Ep31 - For the Love of TAP with Travis Knights

Tap Dancer. Performer. Choreographer. Speaker. Believer.  Montreal native Travis Knights is realizing his dreams, pounding rhythms on wood floors all over the world. His talent and dedication have earned him audiences in Shanghai, Dusseldorf, Paris, New York, and Vancouver to name a few.

His career started in 2000, when he was cast as a principal dancer in the motion picture biography of Bill 'Bojangles' Robinson with Gregory Hines and Savion Glover.  The film, entitled 'Bojangles' was choreographed by the legendary Henry LeTang.

In 2006, he was tapped to be the principal dancer in the video game adaptation of Warner Brother's 'Happy Feet'.  In 2007 and 2008, Travis participated extensively as a Tap Dance consultant for Cirque du Soleil.  Since then, he has performed in Tandem Act Productions' 'Diary of a Tap Dancer' at the Apollo Theatre, and the touring show 'Wonderland: A Tap Tribute to Stevie Wonder', created by Ayodele Casel and Sarah Savelli.

He was a featured Tap Dancer in the Opening Ceremonies to the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver. In the same year he toured North America with the raucous and rowdy internationally acclaimed Australian Tap Dance show, Tap Dogs.

From 2010 to 2013, Travis jumped into the dance company world as a principal dancer with Tapestry Dance Company in Austin, Texas.  During his time there he was awarded the Austin Critic's Table Award for best dance artist in 2011 and 2013.  In 2014, he embarked on a self-produced world tour, filming his web series entitled ’The Interviews' featuring celebrated pioneers in the tap dance world.  He recently debuted new works in Thomas Marek's show NOLA in Hamburg, Germany.

He currently lives in Brampton, Ontario and hosts a weekly podcast  (The Tap Love Tour Podcast, subscribe and download on itunes) featuring interviews of a myriad of inspiring artists. Travis is currently developing an original full length work commissioned by Soulpepper as a part of Project Imagination, Canada’s largest theatre commissioning project of new work by Canadian artists.  Look out for him, because the best is yet to come.