FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY’S NEW SEASON BODIES OF WATER 10-13 April

FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY is set to dazzle audiences with its 2025 showcase premiere of BODIES OF WATER at Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre from 10 – 13 April 2025.

BODIES OF WATER 2025. Dancer Sbonga Ndlovu PHOTO Val Adamson

Award-winning choreographer, Lliane Loots joins forces with celebrated Durban musicians Refiloe Olifant on violin, and Mandla Matsha on percussion, to offer a beautiful, soulful and thought-provoking new season of contemporary dance.

BODIES OF WATER 2025. Dancers Siseko Duba and Sbonga Ndlovu PHOTO Val Adamson

Loots says, “BODIES OF WATER embraces a double meaning as the dance work negotiates the ecology of water alongside an awareness that the human body is made up of 70% water. Setting the dancing moving body as a breathing metaphor for climate justice, the six FLATFOOT dancers face what happens to bodies in times of personal and political crisis”. She goes on to say, “Set against our own African geopolitics, and a larger ‘body’ of social dis-ease, BODIES OF WATER comes back to the ideas of how we relate to ‘bodies of water’ as both artistic and political metaphors for survival. Even though the human body is made up of mostly water, this fluidity is not our daily reality as we see a world becoming more intractable. The remarkable thing about water is that it is always travelling back to source, back home”.

BODIES OF WATER 2025. Dancers Siseko Duba, Zinhle Nzama, and Sbonga Ndlovu. PHOTO Val Adamson

Loots always acknowledges the six FLATFOOT dances (Sifiso Khumalo, Jabu Siphika, Zinhle Nzama, Siseko Duba, Sbonga Ndlovu and Ndumiso Dube) as her co-creators. “In this work the dancers courageously face off with their own flow and sometimes immovability as BODIES OF WATER open space for all of us to examine the very beating of our own hearts and the (wished for) lightness of our footsteps on this Earth. BODIES OF WATER is a daring and deeply beautiful navigation of both the human condition and the ecology of our planet.”

Refiloe Olifant

BODIES OF WATER is performed to an original and live score jointly created in rehearsals with Refiloe Olifant (violin) and Mandla Matsha (percussion). Refiloe (aka Fifi) is a violinist who hails from Bloemfontein and is currently employed by The KZN Philharmonic Orchestra as a principal violinist where she also features as an assistant concertmaster with a baroque ensemble based in Durban called Baroque 2000. Loots says, “Her ability to improvise and create a score with the dancers is a unique talent and I am so grateful to have her beauty in the room when we are working. I consider her and her music to be the 7th dancer in BODIES OF WATER”.

Mandla Matsha

Fifi is joined by long time FLATFOOT collaborator Mandla Matsha. Loots says, “Mandla is a percussionist whose particular ability to score when working with dancers, is what hold BODIES OF WATER together. His range of instruments from djembe drums to the istolotolo (mouth harp) are truly phenomenal”.

BODIES OF WATER sees FLATFOOT partnering once again with lighting designer Wesley Maherry whose bespoke designs for this dance company has seen him win numerous awards. His lighting design is supported by his audio visual/cinematic stage projection designs that give BODIES OF WATER a unique performance landscape.

BODIES OF WATER only has four public performances at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre from 10 – 13 April. Performances are on 10 and 11 April at 7pm, and 12 and 13 April at 2.30m. Booking is via WEBTICKETS. Tickets cost between R95 and R120.

There is a special schools’ performance on Friday 11 April at 10.30am where learners can watch the show and engage in a special one-off Q&A with FLATFOOT after the performance. Scholars pay R60 and accompanying teachers get a free ticket. This is via prior booking only via Lootsl@ukzn.ac.za.

BODIES OF WATER is made possible by a partnership with the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre (UKZN).

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FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY 21st Birthday Season “JOURNEY”

Celebrating its 21st birthday, Durban's award-winning FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY presents a short season of contemporary dance that promises to nourish and enrich, at The Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre on 10 and 11 May.

Titled JOURNEY, the season features two new works, one by resident choreography and artistic director, Lliane Loots, and a another by special guest from Madagascar, Gaby Saranouffi. The season not only celebrates the 21-year journey of getting to this milestone, but it also delves into the head and heart of what it means to be alive at this point in history. 

Saranouffi's SORITRA (traces) opens the evening in a fast-paced journey of self in a search for “traces of where we come from and where we are going.” Inspired by a Malagasy indigenous abstract strategy board game called “diam-panorona”, the movement of stones on a board, horizontally, vertically, and diagonally are intriguingly replicated in a contemporary dance formation with bold athletic movements. Interestingly this work is now in its own 21st-year as Saranouffi has shared it in many spaces and places. She says, “I love letting it breathe new life when new dancer step in and learn it and make it their own. This is a work about the translation of culture, history and memory from one body to another and I am so excited to give it now to FLATFOOT on their 21st birthday.”

Loots's premieres a new work for FLATFOOT, titled the salt on your skin, and begins to journey to the cities (or sites?) of the interior in an often painful, always beautiful, look at intimacy. Referencing sweat and skin, and other acts of love and labour that make up the everyday of our lives, this work is co-created with the six resident FLATFOOT dancers (Sifiso Khumalo, Jabu Siphika, Zinhle Nzama, Ndumiso Dube and Siseko Duba). Drawing on deeply personal stories of love, loss, and ultimately hope, the salt on your skin sees Loots once again using dance to delve into the small stories to imagine; and thus change the bigger narrative that hold our lives. Loots says, “we often mistake intimacy as being only about romance and sex, and while this is also true, the intimacies of raising children, being a mother or father, of mourning lost family and friends, of waking up each day to come to work, of sweating in the studio as we dance through this all, is a shared intimacy that the FLATFOOT dancers have given me. This work, on our 21st birthday, is for the six dancers – it is a love song we created together”. 

the salt on your skin is made up of four sections that traverse a landscape of intimacies, loss, love, shame, and hope. With subtle and evocative lighting by Wesley Maherry, this is a surprisingly gentle dance work given the voracity and intimacy of the unfolding stories. 

JOURNEY is at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre for only 3 performances, 10 May @ 7pm, 11 May @ 2.30pm, and 11 May @ 7pm. Tickets cost R120 (R85 for pensioners, students, scholars and block bookings of 10 or more). 

Booking via COMPUTICKET: https://computicket.com/event/journey/6688047

This season is made possible through a special partnership with the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre.

Thanks to Itrotra Art X Connection NPC.

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JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience Announces International Guests for 25th Edition

This year, the JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience presented by the Centre for Creative Arts (UKZN) celebrates its 25th anniversary, offering dance fans a 13-day treat of world-class contemporary dance that will see both local and international dance makers converge on Durban from 29 August to 10 September.

