Cover Stories Charm La’Donna: Getting to Know Her Power Through Movement
Charm La’Donna interprets her consciousness and her healing through dance. Additionally, she translates her language of expression through multiple mediums of art.
Charm is known for carrying a sense of creative direction and produces art through her lens for other legendary artists.
In an exclusive interview, Charm explained to the Los Angeles Watts Times that she is a positive product of her environment.
It started with Charm acknowledging her inner child. In her most explorative age, she recalled her early fascination with different channels of art.
“I think this is something that’s been in me since I was a kid,” explained Charm about her long-time passion for dance, music, and theatre. “Dance is always the forefront and as I got older, I was able to expand and venture into other art that I’m passionate about,” she said.
Leaning into her heart space, Charm is waking up to a life of being a leading contributor to colossal projects such as influencing the production of DAMN & The Big Steppers tours with Pulitzer winning artist, Kendrick Lamar.
She also allotted her talents to wash over Dua Lipa’s “Dance the Night” music video and The Weekend’s Super Bowl performance, running adjacent to Beyonce.
Recalling her evolution as a choreographer, Charm stated, “If we’re talking about how I started creating in the beginning — it was just me, being the little girl in the mirror, wanted to do dance steps and making them up myself, and it evolved into the stuff you see now.”
Fatimah Robinson, one of the most sought-after and award-winning choreographers, met Charm when she was 10 years old.
From there, Robinson began to cultivate the light that was shining through Charm. As a mentee, Charm absorbed how to handle herself in a place of creative business — as a Black woman.
Diving into the dimensions of being a Black woman while leading a team in mainstream creative industries, Charm had to demonstrate her worth on multiple occasions.
She credited her observation of Robinson with helping her to understand this lesson as well as learning to excel while being the only Black woman in the room at times.
Charm emphasized Robinson’s impact by stating, “She has always been someone I looked up to and someone I admired as a Black woman. I was fortunate to have someone I could see myself be at a young age.”
Describing Robinson’s personality, Charm said that her mentor’s qualities of a mother and big sister allowed Charm to grow while teaching her valuable lessons at the same time.
A Compton native, Charm explained her upbringing as the battery behind her energy and the frequent passageway to her creativity.
“Family, friends, my experience — it’s what helps cultivate my art,” noted Charm. “Growing up, I had an amazing experience. I been able to wrap my head around all of my experiences into my art.”
Charm considered her power through movement and the healing it creates.
Her statement echoed the NYU peer-reviewed thesis, “The Shame We Hold: The Body’s Dance Towards Freedom,” the Auto-ethnographic perspective of intergenerational trauma and the effects it has on the human by noted art therapist Paris Marcel.
Narrowing the focus on the body, the movement and the physiological release of stress and trauma, Charm confirmed the previously noted scientific behavior of body movement and its influence on the process of healing.
“Seeing all the things growing up and experiencing certain situations that may not be normal with the average person.” said Charm.
“I feel like dance was a way for me express, cope, and deal and unleash emotions when I felt like my words couldn’t say anything.”