the essential
Artist, singer, tap dancer, choreographer… The year 2025 promises to be another busy year for David Lasserre, a Narbonne resident with many hats. Portrait.
A well decorated Christmas tree, a fireplace in a small house in the Razimbaud district. It is with his mother, north-east of Narbonne, that David Lasserre regularly sets down his suitcases when he goes to the South. “I have nothing in Paris, apart from my job and my apartment which costs me too much,” jokes the experienced 46-year-old artist. “Every month, I take four days to come back here.”
His job in the capital? Dance teacher, particularly tap dancing, but also choreographer in several works. “I staged a tap dance number for the play Les Idoles, by Christophe Honoré, with Marina Fois, a play which returns to Paris from mid-January to early April,” explains the virtuoso.
Six hours of tap dancing a day, “in exchange I did his accounting”
A specialty that he discovered late, upon his arrival in Paris. “I had a ballroom dance teacher who gave one tap class per week, after which I did courses in Paris to improve my skills, notably at the Swing Tap school in the 11th arrondissement” where Victor Cuno, renowned specialist discipline, gives him six hours of tap dancing lessons a day. “In exchange, I did his accounting, and I quickly reached a professional level.”
Now a trainer and tap dance teacher for the Maîtrise Populaire de l’Opéra-Comique in Paris, the Narbonne native continues artistic projects in parallel, with the filming of a feature film in the company of Corinne Masiero, “Petites mains”, directed by Nessim Chikhaoui and released last May, or the launch of his show “Solo”.
“I like the interaction with the public”
“In this show, in 1 hour 30 minutes, I alternate between singing and tap dancing and I take the audience from Broadway to Pop music,” explains David Lasserre. “I like the interaction with the audience, I will sit with him, I welcome him when he enters the room and I even give a tap dance lesson in the middle of the show.
Broadway is also a passion for musical comedies for David, who has long combined dance and singing to perform for around twenty years, notably in works for children: “The Little Prince”, “Les Contes d’ Andersen”… “You have to have several strings to your bow to be an actor, to sing, to act in films…”, praises the man with the tap shoes, as white as his temples.
“A nice challenge”
Although he started dancing at the age of 8, singing only came later in David’s life, who decided to release an album in 2021. Last summer, the artist released a new track on platforms, titled “Amor Amor”. “It was written and composed by my cousin, who is Francis Cabrel’s bassist,” he explains. In the summer, Audois goes back to the South for a series of dates and performances. “I generally have around thirty dates, I love playing here in the summer, it’s outdoors, there’s the sea, prosceniums… it’s great,” he rejoices. Before enjoying the Languedoc sun, the choreographer must tackle a new challenge, in Paris.
“I was contacted to choreograph a tap number to baroque music,” says David Lasserre. “It’s something improbable for me who is more used to dancing to Katy Perry, it’s more complicated to music classic but it’s a nice challenge.” “La Grande Affabulation”, directed by the duo Geoffroy Jourdain & Benjamin Lazar, will be performed next May in the capital.
In a few years, the Narbonne artist wants to get closer to the Aude sub-prefecture with, why not, a dance school…: “Come down here? That’s for sure, but not yet… Set up a school? Maybe but not on my own, because I’m really specialized in tap dancing and it’s a niche, but with jazz, classical, why not…”.
As since he was very young and his first performances in his parents’ living room, David Lasserre does not stop himself from dreaming.
