This month’s professional spotlight features Luam. She is a celebrity choreographer and creative director with artists and projects such as Travis Scott, Beyoncé, Nike, Rihanna and more. Read this month’s spotlight to learn more about Luam and her work.

What inspired you to pursue a career in dance and choreography?

For me it wasn’t necessarily that I was pursuing a career in dance and choreography first. I was working in corporate IT, taking time off before med school and had a different career path lined up. What I ended up doing after I graduated, is that I took all of the free time that I had and immersed myself in dance because that’s what I love to do and I finally had the freedom and resources to get good at it. It was really about how I spent my time, in not only dancing and training, but also creating, and I had a voice that I always wanted to explore. Dancing eventually became full time because there were mergers and my job went away. I convinced myself I was taking some time before going to med school, and in that time, I gave myself permission to go for dance all day, full time, feeling like I would eventually go back to my previously scheduled life at some point. However, I just never went back, so it really sort of crept up on me in that I was pursuing it without knowing I was pursuing it.

What was your approach to following your career path?

I think the main underlying foundation of what I did was to just keep going. Meaning every day, every night, whether it was while I had a job, before I had a job, and even now, it was about what more can I do? What haven’t I done? What can I create? How can I push the envelope? It’s constantly asking and finding ways to not just take a step further and move forward, but how to really maximize my potential. What skills do I have? How can I use everything that I have at my disposal in terms of knowledge, resources, and network? How can I access that in an even greater way today and tomorrow? I wake up and I’m like, what have I done today? What haven’t I done yet in this space and how can I do that today? How can I get a step forward?

Often, when you do something daily towards your career goals that you haven’t done before, different paths open up, and its up to you to follow them. It’s almost as if you’re looking at a map in the dark and you keep shining a flashlight as you go through the journey to reveal different things. The thing is you have to keep that flashlight on. That’s really what I did- I just kept illuminating my next steps, in bigger and better ways, whether it was at the beginning of my career or now. The people I know, the things I know how to do, and the things I want to learn how to do are really integral to illuminating my path.

Is there a philosophy that drives your career?

My philosophy is do it your way. I never really saw anybody like me in the space that I was in, whether it was in entertainment or even in the business or medical fields. At the time, I just felt very alone and it was hard to know who to follow because no one had the intersecting and colliding worlds that I was dealing with. Even my background, honestly, no one who has Habesha, that I could see or find, was dealing with the same issues that I was dealing with, even rectifying or reconciling my culture with my career choice. No one is going to look like you and I knew that right away. Whenever you follow a non-traditional route or do anything new publicly, it’s going to invite a lot of “Hmm, what is she doing?” “Why is she doing that?” A lot of questions and from all sides. I think people sometimes choose the career path that has the least questions, but I feel like I walked into all the questions and I welcomed them. Even as a mother, it’s like, “should I be doing X, Y and Z?” There’s always challenges when you do something that is in any way different from what everyone else is doing, a lot of times that’s how you know you’re on the right path, so my motto l has always been ‘do it your own way.’ If you try and do it someone else’s way, I feel like you are turning your back on your future to look at someone else’s. For me, it’s so crucial and important to be true to yourself and okay with your failures because of successes around the corner. Someone else’s way may look successful to you, but it probably may not be successful for you. This definitely gave me a lot of freedom; it was less burdensome to do it my way because I did not feel like I was constantly measuring against another person’s metric.

What is a typical day of work for you?

So there is no typical day. For example, I just had my daughter a couple of months ago and I had to go to work less than two weeks after, so I was in conference calls the week I got out of the hospital because the work and the show had to go on. I was in the middle of developing a big concert and while that was happening, within that week I get a call from Black Girls Rock asking me to choreograph a number of performances & another private client called with another production. I found myself working literally every day for three weeks after I came out of the hospital. From working with my assistant choreographers and creating choreography in a studio to rehearsals to coming home and reviewing screen content while I fed the baby. Even today, I have class later and I have a whole bunch of work to do at home. What people don’t realize is what you see on that stage is a result of a lot of hard work, including proposals, tons of research, and technical elements that I have to review and design long before I enter a studio. I’m using everything. I’m using my love of writing, my technology background, graphic design, and music editing background. I use everything to facilitate my job because it’s more than just making a step or teaching classes. Bringing a vision to life requires a different kind of birthing process and it requires the top minds of many different fields and divisions who come together to create something really special. I have to speak to all those people so I have to understand what it is that they do and provide creative direction to make sure that the vision comes to life given their expertise and their input.

You pursued what many in our community would consider a non-traditional career path. Did family and friends try to encourage you to pursue another career path and how did you navigate through that?

