Profiles: Lauren Yolango

Lauren: I began dancing pretty early.  When I was 3, my mom quickly realized that I needed an activity to appease my appetite for energy expenditure.  She enrolled me in a tap class and from then on I continued in various dance classes.  At the age of 6, my mom took me to see Pennsylvania Ballet’s The Nutcracker, and I was lucky enough to meet some of the dancers afterward.  I was so in awe.  I decided then I wanted to be a dancer.  In the 7th grade I began taking ballet very seriously, joined a ballet company and danced there until I went to college at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts.  It was at Tisch that I began to develop an interest in other forms of dance.

Jeffrey: And that’s when you found out about Pilobolus?

Lauren: Since I was in the dance world from a fairly early age, I had always heard about Pilobolus.  However, it wasn’t until I saw Symbiosis (see video below) on my computer in college that I was so taken by the company’s work.  The piece blew my mind, and I had to find out more about Pilobolus.  The more I researched, the more I wanted to work with the company.  It is truly one of a kind.

Jeffrey: You are one of the dancers that collaborated in the creation of Shadowland.  What was it like working on a shadow piece?  Is it similar to anything you’ve done before?

Lauren: The new piece we are performing, Shadowland, is quite unlike anything I have ever done.  It is actually the first of its kind.  The shadow work we do uses skills not known to most dancers.  It requires  hours of experimentation in the dark, working with handheld lights, our bodies trying to figure out what makes what shape.  Learning to work with the powerful projector -  we call her “Christie” – is a feat in itself.  It can give you some pretty bad headaches, and we all go a little stir crazy after 8 hours in that bright light.

The work itself is very intricate and precise – it requires an unbelievable amount of teamwork among the dancers. We have to work as a unit, having complete focus. With so many purely technical aspects in the show, we must be on top of it – if a light blows we must know what back up lights to use, or if someone is out of their spike marks and there are light holes in a shape, we have to immediately compensate to fix it. The shadows don’t lie!

I have learned so many new skills working on this project – prop work, lighting skills, how to tie ropes and lines, how to make an elephant’s ear move just enough but not too much – things I would never have believed I would be doing if you asked me 5 years ago!  Twisting our bodies into the most awkward positions usually means the shape looks good, so we definitely have a different soreness than from other dances, but it is wonderfully new and exciting.  At first I felt as if I missed “dancing”, but this show requires so much more than just the dance.  We are constantly changing our world – from shadow, to live scenes, to somewhere in between.  The theatrical arc of the show is much different as well.  Telling a story over 75 minutes is quite difficult.  However, I think the amazing team that we have has done a brilliant job, and I am so honored to be a part of it.  It has been our little baby, and it has delightfully grown into its own entity.

Jeffrey: What was your favorite tour destination?  You and Shadowland been in a lot of places recently:  Madrid, Zurich, Helsinki, Kiev, Milan, Moscow, St Petersburg… ??

TED Talks: Symbiosis