Tapdance-Projekt 2019/2020: TRACKS

Workshop with Daniel Luka

Daniel interrogates the impulse that sets us on a new path towards unknown destinations or different directions in his third project “TRACKS”. What kinds of changes, confusions and encounters take place and how much courage and encouragement do we need to get moving? The participants work up a choreography set to a specifically created soundtrack, and this choreography will be documented by a team of video artists at the end of the six-month process. The resulting clip will be shown during the 2020 tap dance days at tanzhaus nrw.

Portrait Daniel Luka

Daniel Luka

When Daniel Luka, aged five, watched a TV show featuring tap dance, he was quick on deciding: “I want to do this, too!” His mother enrolled him in a dance course, and his love for tap dance was burning brightly. He started teaching in his hometown of Wuppertal when he was only fourteen, living and dancing in New York and Barcelona a few years later. Today, Daniel is a versatile performer collaborating with top-class artists from the international dance and music scenes. All the while, he likes pushing boundaries, experimenting with hip hop music or electronic beats, looking for any entanglement with video or digital art and absorbing impulses by vastly different cultures. Among his inspirations are masters of the genre like Chuck Green, Jimmy Slyde and Sarah Petronio, in whose performances he participated internationally and also at various times during the tap dance days at tanzhaus nrw. He is the choreographer and producer within his own company “Daniel Luka & The Tapengers”, roles he also fulfils for shows like “Feel The Tap”, “Tap A Tune” and “Resonance”. He danced as a soloist with the WDR Big Band at the Cologne Philharmonic and is the founder and host of “Tap Jam Düsseldorf”.