Alongside the very best that South Africa has to offer JOMBA! will feature international guests from Mozambique, Switzerland, Netherlands, Madagascar, Uganda, Romania, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Brazil. This 25th edition offers not only a powerhouse of performances but workshops, residencies, talks, panel discussions, and virtual screen dance.

The theme for this year is “(in)tangible heritages”. Curator and Artistic Director, Dr Lliane Loots elaborates: “In curating this year’s festival, we have invited dance makers to reimagine their – and our – relationship with ideas of belonging and our varying (in)tangible heritages. The 25th JOMBA! is honouring artists who, through their work and their moving bodies, generate a new sense of belonging that questions who we are at this critical moment in our history”. 

Mozambique’s award-winning dancer/choreographer Pak Ndjamena

Mozambique’s award-winning dancer/choreographer Pak Ndjamena presents his arresting solo work, DEUS NOS ACUDI / GOD HELPS US, that interrogates contemporary African male identity and pulls no punches in its message. 

Thobi Maphanga in hannahmadance’s INVASION(S) (Germany)

Two dance companies from Germany will feature: Hannah Ma’s hannahmadance performs a work that links with South African performers Thobi Maphanga and Jabu Siphika.  INVASION(S) analyses the act of invasion as the act of violently entering a (political, physical, biological) territory from a feminist, and post-migrant perspective. Helge Letonja and his company Of Curious Nature – made up of artists from all over the world presents UN-ZEIT which creates hypnotic images where the perception of time seems to fray and dancing bodies search for support. 

Virva Talonen (Finland)

FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY in Portable Home Project (Finland /SA)

With support from the Finnish Embassy (Pretoria), Virva Talonen presents a work in collaboration with Durban’s FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY. Her Portable Home Project is a contemporary dance performance series that delves into a concept of home and its various definitions. The Portable Home Project is co-created by Finnish Lighting Designer Nanni Vapaavuori. 

ACE dance and music (UK)

Birmingham (UK) based ACE dance and music features in a spectacular double bill – UNKNOWN REALMS – with choreography by Burkina Faso’s Serge Aimé Coulibaly and South Africa’s Vincent Sekwati Mantsoe. Coulibaly’s THE NIGHT BEFORE TOMORROW is a metaphorical night where people try to do their last dance before an uncertain tomorrow. Mantsoe’s MANA – THE POWER WITHIN engages the sacred, ritualistic and shamanic. 

Ramanenjana (Romania/Madagascar)

JOMBA! partners again with Rerouting Arts at St Anne’s (Hilton) to share a collaboration between Romania and Madagascar. Ramanenjana is a docufiction performance about a dance that made history. The work examines dance’s societal role and how colonialism spread misconceptions about this extraordinary moment in history. Ramanenjana will also be performed for audiences in Durban. 

Unmute Dance Theatre (SA)

JOMBA! continues to open up access to work that makes visible intersections around dance and disability. JOMBA! 2023 DANCEABILITY FOCUS features dance-makers who are shifting global perceptions around disability: Joseph Tebandeke (Uganda), Unmute Dance Theatre (Cape Town, South Africa), and an inclusive programme from Introdans (Netherlands).

Joseph Tebandeke (Uganda)

Introdans (Netherlands)

In partnership with ASSITEJ, JOMBA! offers the new JOMBA! FOR YOUTH FOCUS aimed at younger audiences, to help grow youth audiences for dance.

Switzerland’s Joshua Monten’s GAME THEORY 

Artists from Switzerland and the Netherlands feature in a new JOMBA! programme that travels to schools and also offers public performances. Switzerland’s Joshua Monten, brings a delightful engrossing work called GAME THEORY that will travel to two schools. This work looks at some of the building blocks of play: freedom and rules. Dutch Dance company de Stilte, focuses on developing productions and performing for children. They bring FLYING COW choreographed by Jack Timmermans which is the story of two girls and a boy who embark on a stand-off, flying on the wings of their imagination.

FLYING COW choreographed by Jack Timmermans (Netherlands)

Other features of the 25th Anniversary festival include two major South African works, the JOMBA! Youth Open Horizons, JOMBA! ON THE EDGE, after performance talks, an engaging dialogue with dance-makers, the launch of the 25th-anniversary book, a series of free workshops and masterclasses, a lighting workshop, a screen dance residency, a dance writers residency, and a smaller curated festival at The Market Theatre in Johannesburg.

Tickets are R80 or R50 (students, scholars, pensioners) or R350 – once off FULL festival pass to see everything.

Booking through COMPUTICKET

For more information go to https://jomba.ukzn.ac.za/

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Flatfoot dance company's Love Song for KZNSA Gallery 31 March & 1 April

“LOVE SONG” is FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY’s first performance offering of 2023 in which they partner with the KZNSA Gallery to offer – for two performances only - a site-responsive and intimate dance experience that is sure to ignite passion and beauty. Performances take place on Friday 31 March and Saturday 1 April at 6.30pm.

“LOVE SONG” collaboratively created by the full company (Sifiso Khumalo, Jabu Siphika, Zinhle Nzama, Sbonga Ndlovu, Siseko Duba and Ndumiso Dube) under the choreographic direction of Lliane Loots, is a mesmerising journey into the heartland of the workings of the heart and how we love. Love is explored through bonds of friendship, intimate partners, as well as the social connection we share as community. 

FLATFOOT's Siseko Duba (jumping) and Ndumiso 'Digga' Dube in "LOVE SONG" (Photo by VAL ADAMSON)

Loots says, “at a time in our collective histories as South Africans, where so much seems impossible, we decided as a company to create a new dance work that really celebrates the power of how we connect (and maybe disconnect?) and that finds strength in the bonds we share as human beings. Far from looking away and avoiding the fault lines of our current lives, “LOVE SONG” looks at how this terrain is navigated in how we choose to love”. She goes on to say, “I have been humbled – as I always am – by the stories lovingly shared by the FLATFOOT dancers whose own choreographic journey is celebrated in this new work”. 

FLATFOOT once again push themselves to embrace new ways of making and thinking dance. “LOVE SONG” will dazzle and delight as the dancer move you to be moved by them! 

The KZNSA Gallery (Glenwood) will be open from 5.30pm on both 31 March and 1 April with a special dinner menu for those who want to eat, and the bar/coffee bar will be open both before and after the show. Running time if the show is 55 minutes.

Tickets are R100  (12 years and under -R80 and booking is essential due to limited seating capacity (contact flafootdancecompany@gmail.com).

