Lauren Langlois's career path has taken some twists and turns, discovers Susan Bendall.
A lot of people think they know what Lauren Langlois looks for in a man. This might be because of her Green Room Award-winning performance in Anouk van Dijk and Falk Richter's Complexity of Belonging, in which she delivers an increasingly shrill audit on the topic. Part stand-up, part clowning, part finely observed characterisation in voice and movement, it is indicative of a craft that plays between pure dance and theatricality.
Langlois is earning a reputation for sliding effortlessly across and between performance modalities. For this interview I wanted to understand the impetus for this multi-award nominated dancer's versatility.
Treading a less than linear path, Langlois started dancing at five in her hometown of Perth. She spent many of her early years absorbed in the "buzz" of the Perth eisteddfod scene. But at 16 she abandoned dance altogether and started a degree at Curtin University, majoring in performance studies. "I really wanted to be an actor, that was my love at the time. I loved the more absurd theatre where I could tell those stories using my body."
This led to auditioning for NIDA at 18, and in the process Langlois was confronted by the reality of how intense and exposing training in acting could be. She reflects: "Dance allows you to hide a little". Realising she wasn't quite ready for such training, she was drawn back to dance and she spent a year of intensive ballet training at Marie Walton-Mahon Dance Academy in Newcastle "with a bunch of 14- and 15-year-olds". She was nineteen.
The New Zealand School of Dance was Langlois's next destination. She appreciated the diverse training and the exposure that the school gave students though its program of guest teachers and choreographers. Langlois' first professional break came when, in second year, she danced in a work by Australian Dance Theatre's Garry Stewart. He offered her a job. She danced with the company from 2008 to 2010.
Langlois describes her ADT time as "vital". "If I hadn't been in the company I wouldn't have learnt how to be versatile." In her early days with the company, she recalls, "I was still focused on how to get a step right and it wasn't about that . . . you have to learn fast."
Of Stewart's choreographic language Langlois reflects: "It's virtuosic, you always have to be on, it has to be at the level of how you're going to perform it. Garry wants to see the finished product. I learnt very quickly that if I'm going to be in a section, I have to give it my all, and keeping that up every day is mentally, emotionally and physically tiring.”
Langlois joined Sydney Dance Company in 2011 and credits her experience there as crucial in pushing her technique and teamwork skills, but her contract was not renewed beyond the first year. Langlois describes the experience as "hard at the time, but looking back it was a positive thing. There was a whole body of work that I couldn't possibly foresee. [Melbourne choreographer] Antony [Hamilton] asked me to be in Keep Everything. Anouk [van Dijk] had taken over as director of Chunky Move and I had a feeling that I should audition for her, that it would be really fruitful.” Dancing works by these choreographers stand out as some of the highlights of Langlois' career so far.
"Keep Everything was completely changing and a dream. The way Antony works, it all stems from play and improvisation. I'd never been in a creative process like that before.”
And there was the abovementioned Complexity of Belonging, which premiered at the Melbourne Festival in 2014 and for which Langlois was awarded her Green Room Award and the praise of critics and audiences alike.
“Complexity was a huge thing for me; I so enjoyed making that monologue. I was completely vulnerable and stripped bare. It could have gone in a different direction; it could have been serious. I really wanted to make it light and comedic and Anouk gave me freedom to do that.
"Falk [Richter] said, 'Give me 50 things you're looking for in a guy.' I wrote 176 things. I went into rehearsal and read the list. At first I felt self-conscious; is everybody going to think that's what I want? But that's part of it -- it's honesty but it's theatre; you exaggerate and make fun and light of things."
Commenting on her process, Langlois tells me,"A lot of the time when I work I approach it from the actor's point of view. It's very important to me that whenever I perform I have something to say, I have meaning, If I don't, I struggle. The body's not enough; in fact, it's more about performance -- that's my craft. I'm more interested in seeing what world I can create than doing the steps."
Langlois enjoys the life of a freelancer. “You get the choice,” she explains. “Every piece that I do is a piece that I'm invested in. In a company you have the security of pay and work all year round but you may not enjoy all the works you have to do. At the moment I have the opportunity to move between lots of different styles and work with different choreographers and that really excites me."
Talking about the physicality of much contemporary choreography and keeping it safe and sustainable, Langlois says: "The intention and look of a movement is paramount. It's in my practice to make myself safe in whatever I'm doing. And I will always suggest to the group to find a way of doing it safely." Langlois goes through a sequence of breaking down a movement so that she can mentally rehearse until it becomes automatic hence "access that moment of falling and not worry about hurting myself when I hit the ground."
Langlois has forged a number of creative collaborations with choreographers and finds that they each have a particular way of communicating with dancers to help them tap into whatever is needed for a role. The works are therefore very particular to the cast as well as to the choreographer. How does she feel about revisiting works that might have biographical traces when she's moved on from the feelings that germinated the role? "There's a tone to each work and a world that needs to be accessed." In re-learning 247 Days for tour last year, Langlois was faced with dispelling a heaviness that hung around its making. "I tried to practice it being in the moment. I trusted the muscle memory was in place. I was tapping into that . . . and then taking myself away from it . . . as an actor would."
How does she prepare when she's performing? "Rest. The performance is always in the back of my mind, niggling. I try to relax. I'm pretty quiet before shows. I go through the show from start to finish in my mind or practise bits I feel nervous about. Once I've done that I feel ready."
Langlois gets asked a lot about whether she wants to make work, but at 29 she is still intent on performing. "When you hit your late 20s and early 30s there is a lot more to discover. And it's not just in your dance -- you can artistically explore more ideas and you have more confidence on the stage."
Susan Bendall spoke to Chunky Move's Lauren Langlois for the June/July 2015 issue.