Tara Di Luca
Lives in: Hartsdale
Works in: White Plains
Job title: Associate attorney
Company: Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker L.L.P.
Accolade of interest: Tara is a regular guest on WVOX radio, where she talks about issues in fitness and in law.
For one week in Venice, Italy, Tara Di Luca will take a break from her legal pad and lace up her running shoes.
When she steps on the treadmill, it will be like no other in the world. It weighs 60 tons and was designed to blow enemy combatants into the hereafter.
It is an overturned military tank.
The 54th International Art Exhibition at La Biennale di Venezia is “incorporating a military aspect, economics, the human body ”“ all intellectual concepts and merging it all together,” said the medical-malpractice attorney at Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker L.L.P. in White Plains.
The Hartsdale resident was screened and selected by various bodies, including the Indianapolis Museum of Art, USA Track & Field, USA Gymnastics and Puerto Rican-artist collaborative Allora & Calzadilla, to participate in the U.S. Pavilion”™s “Gloria” exhibit.
“La Biennale is a very large exhibit that incorporates dance, ballet and the Venice Film Festival is also a part of it,” Di Luca said.
“Body in Flight” and “Track and Field” will feature performances by athletes and gymnasts, including former Olympians.
An avid runner whose track career began in the 7th grade at her hometown of Millbrook, Di Luca wed classes with softball ”“ until she saw a boy.
“He was doing hurdles and I said, ”˜I think I want to do that,”™” she said and laughed. “So I joined the team, made varsity and from there, it was what I wanted to do. It kept progressing and progressing, so I decided to stick with it.”
Di Luca ran a personal best two years ago at the USA Track and Field club nationals at Icahn Stadium.
“It was very intense and I made it to the finals, placing fourth, which was great for me,” she said. “I remember being the most-focused for a meet that I had ever been.”
Di Luca called it a “quick switch,” that transformation of professional law life to after-hours athleticism.
“It”™s kind of putting everything else out of my head and focusing on where I am at that time.”
Since earning a degree from Pace University School of Law in 2004, Di Luca worked at a securities litigation firm before joining Wilson Elser three years ago.
She”™s on the fast-track, having authored two publications in the New York State Bar Association”™s law journal, pertaining to sports physician liabilities and eating disorders among athletes.
And it wouldn”™t be a surprise to see her trotting down a hallway or up and down the staircase at the courthouse.
Call it stagnancy-prevention in the name of productivity.
“You definitely need to wake up the brain and the body and sometimes, when you”™re just sitting there, you need to get up and do something.”
Di Luca is scheduled to leave Aug. 30 for her weeklong participation in La Biennale, which runs through Nov. 27. Check upcoming issues of the Business Journal for an image of her in action.