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Photo on homepage: FLATFOOT's Sbonga Ndlovu and Zinhle Nzama - CREDIT: Val Adamson

Creativity a high priority in Finland echoed in the collaboration of Finnish choreographer Virva Talonen with Flatfoot Dance Co

Finnish choreographer Virva Talonen has spent the last few weeks working with Durban’s Flatfoot Dance Company in a collaboration entitled Portable Home which will be performed at The Courtyard Theatre at DUT, Durban on November 4 and 5.

Finnish choreographer Virva Talonen

According to Jonna Pukkila, Cultural Attaché from the Embassy of Finland (Pretoria), this is the fourth collaboration between Talonen and other dance companies, and the first with an African company. “High on the educational priority list is developing creativity and it’s interconnectedness with nature and this collaboration supports the country’s desire to extend its creative reach beyond the north,” she says.

“Culture has made Finland what it is today. Creativity is highly valued and each child is treated equally. All teachers in creative subjects have vocational degrees in arts. After basic education, creative studies continue in Finland’s top-class universities. Finnish Modern Dance is rooted and fresh at the same time. Even though contemporary dance is a relatively young art form in Finland, it is developing and growing all the time internationally.”

“Finland has reinvented itself in just one short century – and is still at it,” continues Pukkila. “The mindset that drove to build a new society is still hardwired into Finns – and it continues to drive Finland forward today. The Arctic climate gave us guts – or ‘sisu’ as we call it. A lot of Finnish inspiration comes from Finns unique relationship with nature. The only thing we have a lot of is trees and water. People, not so much. That’s why we believe in equality and take good care of each other – and know the value of doing things together. Virva in her work exercises exactly this. A great way for a Finn to express feeling is by actions and movements rather than words.”

Flatfoot Dance Company in rehearsal for Portable Home.

Portable Home is a long-standing project of Virva’s and an extension of her work done in Finland, Palestine and Japan which delves into concepts around home and its various definitions.

The work can be seen at The Courtyard Theatre on 4 November @ 7pm, and on 5 November at 2.30pm and 7pm.

Bookings are via Clarec1@dut.ac.za and go for R80 (students and scholars @ R50).

Please note that limited ticket available for 4 November @ 7pm.

For more information on Virva Talonen: www.virvatalonen.com

More information on Finnish Dance https://www.danceinfo.fi/en/

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Finnish choreographer Virva Talonen works with Durban’s FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY

Portable Home, a global dance project by Finnish choreographer Virva Talonen comes to Durban, South Africa! The project has already been presented in various artistic versions in three countries. For its 4th instalment and first in Africa, Talonen has collaborated with Durban’s Flatfoot Dance Company. Portable Home will be showcased atThe Courtyard Theatre for three performances only on November 4 and 5.

Virva Talonen

In a bold move to support cultural collaboration and partnership between Finland and South Africa, the Finnish Embassy in Pretoria, with support from Dance Info Finland, offered an open call to South African dancers and dance companies to apply to work with - and host - Finnish choreographer Virva Talonen. The call process was efficiently facilitated by South African Dance Arts Alliance (SADA). After a slew of applications and interviews, Durban’s FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY was finally selected and, according to Flatfoot Dance Company’s Artistic Director Lliane Loots, “it has been a love project from day one!”

In her artistic dance work, Virva often focuses on the contradiction between the fragility and strength of the human self, and her free flowing and grounded dance technique is both deeply meditative and deeply mesmerising in its fluid power. Loots says that “it has been such an enormous pleasure and learning curve hosting and working with Virva these past few weeks. Her quiet dedication and very focused clear methodology of working has won over the six resident FLATFOOT dancers – I am really looking forward to seeing the final outcome of this extraordinary dance exchange!”

Virva is working on her long-standing project Portable Home with FLATFOOT in continuation of work done in Finland, Palestine and Japan. Portable Home is a contemporary dance project which delves into concepts around home and its various definitions. Home can be a practical or a concrete place, but it can also refer to a state of mind or a bodily sensation. Most often the definition of home is in constant flux. The Portable Home project, which embraces all these open ideas of home, is co-created by Virva Talonen and Finnish lighting designer Nanni Vapaavuori. During the years 2016 - 2018, the Portable Home project visited in Japan, Palestine and Finland. In every country Virva and Nanni presented Portable Home, they have worked together with local artists on the theme of home to create a localised dance performance. Portable Home is now visiting Durban and South Africa where Virva is collaborating with the dancers of FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY; Sifiso Khumalo, Jabu Siphika, Zinhle Nzama, Sbonga Ndlovu. Siseko Duba and Ndumiso ‘Digga’ Dube.

Flatfoot Dance Company

Working off improvisation and dance interactions that eventually get structured into some incredible and soulful dance work, Virva’s South African leg of her Portable Homequartet will be on show at The Courtyard Theatre on 4 November @ 7pm, and on 5 November at 2.30pm and 7pm. 

Bookings are via Clarec1@dut.ac.za and go for R80 (students and scholars @ R50). 

Please note that limited ticket available for 4 November @ 7pm. 

For more information on Virva Talonen: www.virvatalonen.com

More information on Finnish Dance https://www.danceinfo.fi/en/

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Flatfoot Dance Company presents “The Cleansing” with Iain Ewok Robinson @BotanicGardens Durban 20-24 April

FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY  in association with the Durban Botanic Gardens Trust, presents “THE CLEANSING” with Iain ewok Robinson at the Botanic Gardens from 20 to 24 April at 6pm each evening.

In THE CLEANSING, FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY journeys into the heartland of Earth issues using this performance moment to negotiate the true meaning of ecology – the connectedness of human existence to all existence. What better site than Durban’s Botanic Gardens to open up this exploration of self to our natural world. In this moving dance work, the Botanic Gardens – itself bearing the scars of a colonial heritage - are transformed to a site of continued natural beauty and potential transformations.

Photo by Val Adamason

Jabu Siphika and Mthoko Mkhwanazi in THE CLEANSING

“THE CLEANSING is a ritual for us humans, and for the Earth – a cultural enactment of the sacred bond between the dancers and the ground they move on as they ‘cleanse’ themselves ready for a deeper connection to one another and to the Earth,” says Artistic Director Dr Lliane Loots.

Believing that environment justice is social justice, FLATFOOT joins with long-time collaborator and wordsmith extraordinaire, poet Iain ewok Robinson. His poetic words flow with the dancers in an evocation that shouts out “surely the Earth can be saved for me”, “surely the earth can be saved for you”. 

“Very loosely based on the impulses of Stravinsky’s 1913 music “Rite of Spring”, this site-responsive dance work asks of all of us what we will sacrifice for Spring to finally come,” continues Loots. “In this instance, and after a 2-year lock down, ‘spring’ is (perhaps) an imagined hope for different and intimate relationships with each other and our world around us.”

