It is June 29, 1986. All of Germany is staring at the final of the 1986 Football World Cup. No! Derya Kaptan saw the light of day in a small delivery room in Gütersloh and her scream already showed what her profession was: singing, acting, performance. Today she is a singer, dancer and actress and excites with her ability to combine different fields of art. She has lived in Cologne since 2005, initially studying at the German Sport University Cologne, graduating as a sports scientist with a focus on leisure / creativity in 2012 in the field of dance and physical theater. Since then, Derya Kaptan has lectured as a lecturer at the Institute for Dance u. Movement culture of the German Sport University Cologne for Bachelor and. Masters courses. She gained further qualifications by studying educational sciences at the DSHS Cologne and an additional training as a dance director of the German Federal Dance Association. As if that weren’t enough, she followed up with a degree in acting and singing at the “Performers House” in Denmark in 2012.
Derya singing
Her passion for singing was evident at a young age, in 1993 she entered her first stage as a member of the school choir of the East Westphalian provincial metropolis of Harsewinkel: the auditorium of the Astrid Lindgren primary school. Since then, music has become an integral part of her life. She gained her first TV experience in the field of singing in 2012 as part of the program “Supertalent” on Turkish television, in which she reached the quarter-finals. In December 2015 she was given the honor of representing Germany in the international “Türkvision Song Contest”. With her singing u. Dance performance she won the special jury award “Golden Voice Award” (“best voice of the competition”). The live TV broadcast achieved a reach of 9 million viewers in Europe and Asia. She is currently working on her own album with producer Markus Be Brachtendorf.
Derya dancing and acting
Her second great passion and a large part of her artistic work are acting and dance. She laid the foundation for this with a basic dance training in ballet, after ten years of ballet practice she expanded her spectrum to modern jazz and urban dances such as hip hop old school, locking, popping, breaking and African dance. After that, Derya went her way in this genre with a lot of devotion. Since 2008 she has worked in various dance, music and dance theater productions in other European countries as well as in Japan and has received several awards for this. With her self-written and staged dance theater piece “StuHlgang- Der Weg nach oben”, she won the staging award from the Friends and Supporters of the German Sport University Cologne in 2011, and the play has also been performed several times in Tokyo. She made her debut as an actress as Helena in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the Schauspielhaus Köln, in the musical “All Night Long”, staged by the Sinclair Arts Theater Company, she played the leading role, in Schiller’s “Die Räuber” the role of Amalia at the theater of cultures Cologne. Derya is a permanent member of the ensemble of the music theater piece “Method Baklava”, which is performed at the COMEDIA Theater Cologne and was nominated for the 2015 Cologne Youth Theater Prize.
But in all of this, dance was never neglected in her life, in addition to leading various dance projects, she works as a coach and lecturer for dance and choreography in the fields of contemporary dance, lyrical & funky jazz dance, urban dance / funkstyles as well as basic Body work such as body alignment, movement studies, floorwork, improvisation, space & flow. On TV she was seen as a dancer in the programs “Die Puppenstars” (RTL) and “Zimmer Frei” (WDR). She also took a trip to classical music: for the Verdi opera Nabucco, she was hired by the Dortmund Opera House to play the role of the oriental belly dancer.
Derya coaching and researching
Last but not least, Derya is always committed to promoting young artists and their projects. In 2015 she founded the artist collective “CrossArts Cologne GbR” together with friends and, as artistic director, oversees various projects in cultural education and the performing arts throughout Germany and has written several scientific publications on this. In the field of methodology and didactics of the performing arts, she conducts research that she has documented in various scientific publications.