About the team
Junior Laniyan
Co-founder / host
Born and raised in South East London, Junior Laniyan began his training at The Sylvia Young Theatre School during which time he trained for a while with Derek Hartley at London’s Pineapple Studios. Since leaving he has performed numerous times at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, firstly with His tap mentor Tobias Tak in Out Of The Blues during its’ UK Tour, then as a featured solo tapper in New York on Tap, Cross Currents Turned on Tap and Finding Synaesthesia which was for the London Jazz Festival & later for the Salzberg Jazz Festival with Canada’s Heather Cornell. He also had the pleasure of working alongside Robbie Williams dancing the Mr Bojangles solo in Robbie Williams Live at the Royal Albert Hall [video], He is often seen performing abroad in shows like Feet Fusion Tap Concert in Finland’s Gloria Theatre, Los Sones Negros for Suma Flamenca in Madrid with Flamenco legend Juan de Juan, Riverdance in Germany, China, Korea, Ireland and home in the UK, and can be seen on the Riverdance Live From Beijing DVD.
Junior has also danced with the Stan Tracey Orchestra and as member of the Michele Drees Quartet along with Patrick Bettison and John Crawford is a regular at the 606 Club. They have also had the pleasure of opening for the Jazz legend Jon Hendricks at Ronnie Scott’s
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 Doctors, If You See God Tell Him, Rough Diamonds, and Holby City for the BBC. Stealing Lives for Channel Four. Family Affairs for Chennal 5 and Twenty-Four Seven, Wavelength Prime suspect 2 and Coronation Street 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.
Junior has performed and taught numerous workshops in Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Italy and Russia as well as the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, Colin’s Performing Arts School, Danceworks, Mountview, the New London Performing Arts Centre, London Studio Centre, Millenium Performing Arts and Sylvia Young Theatre School. He is also a faculty member of Pineapple Dance Studios London.
His tap choreography credits include Sky 1’s Louis Spence’s Show Business, Net A Porter’s online Autumn Winter Shoes Campaign and a commercial for Arab Idol. He is currently a Dance consultant for London’s 2012 Olympic opening ceremony.
Melody Lander
Co-founder / event co-ordinator
As well as being a tap dancer, Melody is also a documentary producer/director, with over 10 years experience working in television on factual programming broadcast on BBC1, BBC2, ITV and Channel 4. The critically acclaimed Channel 4 series that Melody worked on as an assistant producer, Last Chance Kids, won a Royal Television Society award and was nominated for a Grierson Award.
From the age of eight, Melody initially learnt to tap dance through completing the traditional British ISTD syllabus. After a considerable break from the art form, in 2002 she discovered Junior Laniyan's rhythm tap classes at Pineapple Dance Studios in Covent Garden, where she was introduced to the world of rhythm tap dancing and improvisation and hasn't looked back since.
She has been privileged enough to have taken classes with the likes of Heather Cornell, Roxane Butterfly and Jason Samuels Smith. Improvisation is where her passion lies.
Dan Sheridan
Co-founder / sound / website / publicity
Dan took up tap dance while dating a clog dancer, and has been hooked ever since. He has studied with many different teachers while moving round the country, and was introduced to improvisation at a workshop in Edinburgh with one of Junior's students. Since then, he's been privileged to study with Josh Hilberman, Heather Cornell and Max Pollak. He regularly attends the TapMotif festival in Greece, and in 2009 directed one of the student projects for performance in Athens.
Not just a tap dancer, Dan is a traditional sword dancer with Thrales Rapper, and also dances with Gog Magog Molly in Cambridge.
Dr Sheridan is employed as a computer scientist for Adelard, a safety consultancy working on behalf of the nuclear industry in the UK and abroad. He is also an LPIC-2 systems administrator specialising in Ubuntu Linux and VMware. He runs this site using Ubuntu and Plone, on hardware hosted by Hetzner.de.
Annette Walker
Renegade Stage
As well as leading the Renegade Stage, Annette is a member of the UK tap group AboutTime, and one of the key members of the Tap Rhythm Project.
Annette has performed in such events as Turned on Tap with tap group London Jazz Tap Orchestra at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, the gDA Cabaret at Greenwich Dance Agency, the royal charity show Aspects of Dance with AboutTime at Richmond Theatre, and a number of solo and guest appearances in festivals and special events. She has also appeared on television show The New Paul O'Grady Show with AboutTime.
In addition to performing, Annette is a tap dance teacher for Greenwich Dance Agency and a contributing writer for Talking Tap in the dance magazine Dance Expression.
