Emmy-nominated choreographer, creative director, and entrepreneur Laurieann Gibson has been known throughout pop culture over the years as an extremely passionate, tough loving, and driven artist. As she continues to push through glass ceilings, she’s ready to tell her story in her debut book “Dance Your Dance: 8 Steps to Unleash Your Passion and Live Your Dream.”
Gibson has worked with a plethora of celebrities, creating unique experiences for each as she either directs or choreographs artists enhancing their overall stage presence. A figure not only in pop and hip-hop culture, but her work has reached businesses via television, commercial, film, gaming, and now publishing. Dance Your Dance highlights her life’s trajectory as a dancer from a young girl to a career woman. Still expanding and exploring a successful career, her book speaks to the dreamer within us all, sending messages of empowerment and encouragement.
Her passion for the arts exudes throughout her spirit whether in person or on camera. A performer since before she could even talk, she shares her mother always knew she’d be a dancer. “She says I left the most incredible scars on her belly and my other two sisters didn’t leave anything but I tell her it’s because I was dancing in the womb,” Gibson shared. After years of following her spirit and dreams, she says turning her story into a book was a God moment.
“I didn’t think I would be writing a book. I didn’t know that I would have a passion as an author. I didn’t know that [my] creativity could come out in this form,” she stated. After selling a scripted show based on her life, her nephew helped her map out the outline for what would become Dance Your Dance. Amazed by what he created, she continued to detail her purpose. “I had a passion to communicate and inspire people directly, outside of my artist or the things that I had done. It was something that I wanted to be able to connect with and not have the artists that I built change the manifesto where everybody has their own mission. I wanted mine to be unapologetically truthful and inspiring.”
“I wanted to change the narrative and inspire people that there are no politics to becoming; becoming is being.”
Her desire to speak to the passion of others came from her wanting to make the world dance and to find freedom in themselves. Ultimately she says, “it helped me, inspire people to dance their own dance and it came from a passion to connect [people] directly with my talent and my gifts.”
She details that the past year being in quarantine allowed her to truly reflect on her life and begin the writing process. She allowed her creativity to bounce from one skill to the next, using her love of rhythm and movement to inspire the way she put her words on paper.
“I wanted the reader to feel like they were moving, feel like they were alive. I wanted it to have a flow. I wanted it to have a rhythm so that it wasn’t just words judging you or making you feel like you could never acquire something but it was the rhythm of the writing that was unlocking your passion and inspiration.” In her process she remained in her present moment, intentional and truthful with her word choice and stories, she aimed to translate in her writing her vulnerability and honesty. She shares that was the hardest part of it all. “I had a hard time accepting that a lot of challenges were there to make me. A lot of challenges I went through, I realized just how great my gift is and just how powerful I was capable of becoming. I think the acceptance of that was a tad bit difficult when I would go back and read the stories,” she continued, “But I made it through.”
Though Dance Your Dance stands as an inspirational timepiece, Gibson still wanted to make clear just how powerful she is and how powerful it is to see a Black woman in those positions. As history would tell, a Black woman should not have the opportunities she’s been afforded, yet she fought against a system of oppression and made a way. Her goal is to help others understand that it is possible and that it is equally okay to step into your power and remove anyone who tells you otherwise. “I wanted to create a narrative where the process was sexy, where what it takes to produce greatness is a challenge that we want to embrace.”
Gibson’s story is still being written along with a legacy of drive, motivation, and passion. While she may still be “downloading,” her purpose to serve and inspire others through movement has proven to be a compelling ride. Regardless of what happens, her only hope is that her legacy leaves behind a message of strength in oneself.
“I want the person to feel that they are unshakable, unbreakable. I want them to know that who they are, is more powerful than who someone says you have to be. I want them to feel in their spirit that they don’t have to receive the accolades of the world to be empowered by what’s inside of you or to feel like you need that to confirm your identity. I want that feeling to be felt.”
Laurieann Gibson’s, “Dance Your Dance: 8 Steps to Unleash Your Passion and Live Your Dream” releases February 16, 2021, and can be pre-ordered now at danceyourdancebook.com