This is moving and powerful choreo-poetry that aims to subtly carries its audience to places of deep knowing and awareness. Created in the evolving collaborative creative process, this site responsive dance work is jointly created by Lliane Loots, Sifiso Khumalo, Jabu Siphika, Mthoko Mkhwanazi, Sbonga Ndlovu, Siseko Duba and Ndumiso Dube.

Join FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY and Iain ewok Robinson in the lush surroundings of Durban’s iconic Botanic Gardens that allows you to safely watch this unique dance company. Bring your own picnic, glass of wine, and a blanket to sit on. Doors open at 5.30pm - come and get settled, enjoy a picnic or a stroll around the gardens, show starts at 6pm. The show is one hour.

 To book contact flafootdancecompany@gmail.com.

Tickets are R100 per person.

Flatfoot Dance Company in Earth Rhythms at KZNSA Gallery

FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY  in partnership with the KZNSA, presents …EARTH RHYTHMS

@ KZNSA GALLERY, Durban

Durban: Join FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY for two performances only at Glenwood’s iconic KZNSA Art Gallery in Durban on 10 and 11 December at 6.30pm.

In a family friendly celebration of rhythm, joy and the sheer delight of the dancing and moving body, FLATFOOT will take you on a journey of magical explosive dance that celebrates how rhythm connects us all. Choreographed in a sharing of skills and styles by the full company; Lliane Loots, Sifiso Khumalo, Jabu Siphika, Mthoko Mkhwanazi, Sbonga Ndlovu, Siseko Duba, Ndumiso Dube, and Zinhle Nzama, this performance also features celebrated Durban poet Ongezwa Mbele as her rhythmic spoken words weave a connection between dance, music and the healing time and tides of the ocean. 

FLATFOOT's Sbonga Ndlovu in full flight - photo by Val Adamson

EARTH RHYTHMS is a delightful showcase of FLATFOOT’s unique - award-winning - contemporary dance style mixed in with a bit of popular street dance that will bring a smile to your face.

In honouring the holiday season, this partnership with the KZNSA is a dine, wine, shop and dance happening– doors open from 5pm so you can do some early evening Christmas shopping at BUZZART21, grab a bite to eat and settle into your seats for the 6.30pm show start! The show is one hour.

 The venue is Covid compliant and no mask, no entry! Each performance has a limit of x100 audience members only – book soon to avoid disappointment. No walk-ins/at the door sales - all tickets MUST be prebooked and paid for in advance.

COST: R100 per ticket (under 13s: R80)

Bookings made via flatfootdancecompany@gmail.com

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FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY presents “PARK DANCES #2” @ Durban Botanic Gardens

FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY

in association with the Durban Botanic Gardens Trust

presents

“PARK DANCES #2”

with special guest Manesh Maharaj

Durban Botanic Gardens

11, 12 & 13 June @ 4.30pm

18, 19 & 20 June @ 4.30pm

COST: R100 per ticket

Following a highly enjoyable and sold-out season in the Botanic Gardens the Flatfoot Dance Company presents for “Park Dances #2” in the winter wonderland lush surroundings of Durban’s iconic Botanic Gardens for their next dance experience that allows audiences to safely watch this unique dance company in an outdoor sundowner dance experience from 11, 12, 13 June, and 18, 19 & 20 June at 4.30pm each evening.

After the PARK DANCES#1 saw local audiences loving being back in a “theatre” environment,  PARK DANCES #2 sees FLATFOOT collaborate with Durban’s Kathak maestro Manesh Maharaj in a dancing encounter with the haunting poetry of Jalaluddin Rumi, as they celebrate the seamless confluence of ancient and contemporary African and Indian rhythms.

The  hour-long explosion of dance has been collaboratively created by the full company: Sifiso Khumalo, Jabu Siphika, Lliane Loots, Zinhle Nzama, Mthoko Mkhwanazi, Sbonga Ndlovu, Siseko Duba, Ndumiso Dube, and special guest Manesh Maharaj.

“We are beyond delighted to continue with our Park DANCES in collaboration with the Durban Botanic Gardens Trust and to have this opportunity to once again share this incredibly beautiful living space with audiences,” says Artistic Director Lliane Loots. “#2 is going to be a delight of the senses as we collaborate with the incredible Manesh Maharaj and his own virtuosity as one of South Africa’s most skilled Kathak dancers”.

This is a family-friendly performance and audiences may bring picnics and blankets to sit on. Entrance opens at 4pm for patrons to settle in, enjoy a picnic or a stroll around the gardens before the show begins at 4.30pm.

There is ample safe parking at the main Botanic Gardens Visitors Complex entrance. All COVID-19 safety protocols are in place, and masks must be worn. There is a maximum audience of 100 per show with demarcated areas to sit. Tickets are R100 and must be booked and paid for in advance – there are no door sales. To book contact Clare on flatfootdancecompany@gmail.com

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Flatfoot to Dance in the Park - Botanic Gardens, Durban, 7 - 11 April at 5pm

FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY 

in association with the Durban Botanic Gardens Trust, 

presents  “PARK DANCES #1” Durban Botanic Gardens

 7 – 11 April @ 5pm

COST: R100 per ticket 

Join Flatfoot Dance Company for its inaugural “Park Dances #1” in the lush surroundings of Durban’s exquisite Botanic Gardens for an outdoor sundowner dance experience from 7 to 11 April at 5pm each evening.

This short outdoor season, allows the audience to relax and safely watch Durban’s much-loved dance company in a celebration of joyous dance with good music in true Flatfoot style.

This hour-long explosion of dance has been collaboratively created by the full company: Sifiso Khumalo, Jabu Siphika, Lliane Loots, Zinhle Nzama, Mthoko Mkhwanazi, Sbonga Ndlovu, Siseko Duba and Ndumiso Dube. It offers a rich confluence of African rhythms, with classical and contemporary influence and execution.

This is the first Flatfoot’s “Park Dances” taking place during 2021 that will engage the natural environment of Durban’s parks as renewed and reimagined spaces to watch dance. 

“We are delighted to start off our Park season in collaboration with the Durban Botanic Gardens Trust and to have this opportunity to share this incredibly beautiful living space with audiences,” says Artistic Director Lliane Loots.

This is a family-friendly performance and audiences may bring picnics and blankets to sit on. Entrance opens at 4.15pm for patrons to settle in, enjoy a picnic or a stroll around the gardens before the show begins at 5pm. 

There is ample safe parking at the main Botanic Gardens Visitors Complex entrance. All COVID-19 safety protocols are in place, and masks must be worn. There is a maximum audience of 50 per show with demarcated areas to sit. Tickets are R100 and must be booked and paid for in advance – there are no door sales. To book contact Clare on flatfootdancecompany@gmail.com.