Of course they did. Back in the day dance wasn’t really such the commercial entity that it is now where dance has exploded onto the commercial & professional scene. Before, it wasn’t really about social media or internet, so when you would say dance, it just sounded like some taboo thing. But the thing is, I wasn’t mad at my family or anyone of my culture who felt like I was kind of letting everyone down because of my career choice. Especially when I went from a career path in medicine to dance. There were interventions when people, out of care and love, really fought to help me find a more traditional career path because they were afraid for me. It’s not because of anything else, but that they were afraid for me. I was afraid too because it wasn’t easy. It was hard for them because they didn’t understand it yet I was still figuring it out, so how could I expect them to understand it? I totally empathized with them. It was just about showing them what’s possible. Within the culture, they are going off of what they know and if they’re reacting to something that they don’t know, that unknown can by scary. The best thing, I found, is to help educate them, show them the knowledge, the brilliance it takes, the real possibilities of success and where you can take it. Understanding the other side is key to navigating obstacles culturally, because you have to have empathy for what their concerns are. Otherwise it’s always going to be a clash and they’re going to feel like you don’t get it either.

How does Eritrean dance and musical traditions play a role in your work?

It’s interesting because it doesn’t get to play a direct role in my work all the time in the sense of I put this dance in this choreography or something along those lines. There’s probably only one major way that happened in my career and that was the “Run the World” video.  Aside from that, it’s really about bringing my cultural mindset to my work and always feeling like “I am Eritrean and everyone is going to know that.” No matter where I work or what I do, they’re going to learn that about me. Being Habesha plays a huge part in my career and it’s going to come out in more ways than a dance step. It’s really about making sure that I’m the most representative of who I am as a first generation Eritrean woman. I think we’re so lucky to have the culture that we do. I’ve always felt like I had an extra little something because of my amazing culture. I think that anyone who wants to pursue the arts or really anything that they feel is not traditional, can bring their entire culture with them. In a sense of just being their true selves not like, you have to represent for every Eritrean on the planet. It’s about embodying your love of your culture and it will just come out naturally from there. Right now, I think we’re having some popularity and our culture is in the spotlight due to both Tiffany Haddish and Nipsey. People are starting to find out a little bit here and there which is great. Though I also think it’s important to talk to your friends about it and share things and experiences in your culture. I try to figure out ways that I can do that and I encourage, especially the youth, to really embrace who we are and collaborate with each other. That’s huge. My friend Leeza and I are actually collaborating on a healthy beverage. This amazing vegan drink called Supermylk. We’re two Habesha girls doing it. It’s high end but it’s also very hip-hop. It’s also very Habesha. We’re creating a lane that was never there, so I think it’s important to collaborate with each other and to really bring and celebrate your culture in your space, wherever you can.

What do you consider to be your greatest professional accomplishment to date?

Whenever I am asked this question, I never know what to say. At different points in my career, I’ve been lucky enough to experience or have the opportunity to work with different artists and different companies that, at that time, were exactly what I needed and were sort of the big moment. But after it’s gone, I don’t feel like, “Oh, I’ve peaked” and that was it. I feel like my biggest accomplishments are ahead of me because it’s what I see in my head and what I’m able to do is celebrate the crazy, amazing opportunities that I’ve had along the way. I don’t think that I’ve approached my life’s work yet or even my career high. I feel like I’ve established a career and that in itself takes a bunch of consistent, high-profile work. So for me, a career high is difficult because the work is about creating a consistent number of highs. Career highs are different at different times because it depends on what season of life you’re in and how relevant it is to the season of life you’re in. Early in my career, I got to work with Rihanna as my first major artist as a choreographer. I look back and I’m like “girl, you did not know what you were doing,” but at that moment, it was such a career high for me because I was also a dancer for her. It was the first time that I was able to do my own choreography on stage in front of thousands and thousands of people with this great artist. Then even seeing Beyoncé do my choreography when the music video came out and calling my mom and being like “she’s doing our movement!” I feel like every time I have a first moment then it carves a special place in my career and heart.

What are three top tips or advice you would offer anyone looking to follow a similar career path?

I would say the first one is make sure it’s what you love to do because the things that you love to do, you find yourself doing every second of the day. It becomes a natural inclination to constantly do something, think about it, or develop something. Number two: expect failure. I say that to say go big, go hard and with that, you win big, win hard, but you fall big and fall hard too. Keep your fears in check and make sure that your actions are bold but thoughtful. Third piece of advice would be: know your stuff. You cannot only think about what you’re doing and where it is now, but where has it been? Who are the players involved into creating it? Who came before you, what are their contributions and how can you be the best representation? Bringing all of that to where it is now as opposed to just jumping in at a snapshot of life and trying to pioneer. I think doing your research and knowing your stuff really validates you to other people in the field. If you show that you know your craft and you’re working hard, people in the field will respect you and you don’t have to ask for it.

Outside of all of your hard work and efforts toward building your brand, what do you do for fun? Hobbies?

My family is my hobby and my everything. My whole mindset has switched to where I’m not like, “oh, let me go see a movie” but now it’s “let me go to the park with the kids.” I’m a foodie, so I like finding a really great restaurant that has a very curated menu. Because my work is entertainment, I also love to just relax. Honestly, I’m at a point in my life where I’ve done the crazy travel, leaving town for months at a time and not seeing people for a long time, that now I really value getting to spend time with my family and friends.

Where can people learn more about you and your work?

My website is www.luamworld.com and my Instagram is @luamky. Instagram is probably where I do the most interacting and it encapsulates a snapshot of all the different things I’m involved in at the time. I love sharing and being inspired, we live in a time now where I can do that constantly!