faculty spotlight

Luyz Baldijão, of Sao Paulo, Brazil, is a leader in the in the international tap community, and at 60 years old, continues to break new ground in tap dance.

A tap dancer for more than 40 years, Luyz began his own dance journey learning from the tap masters in New York City, when he received a scholarship to study at the world-famous Steps on Broadway. He threw himself into the work, taking classes and private lessons daily.

Upon returning to his native Brazil, Luyz began a successful career as a tap dance educator and choreographer and formed his own dance company. Luyz and his dancers performed all over the world, bringing tap dance to new audiences.

Luyz became a household name when he was featured in the film Tap World (available on Amazon), for his work with underserved youth living in the outskirts of Sao Paulo. The program he began continues to flourish today, now under the direction of one of his former students, who was a product of Luyz’s program there.

Luyz has created a new methodology for the dance, called SYNtapsIS, a play on the term, “syntapis,” a writing style that employs complex sentence structure. In his "Syntapsis," Luyz invites the dancer to begin with a simple structure of movement and voice that becomes incrementally more complex, and ultimately helps dancers to improve body coordination and musicality. SYNtapsIS is for all ages and all levels of dance, and has been taught at several US studios and universities under Luyz’s fun, energetic and entertaining style of direction.