Flatfoot dance Company presents - Seeing Red

Media Release

FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY presents BUSY SEEING RED

KZNSA GALLERY: 21 February 2020 @ 6.30pm

Durban’s Flatfoot Dance Company celebrates its 17th anniversary this year as one of South Africa’s leading contemporary dance companies with a new dance theatre work, Busy Seeing Red at the KZNSA Gallery on Friday 21 February.

With an international touring reputation for excellence and a host of national awards under its belt, Flatfoot’s arrival at this momentous 17th mark is a testament to a dedicated team of dancers and administrators.

In keeping with its reputation of creating and performing edgy, controversial, beautiful and intelligent dance, Flatfoot partners with the KZNSA Gallery to offer a site responsive dance work that ask the audience to engage all the different space of the gallery. In a fluid display of exquisite technical training, Flatfoot’s 7 resident dancers dive heart first into the inner politics of ‘seeing red’. Asking questions that are on all of our lips as South Africans, Busy Seeing Red, negotiates the personal politics of anger. From exploring remembrances of colonial race and current gender violence, this dance theatre work offers a surprisingly gentle embodied encounter with dance that will leave audiences breathless.

Embracing a collaborative creative process of making this performance, the three senior Flatfoot dancers (Sifiso Khumalo, Jabu Siphika and Zinhle Nzama) have jointly collaborated in the choreography with Artistic Director of Flatfoot, Lliane Loots. “As a dance maker I am increasingly interested in the power of multiple voices to tell stories and what better way than to encourage the profound dance voices of the senior Flatfoot dancers to bring their vison to this work”, says Loots. She continues, “it is and has been a remarkable journey making this collaborative dance work and seeing what we share and where we differ as South Africans – I remain deeply humbled by the power of our dance/art to allow dialogue – especially at a time in history when there is so much rage and anger”. 

Also featured in Busy Seeing Red is Flatfoot junior company dancer, Mthoko Mkhwanazi stepping into his first professional choreographic role in the company. “Seeing this young Flatfoot dancer in the role of choreographer in this work is a testament to not only his own talent and drive, but to the nurturing role that Flatfoot had played in offering this space to our up and coming practitioners”, says Loots.

Dancing in Busy Seeing Red are; Sifiso Khumalo, Jabu Siphika, Zinhle Nzama, Sbonga Ndlovu, Ndumiso Dube, Siseko Duba, and Mthoko Mkhwanazi. Lighting and sound design by Wesley Maherry and Clare Craighead.

The Busy Seeing Red  will be performed at the KZNSA Gallery is on Friday 21 February at 6.30pm. Tickets cost R60 and seating is limited. Tickets can be pre-booked via flatfootdancecompany@gmail.com or on a first come first serve at the KZNSA Gallery on the night. Door sales and Gallery open from 5.30pm. The KZNSA restaurant and coffee bar will be open for pre/post show meal and drinks.

This dance work will travel onto the Hexagon Theatre in PMB in early May 2020.

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FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY presents BUSY SEEING RED KZNSA GALLERY 21 Feb 2020

Media Release

FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY presents BUSY SEEING RED

KZNSA GALLERY: 21 February 2020 @ 6.30pm

Durban’s Flatfoot Dance Company celebrates its 17th anniversary this year as one of South Africa’s leading contemporary dance companies with a new dance theatre work, Busy Seeing Red at the KZNSA Gallery on Friday 21 February.

With an international touring reputation for excellence and a host of national awards under its belt, Flatfoot’s arrival at this momentous 17th mark is a testament to a dedicated team of dancers and administrators.

In keeping with its reputation of creating and performing edgy, controversial, beautiful and intelligent dance, Flatfoot partners with the KZNSA Gallery to offer a site responsive dance work that ask the audience to engage all the different space of the gallery. In a fluid display of exquisite technical training, Flatfoot’s 7 resident dancers dive heart first into the inner politics of ‘seeing red’. Asking questions that are on all of our lips as South Africans, Busy Seeing Red, negotiates the personal politics of anger. From exploring remembrances of colonial race and current gender violence, this dance theatre work offers a surprisingly gentle embodied encounter with dance that will leave audiences breathless.

Embracing a collaborative creative process of making this performance, the three senior Flatfoot dancers (Sifiso Khumalo, Jabu Siphika and Zinhle Nzama) have jointly collaborated in the choreography with Artistic Director of Flatfoot, Lliane Loots. “As a dance maker I am increasingly interested in the power of multiple voices to tell stories and what better way than to encourage the profound dance voices of the senior Flatfoot dancers to bring their vison to this work”, says Loots. She continues, “it is and has been a remarkable journey making this collaborative dance work and seeing what we share and where we differ as South Africans – I remain deeply humbled by the power of our dance/art to allow dialogue – especially at a time in history when there is so much rage and anger”. 

Also featured in Busy Seeing Red is Flatfoot junior company dancer, Mthoko Mkhwanazi stepping into his first professional choreographic role in the company. “Seeing this young Flatfoot dancer in the role of choreographer in this work is a testament to not only his own talent and drive, but to the nurturing role that Flatfoot had played in offering this space to our up and coming practitioners”, says Loots.

Dancing in Busy Seeing Red are; Sifiso Khumalo, Jabu Siphika, Zinhle Nzama, Sbonga Ndlovu, Ndumiso Dube, Siseko Duba, and Mthoko Mkhwanazi. Lighting and sound design by Wesley Maherry and Clare Craighead.

The Busy Seeing Red  will be performed at the KZNSA Gallery is on Friday 21 February at 6.30pm. Tickets cost R60 and seating is limited. Tickets can be pre-booked via flatfootdancecompany@gmail.com or on a first come first serve at the KZNSA Gallery on the night. Door sales and Gallery open from 5.30pm. The KZNSA restaurant and coffee bar will be open for pre/post show meal and drinks.

This dance work will travel onto the Hexagon Theatre in PMB in early May 2020.

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Flatfoot Dance Company Presents “Stand By Me” With The Flatfoot Downie Dance Company

FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY presents “STAND BY ME” with the FLATFOOT DOWNIE DANCE COMPANY

The Flatfoot Dance Company presents its third annual integrated dance programme working with dancers with Down Syndrome titled Stand by Me at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre on Tuesday 12 November at 6.30pm.

This landmark once-off performance will feature the unique partnering of the professional Flatfoot dancers with the fondly-referred to “Flatfoot Downie Dance Company”. This unique dance programme is unprecedented in South Africa and is a celebration of the power of dance to shift lives and to negotiate difference and inclusivity.

