Laura Morera
Principal
Royal Ballet
Monday 30 March 2009
Crown Court Church of Scotland Hall
Covent Garden
London
Allison Potts, the Vice Chairman, welcomed members and introduced Laura Morera.
AP: I should get the pronunciation of your name right first of all.
LM: I used to have a big thing at White Lodge when people called me ‘Laura’. At that time I was fresh from Spain so I didn’t have that whole English ‘politeness’ thing. I would keep saying ‘LAURA’ (pronounced LARRA) until they got it right!
AP: I’m very glad we’ve got that one cleared up! What inspired you to become a dancer?
LM: When I was at academic school in Spain my best friend went to a gym that did a ballet class. I was really jealous because she got to socialize so I went along too. They said I had talent. I don’t actually remember exactly when I fell in love with it. I can’t remember if it was straight away or not. I just knew that ballet was what I had to do. Once I went into ballet school I was really hooked. We had a really good group of people there.
AP: You studied in Spain then you joined the Royal Ballet School. I understand that you were just 11 years old when you joined White Lodge and that you didn’t speak any English at that time. It must have also been a very daunting prospect to leave home at such a young age. How did you make the transition?
LM: I think what is really weird about it is that even at 11 I remember sitting with my parents in the kitchen at home and saying: ‘I think we should give it a go.’ It was actually my decision. I have very proud parents but I don’t have very pushy parents. They let me decide. It was horrendous that I didn’t speak the language because I LOVE talking!
I joined the year above where I should have been by age because my ballet training was a bit more advanced. Still I was really the new girl; a new girl who was doing 32fouettés en pointe at the age of 9! I actually find them harder now!
When I first joined there was that thing: ‘What’s she doing here? She doesn’t speak English. She’s not much fun.’ Eventually, by the third year, we became a really close group. It was hard because I’m a very family oriented person. I’m very close to my parents. But two months after I joined I was chosen to do Swan Lake and I know that really made me stick it out. This was the first time I saw this theatre and this amazing production - we had nothing like that in Spain. There were all these amazing dancers too and I thought: ‘Well, if you’re going to dance then this is the place to do it.’ I really don’t regret at all my choice of company. The Royal Ballet has been my whole career.
AP: So put this in a time frame for us - tell us who was in your year at school.
LM: I joined with Bennet Gartside. Vanessa Fenton and Victoria Hewitt were in my year and Henry St Clair was too. They all came into the Company. Will Kemp was in my year too. I auditioned with the year below me which included people like Martin Harvey - I went to see Martin in Dirty Dancing the other night. It felt a bit wrong that all these women were screaming at him. You feel like they are screaming at your little brother!
AP: Who do you count among your closest friends in the Company?
LM: My closest friend is Ricardo (Cervera). He is absolutely part of my family - he was my bridesmaid at my wedding! They loved that in Malaysia! I’m part of a very Spanish group but we’re not actually very Spanish in the Spanish group! Tamara is a very close friend of mine so are Isabel McMeekan and Deidre Chapman and Christina Arestis - all the people of that generation. I’ve become good friends with Liam Scarlett too. Out of my year, Benn is one person I know I will always be friends with.
AP: Before we move on from your school days, what are your best memories of that time?
LM: I think it was in the fifth year when we broke into the boys’ dorm - that was good! In my younger years it was Swan Lake and the friends that I made. I was also very proud of the fact that I was able to do all my GSCEs and ‘A’ Levels in English. I took French for ‘A’ Level. Also my school performance was an amazing experience.
AP: What did you dance in it?
LM: I did the lead in Valse Fantasie and the Gypsy Girl in Two Pigeons. You just have a little taste of being a star in that show. You have a dressing room with your name on the door and you have flowers. I thought: ‘This is good.’ It was a real highlight actually.
AP: So you joined the Company in 1995.
LM: I was out with Liam Scarlett the other day and I said something about the Company and he said: ‘Lau, I wasn’t even at White Lodge when you joined the Company’ – I practically choked on my noodles!
AP: Going way back to 1995, can you remember the process by which you found out you had got a contract?
LM: Yes. There was always talk that I was going to get a contract. I was one of the favourites. Still, you never know as things change so much. It got quite late during the year and no one had said anything. Thinking that I shouldn’t miss out, I went for an audition to Monte Carlo. I lied about my height because they said you had to be a certain height and I was actually a little bit smaller than what they wanted. It was amazing because they called me back and said they were really interested in me. They said that they wanted me to do class the next day with the Company. I thought that was great but Merle Park would want me to be back. I asked them to call her and maybe then it could work out. So they did. She agreed but said that I had to be back by a certain time and they told her: ‘Fine. We’ll get her to the airport and it will all be OK.’ So I took class with the Company and then they offered me a contract. It was actually the first time someone had said: ‘We absolutely love you and we want you’. I kept thinking: ‘Oh, this is good!’ And they took me on a helicopter to the airport: A glass bottomed helicopter. I thought ‘Yes. I’m coming here!’ This was before I had even taken the job. Then I suddenly thought: ‘Well, now what?’ It’s just that it was like a one track mind at The Royal Ballet School. They knew you so they don’t really have to say anything at all. So then I went into Merle Park’s office and I told her that I had a contract. I should point out that by then Birmingham, Dutch National and Rambert had already come to see a class and the three Directors had said if I didn’t get The Royal then they would be quite interested but still nothing was settled. I said ‘Monte Carlo is really interested and I would really like it.’ The next day The Royal gave me a contract!
