreographer.

This is back when you were still dancing with the company?

Yes.

I had no idea! So many secret lives happening in the nooks and crannies of that building at all times…

After I left, we continued to work together. And Russell works for the Boston Symphony Orchestra now, but he still shows me music. This piece came up years ago, but I hadn’t found the right place for it. It’s like a game of catch for the orchestra, one musician will play a melody and then across the pit another musician will pick it up. I wanted to push myself and do something that was less emotional and lyrical and round. I love swirly movements like renversés, but I wanted to do something different, so I put boundaries on myself. I put myself in a little bit of a creative box for this one, and it was fun. It felt like a game for me too.

Jada Pearman and Alex Clayton in Lauren Lovette's “Recess.” Photograph by Whitney Browne

Hence the title, I guess? “Recess.”

Yes, somewhere in the process all these games from my childhood kept coming into my mind. Playing in the yard with my brothers and sister, being home schooled. I never had recess, since I never went to school, so to me recess was kind of this elusive thing that everybody talked about but I never had. But the ballet is more than just: they play outside. I liked that the word recess also means to pull back, and go into oneself, and there are these places in the music where that happens. One duet feels like a new discovery of feeling toward another, when you’re going through change or turning into an adult, kind of like puberty almost. And a lot of it feels like Legoland! Choppy and fun and brisk and bright. And I liked how both pieces of music I used this season felt electric.

You’re moving so much while describing all the music, hehe.

It’s playful! And my team, I’m working with Brandon Baker [lighting] again and Libby Stadstat [set] and Mark Eric [costumes], we’re all millennials-ish, and we were talking about play and the days before so much virtual static. And they all brought their own versions of play. Libby filled the stage with color, almost like a tv screen—because we were talking about play and loss of play in our more virtual world. Marc Erik made these costumes that are so bright and joyful but if you look closely, they’re pixelated. They have little squares fading away. It’s a bright piece though, it makes me happy. You need one of those every now and then.

And it sounds like the opposite of “Chaconne in Winter.”

Yeah, “Chaconne in Winter” is almost like martial arts sometimes, it’s powerful. But it also softens, you go on a journey. “Recess” is more in front of you.

Well that’s very Taylor too, dark and light. Normally when I think of Taylor, I think of joy of movement and people running around being led by their hearts, but then there are some ballets that are so dark they’re almost shocking.

Oh yeah, there’s like someone convulsing in a corner!

I love that he could go to such extremes, but I love that you are doing that now too. It seems like you’re in the right place for that kind of experimentation.

It’s been great for me because the job has pushed me. I’m very grateful for it. I’m bolder than I would have been if I’d never taken this job. I feel like it’s grown me.

Faye Arthurs

Faye Arthurs is a former ballet dancer with New York City Ballet. She chronicled her time as a professional dancer in her blog Thoughts from the Paint. She graduated summa cum laude with a B.A. in English from Fordham University. She lives in Brooklyn with her partner and their sons.

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