“Take a risk and fight for the expression”
Gregory Lau is a wonderful dancer, who is dancing in Kidd Pivot of Crystal Pite, after working in NDT for six years. He is also certified in Meditation, Breathwork, and Reiki.
-How important is meditation? And how this helped your own dance?
“I think that meditation has unlocked the door of mindfulness of existing every part of the body. When we have to be in creative processes, the brain asks a different pathway to mind so that we can offer more artistically. When I did the meditation course, it was interesting because it definitely taught me that this is actually meditation. This is the richness of just the singular practice and also reminds us that it is existing in our mindfulness. My thinking mind is not on when I am dancing. It is like within the body consciousness of the intelligence of our body because dance asks for being in the present at the moment always. We have the escalator of the ideas of what dance training is and the idea of what dancers should be like having techniques. And at a certain point, when we experience more about ourselves in this generation in society, we begin to think that there is something in the escalator that has been set up that isn’t feeding me in the way that I feel like my soul is asking me to be that. And that is why meditation has been awesome because I am able to reinsert my conscious awareness into my physical body in a way that is a lot healthier.”
-You worked several years in NDT. How was your experience there?
“It was really great. I joined when I was 19 and I always wanted to travel. I am from Hawaii originally so living on a small island was all I had. I had a desire for traveling that is what NDT gave me: the desire to share art and see different cultures. Artistically, it was great. Dancers around me were so incredible and inspiring. For me, growing up, that was the best environment that I could be in. NDT, for me, was a big learning process about myself and what I want to contain with dance because when I was 19 and I was just following the flow. I danced with wonderful pieces with amazing dancers and met awesome choreographers. And at the same time, there were definitely things that were lacking for me in the company. "
-What are you aiming for?
“I want the best and not in an egoic state but, when I am in the studio with so many incredible people, I want to see them in all their different colors possible. And you don’t want to just go for green or yellow because you know that the beauty of the colors mixed is amazing. I also wanted to challenge the system to do more. I wanted to do more with gender roles like the identities of male dancers. Our generation is identifying and understanding gender in a different way. So how do we reflect that in our art? How do we open ourselves to explore that? Many different expressions of love, many different expressions of physical bodies. With those questions and desires, I wonder to create a space where young dancers can express themselves in their true world.”
-Now you joined Kidd Pivot of Crystal Pite. What fascinates you about her work?
“I started dancing with hip-pop so I had this deep belief that dances are radiating energy. For me, Crystal Pite embodies certain maturity and innovation that I was searching for in NDT. The way that, as a leader, she held the stage for everyone and appreciated every single technician. While I was working with her, I was experiencing a mother of dance that I had never had. There was so much compassion and, within the process, there is not only crazy intelligence but also a desire to make me feel that I am not “just another dancer” to her. If you have something you need to offer her, she is listening. And she appreciates that. That is just a human element for me which is so important. I didn’t leave NDT thinking about joining Kidd Pivot. I left NDT with the thought that I am not going to dance again. And all of sudden, Crystal Pite needed a male dancer so I joined the company and I did the whole tour with them.”
-How important is it to find time to connect with your body, researching it with improvisation?
“When I was young, looking at people celebrating their individuality, I thought I needed to research what makes me unique: what I do have to say because I had no idea. I took a lot of time watching, and a lot of time listening and a lot of exploring. And I think it is a privilege to understand your body anatomically and understand the creativity of the body-mind connection: it is introducing you to yourself. And no one else is going to do that except you. And when you have to create, you want to do that from a place of honesty."
-How important are feelings in improvisation?
“I think the feelings and sensations are another color in the palette. Becoming aware of the sensations in our body unlocks a certain openness that radiates that experience to someone else. We have the choice to be present in our embodiment. Because without that I don’t think people will get the touch, we don’t radiate energy. Presence, mindfulness, and awareness of having an experience is really important. For me, improvisation is a way to articulate words that aren't fully realized in my spoken vocabulary. I don't know how to speak them into existence, but I can offer my vessel as a means to channel those feelings. I don’t know how to explain it if it is a certain color or emotion but it exists.”
-What is your relationship with music? How does music help the dance?
“I love music. For my hip-hop background, musicality was the only motivation for me to dance. Musicality was the foundation of my joy. It is an element that, when we dance, we can choose our relationship with. Ballet, for my experience, sometimes is restricting, but the thing that brought me freedom was the musicality: the music is so clear that I can do ballet with an individual relation with music. I also enjoy the not defined musicality because, in absence, everything is vibrating. There is noise everywhere, even in silence: it can be considered noise. And so we can also play in abstraction.”
-Can you describe the connection between dance and energy, for you?
“Dance is so energetic and we are always emanating energy; there is always vibrations speaking, even in the illusion of stillness. We can use energy as an initiation for movements or just an awareness of the relationship that we are existing in; that is able to open ourselves to a multi-dimensional experience.”
-How were you able to make important decisions?
“I made my choices during my suffering. All the questions and the curiosity don’t need to be answered, but they need to be explored, and I give myself space to do that, and I tried. In Buddhism, there is a concept called Bodhichitta. It is the wish or desire of enlightenment for the sake of every sentient being. I really resonate with this. Unpacking our conditions, clearing the self-limiting beliefs, healing our past wounds to be present in our bodies. Our presence is what heals us, it allows us to be a channel for the universe to speak through us.”
-Describe yourself as a dancer in three words.
“Connecting, responding, and allowing.”
-Can you give some advice to young dancers?
“It is an ongoing relationship, not just with dance, but with yourself and you are using a physical art form to unlock yourself. What we have is a physical intelligence, a spatial intelligence, a mental intelligence, imagery intelligence and we want to recognize what we have contained to understand what spaces and places can help for the best artistic expression of myself. You have to go through it. It is your job to determine what information is helpful for your expression, and when something is working for you say “thank you” and move on.”
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