AP: One of the things I picked up from reading other interviews you’ve done is that when you first started you used to get thrown into roles at very short notice - sometimes with only a couple hours to learn them.
LM: I think I’ve forgotten them all now but one of my most favourite ones was in Don Q. That was really amazing because it was as a result of Ross Stretton. On a personal level he was great to me. We all had to audition from the beginning for everything. That created a lot of problems. But he was great with me because it’s rare that a director actually calls you in. I remember we were in Australia and he called me into his office. All he said to me was that he had seen me progress and that he wanted to give me Don Q. He said that it wouldn’t be for two weeks and that I’d probably be really jet lagged for the first. He said: ‘I trust you. Do you want to give it a go? You will be dancing with Ivan.’ Of course I wasn’t going to say ‘No’ - I love a challenge. I’m always up for it. I learned it in Australia and I was really jet lagged in the first week. Then we did the first of two performances in the second week. I was so lucky because I had two shows. That situation has been what it’s really been like for me the whole time at The Royal Ballet. Even now I think I’m doing the Queen of the Willis only because they were really short of people. Monica came up to me and said: ‘How would you feel about Queen of the Willis?’ I said: ‘Yes, fine,’ and that was it. I learned it one day and then did a full call the next day. Stamina-wise it is really quite hard but I like doing things like that. I actually think that’s why I’ve managed to become a Principal at The Royal Ballet: The fact that I can just get out there and do it.
AP: That’s certainly borne out by your repertory. In fact it takes five paragraphs in very small print to list all of your many roles. I couldn’t possibly read it all out. Every choreographer you ever heard of has worked with Laura and maybe a few more besides. It is truly an astonishing array of roles. Which roles do you have the fondest memories of?
LM: Well, I think the first one I’m still on a high from is Manon. I had the best time with the whole process in my first creation of it. This year I worked through the whole summer to be in shape – I started to work really hard with Rupert on Manon. He was going to be my original partner. Manon is the main role I wanted to do. I absolutely love it. When I got finally to dance it, it was with Frederico and I was so, so pleased. He is truly the loveliest person. He’s just so giving and so wonderful. The more the Manons went on the more we bonded. It was such a great experience - even if he did give me a black eye! We’ll talk about that later.
Also La Fille Mal Gardee with Ricardo is something that I will never forget because it was with Ricardo and because we had Leslie Collier coaching us. I also really loved working with Jonny Cope on Manon because I’d never worked with him before. Then there is, of course, all the other MacMillan and Ashton stuff I’ve been lucky enough to do. I really, really love it all.
Onegin has also been a highlight because I always love the dramatic side of things. Even with Gamzatti I’ve learned to really get into her character more than just the hard dancing. It’s now all of a piece. Ballet, I’ve learned, is ballet. It is just a bunch of steps in different ways and once you get the hang of it then that’s just it! That’s why I’m not daunted by the prospect of any new stuff because I’m always left to find my own drama in the music. Like with Queen of the Willis, I’m really trying to find a difference between that role and Gamzatti because they are both very strong and potentially hard women; perhaps a little bit evil and a bit dominating. The fun is in finding the differences and making it your own. For me Gamzatti is human and the Queen of the Willis is not. For me that brings the edge.
AP: So you feel more at home in the dramatic roles than in the abstract works?
LM: Yes. It always makes them a bit more interesting. They don’t always have to tell a specific story. I did a piece in the Linbury with Liam Scarlett and my section with Benn had a very distinct dramatic feeling behind it, even though there wasn’t a story. That’s what we dance for, I think. Well, I do anyway. I live for anything that is a bit meaty; something I can sink my teeth into! I think I can get my head around anything - even a pas de trios. You just bounce around a bit! Even there though, you can find something behind it. For me, it’s the fact that you are slightly younger and a bit freer. I try to bring a little something of myself into everything.
AP: One of the challenges of this season has been the injury crisis amongst your colleagues. So many people have been off. You said that you had worked pretty much throughout the summer. Some people wonder if dancers work too much during the holidays so don’t let themselves rest and recover – so then they make themselves more vulnerable to serious injury. On the other hand some dancers say that it is all the stopping and starting that causes the problems. In your experience, which is it better for you?
LM: It really doesn’t bother me either way. I can literally take five weeks off in Thailand doing absolutely nothing or I can dance through. I’m very lucky like that. I can even work in very bad circumstances for short periods and it doesn’t trouble me. Certainly I don’t have to do an amazing class before I perform. My body always seems to react well. It’s just that the thing is the only time you get to make any extra cash is when you work during the summer.
Please don’t think I haven’t been injured - I have been. Most recently I ripped my groin on my second show of Manon. First I almost dislocated my cheek bone when I hit my head on Frederico’s knee in the last pas de deux. I heard my cheekbone crack when I went down and someone said to me later: ‘When you died you really looked out of it!’ The strange thing is that I was on such a high I didn’t even really notice then but Frederico was really beginning to freak out and Ricardo too. He looked like he was the one going faint! Frederico said: ‘Look, we need to get an ambulance. We’re not going to do the curtain calls.’ I said: ‘WE’RE DOING THE CURTAIN CALLS!’