BIO

Founder of the London Tap Jam, Junior Laniyan began his training at The Sylvia Young Theatre School, and has since performed numerous times at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, initially with Tobias Tak in Out Of The Blues during its’ UK Tour, then in New York on Tap, Cross Currents Turned on Tap and Finding Synaesthesia which was for the Salzberg & London Jazz Festivals with Canada’s Heather Cornell. He also worked with Robbie Williams dancing the Mr Bojangles solo in Robbie Williams Live at the Royal Albert Hall. His international credits include Copasetics (Switzerland), Feet Fusion Tap Concert (Finland), Los Sones Negros (Spain) with Flamenco legend Juan de Juan. He has been invited by the Chilean Legend Cristián Cuturrufo to perform In La Serana Festival Internacional de Jazz in Chile. He has also performed in El GAM (Chile) with Natalia Ramíres Morales and in the show Riverdance (Germany, Ireland, Korea, UK and China) where he filmed Riverdance Live From Beijing DVD.

Junior has also danced with the Stan Tracey Orchestra and as a member of the Michele Drees Quartet is a regular at London's 606 Club. They have also had the pleasure of opening for the Jazz legend Jon Hendricks at Ronnie Scott’s as well as being featured in 2013’s London Jazz Festival at the Southbank’s Purcell Room and being invited to perform at the Ernesto Nazareth Chorinho Festival (Brazil).

Junior Laniyan also works as a professional actor and has even merged both skills on stage while playing the title role in the touring show Master Juba, and the children’s show Mrs. Wobble The Waitress as Mr. Wobble.

As an actor he played Pvt Bell in Danny Boyles 28 Days Later & The Photographer in Gareth Maxwell Robert’s Kill, Kill, Faster, Faster.

He has also worked extensively in numerous productions including Doctor Who (Suited Customer), Doctors (Terry Daken & Pete Hutchinson), If You See God Tell Him (Errol), Rough Diamonds (Michael Groce), and Holby City (Leo Griffin) for the BBC. Stealing Lives (Gozy) for Channel Four. Family Affairs (Benji McHugh) for Chennal 5 and Twenty-Four Seven (Marcus Murphy), Wavelength (Matt Jenkins) Prime suspect 2 (David Allen) and Coronation Street (Stuart) for Granada Television.

On stage he played Pete Spivy in Blues for Mr. Charlie in the New Wolsey Theatre in Ipswitch and London’s Tricycle Theatre, Kamel in D’you Know What I Mean and Him in Fifteen Minutes Before, both at Nottingham’s Lakeside Arts Centre. He was also understudy for Cory & Lyons in August Wilson’s Fences for Theatre Royal Bath and Horatio in a site specific street theatre production of Hamlet.

His tap choreography credits include Sky 1’s Louis Spence’s Show Business, Net A Porter’s online Autumn Winter Shoes Campaign a commercial for Zain in Lebanon and Dance consultant for London’s 2012 Olympic opening ceremony. In his efforts to share his love of the dance with others, he co-founded and hosts London Tap Jam, a  bi-monthly opportunity for tap dancers to jam with each other supported by fantastic live musicians.