art as a human adventure
art in the service of the encounter

Laurent Bortolotti, his journey and philosophy

The philosophy of the jazz é-tap company is inseparable from my personal journey. I came to discover my deep reasons for becoming a performing artist, and wanting to create with other artists, in an empirical way, through a succession of experiences, which came together in the jazz é-tap company.

My name is Laurent Bortolotti, I grew up in the small town of Yverdon-les-Bains, in Switzerland. As a teenager I caught the jazz virus while listening to vinyl LPs. Jazz inspired me to move and dance. One day I saw Fred Astaire on television, and since then the passion for tap dancing has never left me.

Among the tap dance teachers who influenced me the most, are Gilbert and Fabrice Martin (Lausanne, Switzerland), Barbara Duffy (New York, USA), Rhythm Kaneko (Tokyo, Japon), Heather Cornell (New York, USA), Lane Alexander (Chicago, USA) and Sam Weber (San Francisco, USA). These teachers made me understand that tap dance offers a musical experiment in movement by making jazz music "visible". That’s what led me to create the "compagnie sucre et piment" in 2004 - renamed "jazz é-tap" in 2015.

Since 2006 and thanks to the work of Inez Cierna (Atelier ET - Lausanne, Switzerland) and Noah Pikes (Roy Hart Theatre - Malérargues, France), I gradually turned to theater, which offered me  a new expressive context for tap dancing. This is because the creative processes in making theatre are also applicable to tap dancing, especially when using improvisation.

In 2011 I had the chance to lead some theatre workshops for ATD Quart Monde, an international NGO working against poverty and social exclusion. In 2012 I discovered the work of Jump Rhythm Jazz Project who mix voice, and movement to jazz. These experiences allowed me to discover the amazing potential of art as a "human adventure", and "a possibility of meeting", beyond aesthetic creations. This gave me a new impetus which led me to pursue tap dance training with Daniel Borak (Winterthur, Switzerland), Jason Janas (New York, USA), Danny Nielsen (Vancouver, Canada), Cartier Williams (New York, USA), Guillem Alonso, Roser Font and Laia Molins (Barcelona, Spain) and to engage the jazz é-tap company in new projects...