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' 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...
This is an extract from an article by Susan Bendall in the current issue of Dance Australia! Read the full article! Buy Dance Australia from your favourite retail outlet, or use our free app to purchase and download your copy, or make sure you receive every issue by subscribing here!