Flatfoot celebrates its 16th anniversary this year and has - as one of its core values - the practice of dance (in education and in performance) as a tool towards what it calls “living democracy”. This dance programme celebrates community across the divides of race, gender and disability.

This programme began in August 2017 with the visit of Dutch choreographer Adriaan Luteijn of INTRODANS and his collaboration with Flatfoot. The company has continued this work over 2018 and 2019 and this performance is the culmination of this year-long programme.

“Stand By Me will not only move and delight audiences but will challenge the very core foundations of who we think can and should dance professionally,” says Lliane Loots Artistic Director fo Flatfoot. “This dance journey is about learning to stand next to our neighbours and acknowledging their humanity.”

Four Flatfoot dancers (Sifiso Khumalo, Siseko Duba, Jabu Siphika and Zinhle Nzama) partner up with their counterparts, Karl Hebbelman, Charles Phillips, Kevin Govender and Michaela Munro in a dance explosion that is an affirmation of faith, courage and the joy of dance.

Loots, who is the company’s award-winning choreographer, says “creating this work has been a journey into discovering community and into discovering what it means to engage a firm and loving assertion of self and identity. All nine of us in the rehearsal room have been forced to look inward and to find the spaces inside ourselves that embrace the true meaning of ubuntu, and I have been humbled every day by what these eight dancers bring to our process”. 

As two very special curtain-raisers for this evening, Flatfoot will also showcase work it has been doing in its unique 2019 “Junior ADD: Girls to Women” dance programme. In this programme 10 young girls between the ages of 11 and 14 years were identified from Flatfoot community dance programmes run in KwaMashu and Umlazi. “They have been working with the company every Saturday during 2019 for special technical dance skills training as we believe that these amazing girls are the next generation of Durban (and Flatfoot’s) dancers,” says Loots. “They will perform a work choreographed for them by Flatfoot’s Zinhle Nzama called Kivuli.”

The second work called Fire in Me! features four Flatfoot Junior Company members (Mthoko Mkhwanazi, Siseko Duba, Nondumiso Dube and Sbonga Ndlovu). This is an athletic and magical foot-stomping work created for them especially for this event by Flatfoot’s Sifiso Khumalo who continues to grow a technical style that combines his own African dance roots with contemporary technical training.

The season promises, as always, to be one of the highlights on Durban’s dance calendar and this once-off performance is being offered as a fundraiser to help support the Flatfoot Down Syndrome Dance programme for 2020.

Tickets are limited and cost R80 each. To pre-book contactflatfootdancecompany@gmail.com .

Pre-booked tickets can be collected at the Sneddon box office from 1 hr before the start of show on the 12 November.  This is cash payment only as no card facilities are available.

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FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY presents UNDER THE SAME SKY Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre : 24 – 28 April 2019

MEDIA RELEASE

FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY presents UNDER THE SAME SKY

Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre : 24 – 28 April 2019

In a remarkable feat of perseverance and beauty, Durban’s Flatfoot Dance Company celebrates its 16th anniversary with a new dance theatre work, Under the Same Sky, at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre  from  24 to 28 April.

With an international touring reputation for excellence and a host of national awards under its belt, Flatfoot’s arrival at this momentous 16th year mark as one of South Africa leading contemporary dance companies, is a testament to a dedicated team of dancers and administrators.

In keeping with its reputation of creating and performing edgy, controversial, beautiful and intelligent dance, Flatfoot dives heart first into the zeitgeist of contemporary South African identity, in Under the Same Sky and “asks us to remember our humanity and the place that art holds in teaching resilience”.

Three new dance works by Sifiso Khumalo, Jabu Siphika and Lliane Loots will premiere in this season.

“These works asks of us to step back to negotiate the humanity within all of us,” says Artistic Director of Flatfoot, Lliane Loots. “We take a look at where we have come from, in order to understand who we are, and who we might become. So we are delving into the heart of South African identity, which is both dream and nightmare; both nostalgia and violence. We have not doubt that these works will leave the audience overawed at the sheer beauty of the power of contemporary dance to tell our real South African stories, as it provokes and challenges through the images created, but it also allows the audience to breathe and be reminded of what makes us human.”

Sifiso Khumalo’s work Ngaphesheya (loosely translated to mean ‘beyond’ or ‘over there’) is a personal journey back to Khumalo’s own childhood in Clermont growing up with the scourge of ‘necklacing’ as a political weapon. In this piece, made from a questioning and very present perspective in 2019, asks where we are going if our history (and where we come from) means nothing. 

Jabu Siphika’s growing feminist voice as a choreographer, opens up in her latest work titled Death of a Dream.  Working from the personal to the political, Siphika has created an evocative duet that looks at disintegrated personal relationships as a metaphor for disinterred political hopes and dreams. Beautifully danced by Siphika herself in partnership with Mthoko Mkhwanazi, Death of a Dream is heartbreaking in its beauty.

Lliane Loots’s unsheltered, ends the programme. Loots’s award-winning style that combines video, spoken word and dance in a ‘total theatre’ experience, finds its artistic legs in her newest work. unsheltered moves Loots and Flatfoot’s quest for humanity into the global domain and starts to “unbuild” the meaning of the walls that are the prevailing political agendas of many first world nations. It asks the audience to journey with the dancers into the heart of difference and what it means to embrace a hurt, damaged and vulnerable humanity. Loots’ dance work has a poetic depth that will provoke and delight audiences.

Dancing in the season are Sifiso Khumalo, Jabu Siphika, Zinhle Nzama, Sbonga Ndlovu, Ndumiso Dube, Siseko Duba, and Mthoko Mkhwanazi. Lighting design is by Wesley Maherry.

Catch Flatfoot Dance Company’s 16th anniversary season Under The Same Sky at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre from 24 to 28 April. Shows are at 7.30pm on 24, 25 and 26 April and at 2.30pm on 28 April.  Tickets available through Computicket are R85 and R65 (for scholars, students, pensions and block bookings of 10 or more seats). (There is a special performance for schools at R30 per scholar and teachers come free on 26 April at 10.30am. Bookings for schools only are via Lootsl@ukzn.ac.za).

https://online.computicket.com/web/event/under_the_same_sky/1292038803/617314048

Flatfoot Dance Company presents “N’gila” (I am here) - an integrated dance performance with dancers with Down Syndrome.

Media Release

Flatfoot Dance Company presents “N’gila” (I am here) - an integrated dance performance with dancers with Down Syndrome.

Flatfoot Dance Company is proud to present its second annual integrated dance programme working with dancers with Down Syndrome. “N’gila/I am here” is choreography by Lliane Loots in collaboration with the eight dancers from Flatfoot Dance Company and the fondly referred to Flatfoot Downie Dance Company at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre on Tuesday 20 November at 6.30pm.

