“Dance Was My Escape”: My Latest AYB Interview with Lauren Rooney!

Last month, interviewed AYB founding member, Ushila. Now it’s time for a newbie and someone I don’t know very well – but have certainly seen all over AYB videos and stories – Lauren Rooney.

Fresh out of a lyrical class with Marta, Lauren headed to The Southbank to sit down and do a serious interview…Until we smelled donuts, which led to a rabid search to find a stall. Once sated with sugary goodness, I learned all about how she came to find AYB…

R: OK so a few months ago, my Instagram seemed to be taken over by @itslaurenrooney! Where did you come from?! How did you find AYB?

L: My first ever workshop was in April – a chair workshop with Kash. It was a mega twerky routine and he had us push the chairs together and face one another like a dance-off. It was the most fun atmosphere I’d ever been in and three weeks later I was a full-blown member,hook-line-and-sinkered. You can’t get me away!

R: Do you have dance experience? You always get the choreo: clean, sassy and sexy!

L: No! I went to one ballet class when I was a young kid – and I walked out crying in my tutu after five minutes cos I hated it – but apart from that I had never taken a dance class until two and a half years ago.

R: Oh for &$@£’s sake! I have been dancing the same amount of time and you’re so ridiculously better than me! So how did you come to dance?

L: So: it was April 2016 and I had Class Pass. I tried AYB and another company and I just found Joelle’s a bit too advanced and scary for where I was at. So I went with the safer option but eventually realised that…I just wasn’t growing. I was so used to getting all of the choreo and feeling amazing doing that but I needed a challenge. I actually feel really good when I only get half the routine at AYB, as I want to improve.

R: Well you always look like you’re getting it all to me! When I’m next to you I copy you!

L: Nooo my arms are so messy! I just fake it ‘til I make it! I go much more on musicality than counts, like today it was the movement on those ‘boom’ noises to Bleeding Love.

R: I don’t know how I think in class. I think I’m just desperately praying. Did you find it intimidating coming to AYB?

L: The first time around yes, because it seemed as though everyone knew each other…But this year, even more so! I thought people wouldn’t talk to me, and might ridicule me because I went to another dance company. However, the moment I set foot in that workshop, (founding member) Bea spoke to me. And all these people who’s dance journey I’d stalked on Instagram were being so friendly! It felt like a little family.

R: And have you found that all of this dance has altered other areas of your life?

L: 100%. So this April was a really bad time for me. I’d been in a relationship that had been quite rocky and one day he just blocked me. He didn’t break up with me – just blocked me.

I’ve not heard from him since. Dance was my escape but I wanted to start afresh somewhere as I only had my housemates for friends and I just wanted to cry on my bed watching Netflix. And now I don’t just have dance, but this huge social network!

R: So he’s never got back in touch?!

L: No. He’s in a new relationship and in August he was celebrating his 6-month anniversary, so if you do the maths…

R: What an absolute w****r! I’m sorry that happened to you, I’m disgusted but wow! Out of something so terrible, something so brilliant has happened. Wait, so if he hated it when you were happy and dancing, when didhe like you? Sat at home with him?

L: Well, he was gaining weight despite going to the gym, whereas it was falling off me – I’ve dropped about 60 pounds from all this exercise. He knew when I had workshops booked, so he’d come round the night before and make us order food at about 11:30 so I’d have to cancel class last minute. Then he’d leave, knowing that I’d be sat at home doing nothing. I guess I should have stuck up for myself more…

R: No it’s so hard,and if he was making you feel selfish then there was probably a need to prove that you weren’t.

L: He made me feel like no one would ever want to be with me ever again so I felt like I couldn’t lose him as no one would ever, ever touch me ever again. Dance was the only place that I’d go and feel good cos I was getting choreo, looked great in the vids, I’d post it to Instagram but then he’d slag them off. He’d always be like, “You’re too skinny, you look really bad, no one’s ever gonna like you like that, you need to put on weight…”

R: I’ve never felt so glad that I guy’s dumped a girl by blocking her. Are you still dealing with those feelings?

L: No! My confidence has shot up from class! And I don’t think I ever believed it, not deep down.When it ended I knew I was good enough and it was all bullshit. So it was the best thing to ever happen to me!

R: I have a little saying: if it doesn’t make you feel like AYB, don’t get involved. Work, relationships: it applies to everything!

L: In our Whatsapp group we always say the only stable thing for us is dance! Like when JK Rowling said Hogwarts will always be there to welcome you home. Dance is a constant thing we can all come back to. It’ll always be there for you.

Rebecca x

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