Our #nachmolafayette superhero interviewed this week was Sarah Kate Roblow, a sophomore in dance at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. Sarah’s been generating some buzz since moving here from Shreveport not only because of her beautiful technique, but because of her unadulterated passion and dedication to dance.

Seriously! This girl has NOT SKIPPED A BEAT, NOT SKIPPED A DAY with these NACHMO prompts!

*Jaw drops…basically to the floor*

I imagine Sarah’s motto during this month has been something along the lines of, “When life gives you lemons, you still dance, duh!” Someone might think that because she’s doing the prompts every day and constantly improvising and formulating her own sense of well-being through movement, she’d have this “choreography thing” in the bag right?

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Well, ladies and gentlemen, this is where the truth comes out. BEING AN ARTIST IS NEVER AN EASY THING! The fight for generating new material never comes to an end. The fight for expressing our identity as individuals, as families, as countries, and as humankind itself will never come to an end. But that’s why we love it. Once perfection is achieved, creation ceases, and the world becomes stagnant. This is something artists of all disciplines struggle with. I recently attended an “artist talk” in which a painter spoke about his work and then answered some audience questions. One woman’s question was “How do you get yourself out of a rut when it comes to making art? I feel like I’ve had writer’s block for a long time.” His reply was to just force yourself to make something…anything. Put some fruit out on a table and paint it. Go back to an old project you stopped working on a long time ago.

Make yourself complete a dance prompt every day and then post it to social media to hold yourself accountable.

And this is another reason why National Choreographer’s Month is so beneficial for Lafayette. Not only has it helped build up a community of dancers in different stages of their careers, but it has also taught these artists that creating is key. It doesn’t matter what your creations look like, feel like, or how other people perceive it. It’s something new that has never existed before, and it’s all yours.  

Check out this video of Sarah Kate for NACHMO! Amongst her phenomenal improvised (yes, this movement came off the top of her head), she talks about the highs and lows of choreography and how everyone’s brain babies are beautiful in their own way!