This landmark once-off performance will feature the unique partnering of the professional Flatfoot dancers with their Downie Dance Company members. This unique dance programme is unprecedented in South Africa and is a celebration of the power of dance to shift lives and to negotiate difference and inclusivity. Flatfoot celebrates its 15th anniversary this year and has - as one of its core values - the practice of dance (in education and in performance) as a tool towards what it calls “living democracy”. This dance programme celebrates community across the divides of race, gender and disability.

The programme began in August 2017 with the visit of Dutch choreographer Adriaan Luteijn of Introdans and his collaboration with Flatfoot. The company has continued this work over 2018 and this performance is the culmination of this year-long programme.

 “N’gila/I am here” will not only move and delight audiences but will challenge the very core foundations of who we think can and should dance professionally. Four Flatfoot dancers (Sifiso Khumalo, Qhawe Ndimande, Jabu Siphika and Zinhle Nzama) partner up with their counterparts, Karl Hebbelman, Charles Phillips, Kevin Govender and Michaela Munro in a dance explosion that is an affirmation of faith, courage and the joy of dance.

Flatfoot’s award-winning choreographer, Lliane Loots says, “Creating this work has been a journey into discovering community and into discovering what it means to engage a firm and loving assertion of self and identity. All nine of us in the rehearsal room have been forced to look inward and to see that space between who we think we are and who we want to be, and I have been humbled every day by what these eight dancers bring to making dance.' 

As a special offering the five Flatfoot Junior Company members will also perform “Sesfikile!” as the curtain-raiser at this performance. This work won critical acclaim at the 2018 JOMBA! Fringe.

This looks to be one of the highlights on Durban’s dance calendar and this one-off performances is being offed as a fundraiser to help support the Flatfoot Down Syndrome Dance programme for 2019. Tickets are limited and are R80 each. To pre-book tickets contact: flatfootdancecompany@gmail.com. Pre-booked tickets can be collected at the Sneddon box office from 1 hr before the start of show on Tuesday, 20 November. Patrons should note that there are no card facilities are available at the venue.

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 Captions to all photos by Val Adamson:

Four FLATFOOT dancers (Sifiso Khumalo, Qhawe Ndimande, Jabu Siphika and Zinhle Nzama) partner up with their counterparts, Karl Hebbelman, Charles Phillips, Kevin Govender and Michaela Munro in a dance explosion that is an affirmation of faith, courage and the joy of dance. Pictured here are the dancers in their performance of ‘cardiac output” at last year’s JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience.

Flatfoot Dance Company presents its 15th anniversary celebratory season of dance theatre

“things left unsaid”

21 – 25 March 2018

 In a remarkable feet of perseverance in the arts, Durban’s inimitable Flatfoot Dance Company celebrates its 15th anniversary in 2018 as one of South Africa leading contemporary dance companies.

With an international touring reputation for excellence and a host of national awards under its belt, Flatfoot’s arrival at this momentous 15th year mark is a testament to a dedicated team of dancers and administrators. Founder and Artistic Director, Lliane Loots says; “it feels amazing to suddenly wake up and look at the calendar and see that we have been doing this for 15 years. It has been the best 15 years of my life where I have interacted with literally thousands of dancers in our community dance development programmes in KZN, and in which I have had the privilege of working with the professional dancers in the company who have journey alongside me to give Flatfoot the reputation that is has.”

Celebrating this significant moment, Flatfoot is offering Durban audiences a full-length season (21 – 25 March @ Sneddon Theatre) of new dance theatre work that is sure to solidify its longevity for another 15 years. With a reputation of edgy, controversial, beautiful and intelligent dance, Flatfoot has titled its 15th anniversary season “things left unsaid”. Diving heart first into the zeitgeist of contemporary South African identity, this remarkable season offers two new dance works by Sifiso Khumalo and Lliane Loots. 

Sifiso Khumalo has worked with Flatfoot for 12 of the 15 years of its existence and steps up, for its 15th anniversary season, to take on a magnificent choreographic role in his work “Ndlelanhle” (meaning ‘go well on your journey’). Over the past 6 years Khumalo’s reputation as an innovative choreographer has been growing with him recently having been awarded a prestigious ‘JOMBA! On the Edge’ choreographic grant for 2017. His insightful and heartfelt attention to traditional Zulu cultural identity and how contemporary modern life has shifted how we think about ourselves, is once again given air in this new work of his.

Talking about the impulse for creating “Ndlelanhle”, Khumalo says, “Growing up in Zulu culture when you leave home for a certain journey the elders would give you a special prayer or blessing. I worry that these small things have been forgotten. These words and blessing matter so much; they are a reminder that we, as black urban Zulu men and women, still have ancestors guiding us. In“Ndlelanhle” I wanted to go back to these small blessing spoken to us as young adults leaving home and to look at how these words might affect who we become.”

Khumalo’s “Ndlelanhle” also launches the professional career of Flatfoot’s newest crop of male dancers. Siseko Duba, Ndumiso Dube, Qhawe Ndimande, Sbonga Ndlovu and Mthoko Mkhwanazi have all completed a 5 year professional development training programmer run by Flatfoot (and funded by the National Arts Council of South Africa) and step onto the stage with grace, skill and dedication that will simply take your breath away. Flatfoot Dance Company felt that this 15th anniversary was indeed the right moment to reveal and celebrate the incredible journey of these Newlands and KwaMashu based dancers.

The second half of the evening present Lliane Loots’s newest offering “things left unsaid” and is part of her on-going artistic dance journey into seeking truth and honesty in her dance making. In a collaborative process, Loots has worked with Jabu Siphika, Zinhle Nzama, Sifiso Khumalo and the five new dancers to painfully interrogate the ‘things we leave unsaid’ – be these words and feelings of love or moments of social injustice and terror. Loots’s reputation for politically edge work that wraps an iron fist in a velvet glove, is once again sedimented in this dance theatre work that will make you weep for the sheer delicate beauty of it, and then will have you spinning for what it reveals.

Loots says, “Like many of my recent works, “things left unsaid” returns to what fascinates me right now and this is quite basically an earnest plea for intimacy in spite of the violence of our world. I journey with the dancers into some pretty horrifying personal and political territory and am reminded that we are all still standing – and still dancing. In the end this is a triumph of the heart; the bigness of the South African heart.”

Loots has worked alongside long time collaborators, Wesley Maherry (lighting), Karen Logan for video installations, and spoken word poet Iain ‘ewok’ Robinson who has added insightful text to “things left unsaid”.

