Photo by Nisian Hughes
Lauren Lovette personifies the intertwining of dance and choreography, moving seamlessly from one to the other. As dance maker, performer, collaborator and director, she fluidly crosses boundaries and defies categorization.
For more than a decade, Lovette danced with New York City Ballet, rising quickly from the corps de ballet to soloist and then principal. Her roles ranged from the purely classical to abstract and contemporary, from dramatic to comic. The youngest principal, her presence brought lumnious energy, elegance and vivacity to the stage. She continues to dance, guesting, self-creating or dancing with other companies.
In 2022, Lovette received the distinct and historic honor of being named the very first choreographer in residence at the renowned Paul Taylor Dance Company. In this capacity, she will create work in a ground-breaking partnership with dancers steeped in a style far different from that of classical ballet.
Born in Thousand Oaks, California, Lovette began studying ballet at the age of 11 at the Cary Ballet Conservatory in Cary, North Carolina. She enrolled at SAB as a full time student in 2006. In October 2009, Ms. Lovette became an apprentice with NYCB and joined the Company as a member of the corps de ballet in September 2010. Ms. Lovette received the Clive Barnes Award for dance in December 2012 and was the 2012-2013 recipient of the Janice Levin Award. Promoted to soloist in February 2013 and to principal dancer in June 2015, she stepped down from her position at the company in 2021 in order to embark on a career devoted to dance and choreography in more equal measure.
Since childhood, Lovette has felt compelled to make dance, and her first opportunities have lit the path to her future. At the 2007 School of American Ballet student choreography show, Lovette debuted her first piece. Another ballet for the next year’s SAB showing followed, and in 2009, an invitation was extended to create a work for the New York Choreographic Institute.
Lovette’s early work led to the moment in 2016 when, as a relatively new principal dancer, she was asked to choreograph her first piece for the company for the New York City Ballet’s annual Fall Fashion Gala, an event that pairs choreographers with fashion designers to collaborate on create new work and highly original costumes.
In 2017, Lovette choreographed for the Vail International Dance Festival, the NYCB Fall Fashion Gala, and the American Ballet Theatre Studio Company. She was awarded the Virginia B. Toulmin Fellowship at the Center for Ballet and the Arts at NYU in fall of 2018, and a year later created a work for the 2019 Fall Fashion Gala at NYCB. Her work at NYCB has been noteworthy, forging a path for other female choreographers in an area of dance that has notably been predominantly male.
Her work has been commissioned and performed by leading dance companies and festivals, including the New York City Ballet, American Ballet Theatre, the Vail International Dance Festival, American Ballet Theatre Studio Company, the Paul Taylor Dance Company, Nevada Ballet Theatre, as well as a self-produced evening entirely of her own work in which she also danced, Why It Matters.
