Leela Petronio

Child of the ball, LeeLa Petronio is an internationally recognized dancer for developing an original approach to taps by merging them with body percussion and hip hop dance. Franco-American, she was born in Paris in 1971. Coming from the rhythm and Jazz Tap lineage by her mother (Sarah Petronio, a privileged partner of legendary dancer Jimmy Slyde), she participated during the 1980s and 90s in the USA, in the revival of Tap Dance, trained and performed on stage with dancers such as Gregory Hines, Honi Coles, Savion Glover and Steve Condos. After a French and International Baccalaureate, EABJM, Paris in 1989, she moved to the USA where she received a Master's degree in "Production/Arts Management" from Columbia College, Chicago in 1994. Just graduated, she collaborated in the editing of the "Chicago On Tap" festival, a co-production of Columbia College and the Old Town School of Folk Music presented at Navy Pier and then moved to New York where she did a multi-month internship in the production offices of the Public Theater on Lafayette Street. She returned to France in 1995 and worked as a production assistant for Self Service magazine. She crosses the path of the Funk Attitude hip hop dance company with whom she will collaborate on several shows before creating the Hip Tap project in 1997. Multidisciplinary company with whom she develops projects around percussive dance based on the decisive influences of her career - jazz culture, tap dance, hip hop dance, STOMP. Her choreographic work has developed around rhythm as a universal language and link between artistic forms. The plurality of expressions and the impact of sound nourish his shows, which are the result of questions, encounters and research. A work of merging urban, jazz and contemporary dances with the work of rhythm and sound, in a creative and current approach.