READY FOR ANYTHING

Flatfoot Dance Company with Lucia Walker (UK) presents a series of improvised performances

Lucia Walker comes to work with Flatfoot Dance Company from Oxford, England. She has spent the month of February closely working with the company and leading them to explore and examine the very foundations of what it means to be a dancer and a dance maker. Her dance work is situated in the genre of what is often termed “independent dance” or at one time “new dance” with the techniques underpinning her work mainly from release techniques and Contact Improvisation and, in her own personal case, a long term exploration of physical theatre and improvisation in performance.

Through a month long process of improvisation exercises with Lucia Walker, the six resident Flatfoot dancers take the stage in the wittily-titled prepared for nothing and ready for anything without any formal choreography to hold them. They step onto the stage and create the score, the dance, the choreography as the audience watches. This is both dangerous and delightful as the element of surprise and chance is always there. No two performances will be the same. Working alongside them in musical improvisation is Mandla Mtsha on double base, flute and drums – he, too, creating the musical score as the dancers create the dance!

Lucia Walker travels and teaches internationally, exploring a lifelong delight in movement and communication. She was introduced to Contact Improvisation in 1985, (studying with Steve Paxton, Nancy Stark Smith, Julyen Hamilton and Kirstie Simson.) and has been learning, teaching and practising the form since then. She worked for many years with the UK-based Jointwork Dance Group, working with schools and community groups. As well as choreography, Jointwork focused on exploring improvised performance and Lucia continued this research with Telling Times International Theatre Project.

In 1987 she also qualified as a teacher of Alexander Technique and teaches individuals, groups and on teacher training programmes working with students with a wide range of interests and abilities.

She continues to work and learn in many contexts taking workshops and collaborating in dance, physical theatre, communication and movement research projects. She is particularly interested in the way movement exploration, awareness practices and play can provide a ‘common language’ which lies beneath different cultural experiences and styles of dance. As she says, “dance can be a way of opening out our field of knowing, being and responding and help us with the challenges and delights of being human”.

“Much of my teaching work and personal movement practice involves exploring how to be “ready”,” she explains. “Ready to move with as much range and creativity as possible, ready to make instant compositional decisions, ready to play and ready to relate to the space, the imagination, the audience. I am delighted with the opportunity to work with Flatfoot Dance Company to continue this exploration with dancers who have so much talent and shared experience in performance, choreography and community work. Our joint rehearsal period over February has involved becoming more conscious of aspects of our experience as dancers. With a spirit of enquiry and a sense of play we aim to deepen our connection with ourselves, the dance and the audience”.

prepared for nothing and ready for anything will be a series of instant compositions and performances arising in the moment. Come and see Flatfoot Dance Company take the risk and create something beautiful in the intimate confines of The Hexagon and The Square Space Theatre.

Performances will take place at the Hexagon Theatre in Pietermaritzburg on February 24 at 19h30, followed by a run at the Square Space Theatre in Durban from February 25 to 29 with performances nightly (except February 28) at 19h30 and extra shows on February 26 and 27at 12h20. Tickets R35 (R20 students and scholars) with tickets at R10 for discounted matinee performances. More information on 082 875 6065.