Catch Flatfoot Dance Company’s 15th anniversary season “things left unsaid” at the Sneddon Theatre from 21 – 25 March 2018. Tickets available through Computicket and range from R65 to R85. Opening night (21 March @ 7.30pm: Heritage Day) is the special 15th anniversary celebration launch of “things left unsaid” and tickets will be sold for R100 as part of a fundraising drive for the company. The evening will include a glass of sparkling wine after the show.

For more info email Lliane Loots loots@ukzn.ac.za

Flatfoot Dance Company in association with The Playhouse Company presents SADHANA

Flatfoot Dance Company in association with The Playhouse Company presents SADHANA
23 – 26 March 2017
Drama Theatre – Playhouse Complex
 
 
The Flatfoot Dance Company presents Sadhana at the Drama Theatre, Playhouse from March 23 to 26.
 
This newest offering from the same acclaimed team that brought the award winning Bhakti to Durban is choreographed by Lliane Loots, who once again, steps boldly into Eastern mystical philosophy and its confluence with African rhythms and dance, to create a dance theatre feast for the senses.
 
 “it is a rare and very precious moment for me to make dance work that allows for a more inward and contemplative artistic journey,” says Loots, “and so I am relishing this creative process that allows me to collaborate with Durban’s finest dance and musical talent. The very make-up of the cast of dancers and musicians tells a story of multiple histories and identities and so the chance to explore what being South African means to all of us in our own divergent artistic ways, is the very fabric of Sadhana.”
 
Loots joins forces with the six Flatfoot Dance Company dancers, Sifiso Khumalo, Tshediso Kabulu, Mthoko Mkhwanazi, Jabu Siphika, Kim Mccusker-Bartlett and Zinhle Nzama, who bring their own brand of contemporary African dance that is seeing this company being invited all over the world. For Sadhana, they are joined by Kathak aficionado and master, Manesh Mahara, known for his intrepid Kathak solo work.  This is his third performance collaboration with Loots who says, “Manesh is probably one of South Africa’s finest dancers at the moment and both myself and Flatfoot have been graced to work collaboratively with him over the past 3 years. His ability to share his own Kathak style so generously with us and his ability to cross borders into contemporary dance, makes him the biggest jewel in the Sadhana ‘crown’. Sometimes, in rehearsal, I get so mesmerised by his beauty as a dancer that I completely forget my role as choreographer!”
 
Sadhana is a Sanskrit word that means (in loose translation) a journey towards enlightenment that honours both intellectual, emotional and spiritual seeking. Sadhana is a term rooted in Eastern mystical philosophy and Loots, as choreographer, comes to this to encompass a type of journeying we all do as South Africans as we fight for memory and the promises of our own ‘enlightenment’. Sadhana is about what we are prepared to shed in our own voyages to decolonising both the mind and body. Politically powerful and deeply beautiful to watch.

It works on a kind of fusion/trans-cultural dance language that uses the rhythms of classical Indian dance styles (specifically Kathak) overlaid on the African contemporary dancing body – be these ballet or contemporary trained. The work itself has the aesthetics of a long pilgrimage that is taken by both dancer and audience as we journey into the heart of what defines us as African – as both social and spiritual beings.
 
Stalwart South African musician Madala Kunene whose unique African guitar rhythms set up the sound score of the work, integral to the piece . He is accompanied by djembe drummer Mandla Matsha and tabla player Revash Dookhi.
 
Filmmaker and long-time collaborator with Loots and Flatfoot, Karen Logan creates the video installations for Sadhana and continues her keen attention to creating insightful and visually beautiful landscapes that echo Loots’s choreographic visions.
 
Lighting is by award winning designer Wesley Maherry whose creations have found a base in Flatfoot’s work over the past 14 years.  
 
Sadhana runs as an ‘in association production’ with the Playhouse Company from 23 to 25 March at 7.30pm and on 26 March at 3pm at the Drama Theatre (Playhouse Complex). Tickets are R85, with students, scholars, pensioners at R65, and can be purchased through Computicket.

-ENDS

Flatfoot Dance Company presents "love is cruelty" at the KZNSA Gallery

MEDIA RELEASE

“loves own cruelty”

FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY @ the KZNSA Gallery

Friday (one night only!) 19th February 2016

6pm

 Durban’s inimitable FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY forges a wonderful new partnership with the KZNSA Gallery and starts its 2016 performance calendar with a one-off specially conceptualised performance work that uses all the spaces of the KZNSA to evoke a journey through a site; a journey through the tricky inner and outer terrain of love relationships that echo in the big and small spaces of the gallery.  

Titled “loves own cruelty”, FLATFOOT take as wry, fierce and sometimes humorous look at love relationships that never backs down from honestly and truth; and all the grey area in between that is the very fabric of human connections. FLATFOOT has a reputation for offering politically charged dance theatre and this work is no exception. Small site-specific relationship vignettes play our between dancers who seamlessly move and flow between one another in close encounters. The gallery space allows for a more intimate engagement with the dance work and is ideal for a slightly voyeuristic look into the lives of others.

Choreographed by Lliane Loots in collaboration with the 5 resident dancers (Sifiso Khumalo, Jabu Siphika, Tshediso Kabulu, Sanele Maphumulo and Zinhle Nzama), catch this award winning dance company up close and personal.

The cast also includes UK guest dancer, and artist in residence with FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY, Iona Waite on exchange from Birmingham’s ACE MUSIC and DANCE COMPANY. Iona has a BA in Dance and Professional Practice from the University of Wolverhampton (UK). She holds the positions of Youth Co-coordinator with ACE and dancers with the professional company. She comes to FLATFOOT as part of an on-going collaboration between the two companies and has spent the month of February 2016, working, teaching and dancing alongside FLATFOOT and all their various KZN based arts development programmes. She is a gifted and beautiful dancers and shines in Loots’s new work “loves own cruelty”.

As Loots says “it is always great getting new guest dancers in the company as they bring with them another history, another kind of body and another kind of movement; all of which we learn and grow from. Iona has been great as she is incredibly open and, at heart, is a dancer who takes huge risks; so for me as choreographer, this has been fantastic!”

“loves own cruelty” is for one night only so don’t miss it! The Performance begins at 6pm on Friday the 19th February at the KZNSA Gallery and tickets can be purchase up to one hour before the show.

The KZNSA coffee bar will be open!

 

PICS:

#1: FLATFOOT dancers Jabu Siphika and Sifiso Khumalo in “loves own cruelty” KZNSA GALLERY 19 Feb 2016 @ 6pm

#2: FLATFOOT dancers Jabu Siphika, Sifiso Khumalo and Sanele Maphumulo in “loves own cruelty” KZNSA GALLERY 19 Feb 2016 @ 6pm