Grant a wish

BEST IN SHOW Lauren Grant strikes a pose in Mozart Dances.

Photo: Stephanie Berger/MMDG

How so?
I felt freer to play a little bit more. I also got a better costume. In 2001, I was still pretty young—but I got up there and I looked in his eye and I wasn’t scared. I remember that. There’s a lot of very close looking and I feel like just being able to do that maybe said something to him: I’m not afraid. I feel that was good for me to show him that—and the height difference was funny. I think he’s always utilized my comedic potential just because of my packaging. And he worked with me with the castanets—he’s incredible. I got a little bit better. I use the same plastic castanets.

Still?
Yeah. He loved that. He thought it was funny: the little plastic clink they make. My parents went to Spain a year ago and I said, “Mom, please bring me back real wooden castanets,” and she did and now the piece is probably retired. I never got my chance to use my real castanets.

Oh no! It’s really retired?
Officially? I’m not sure, but I don’t think Mark has much interest in it anymore. We did it everywhere. It’s sad for me, too. I could do that every day.

Originally, the task was that you and Mark had to drink an entire bottle of wine during the piece. Is that still true?
For Richard Move’s performances, Mark insisted that we drink the wine. I remember in London, I did get really drunk during the piece. When Mark spun me out for the bow I kind of stumbled. But he loves that. He loves to torture us, and it’s funny—at my expense, of course. Later, when we did it on tour, we made a concoction of juice—except once during a big tour of England in the fall of ’05. It was a six-week tour; that’s a long time to be in the U.K.—Mark and I did it in so many towns and in the last town, John Heginbotham, who plays the bartender in the dance, said to me, “I’m going to use real wine. Is that okay with you?” I had to do a lot of dancing after that in the show, but at that point in the tour, I was like, “Do it. Bring it on.” Mark didn’t know. He poured a really full glass for Mark; I think the shtick he was doing in those shows was to down the first glass. So he does that, and the wine surprises him; he had to explain it to the audience in a funny way, so he did a shtick like, Oh, this wine’s no good. He was startled. This is right before the music starts. We put our glasses down. I walk out to center stage and am trying so hard not to laugh. Mark comes out and we look at each other, we’re about to start dancing, and he says, “I’m going to fucking kill you.” [Laughs] But kind of with a smile on his face. It was so much fun. I think we all needed that. And Grand Duo was never better for me. I was very calm. There’s this part in the dance where you have to stand on one leg and usually I doubt myself and start to wobble, but I was very calm and perfectly on my leg.

What would your career had been like if you hadn’t discovered Morris?
I feel like in my whole life, all these little things have been bashert, which is a Yiddish word for “meant to be.” I wasn’t originally on the Mark Morris track; earlier, I was on the Paul Taylor track, and I studied there and I wanted to be in that company. I had encouragement and then this happened and it was bashert. Mark has challenged me to dance as though I’m not 4'11", and he’s allowed me to utilize all of my past training: castanets, character work, acting and ballet. When we go to Tanglewood, we have an exchange where we get to sing and the musicians get to dance. It’s not for a formal audience but I recently got to practice singing. Maybe that would have happened elsewhere. [Quickly] I doubt it. And Mark has shaped who I am as a person. He’s challenged me in how I speak and in what I do: He’s a very curious, knowledgeable person and he’s helped to guide me to be more curious and knowledgeable. To read more and to be interested in a world where there’s more than just dance. Because I really did have blinders on growing up, as bunheads sometimes do.

How do you mean “change how you speak?”
[Laughs] There’s a lot of hazing that goes on. Little things like if you’re in class or in rehearsal and you say, “Can I ask a question?” He’ll say, “You just did.” Or if you start everything with, “Um.…” He points these little habits out. He makes you notice those things, and if you care you start to change the way you speak. Sometimes it’s very demoralizing and upsetting, but it can be helpful. He’s brutally honest. But he wants us to grow as dancers and as people. He likes to be a mentor. He wants to have interesting, intelligent people in his company because he needs someone to be interesting to him.

Mozart Dances is at the New York State Theater Wed 15–Aug 18.