(Pic by Val Adamson: Front - Nobuhle Khawula and Thobeka Quvane, back - Magesh Ngcobo, Sifiso Khumalo, Vusi Makanya and Mlondi Zondi)Flatfoot Dance Company travels to Cameroon to perform!
In the early hours of April 23, all nine company members of Durban's inimitable Flatfoot Dance Company, and master drummer Mandla Matsha, head off to West Africa to participate in Cameroon's tenth edition of their African contemporary dance festival called Abok I Ngoma.
Flatfoot's invite is a prestigious one as they will be the only Southern African dance company present at the festival. The invite include performances at the festival as well as staying on for a few extra days to teach master classes and open level dance classes. The festival is held in Younde and Flatfoot are very excited at the prospect of taking not only their choreographic performances, but also to embrace a time and space for sharing dance skills in their own continent.
As artistic director of Flatfoot, Lliane Loots, has said, "much of our mandate and artistic work ethic in Flatfoot, is to embrace our own African identity and heritage and so working and sharing our work within our own African continent is exactly what we want to be doing, and what we are delighted to be doing".
Flatfoot will also be meeting up again with Ijodee Dance Company from Lagos (Nigeria). In 2009, Lliane Loots and Adedayo Liadi jointly created a collaborative work called encounters with both of their dance companies and which premiered at the JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience. The work received standing ovations and so the two choreographers - from South and West Africa -are delighted to be meeting up again in Younde to re-stage and re-perform this work. As Loots has said, "Adedayo and I spent nearly five difficult years imagining working together and trying to make it happen, navigating South and West Africa and a lot of yellow fever injections, so the fact that we are now meeting up to work together again for a second year is like a real gift from the goddess and the ancestors".
Apart from encounters, Flatfoot will also perform Sifiso Kweyama's work circle which has recently just been staged in their Summer 2010 season at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre called Talking Spirits. circle is an intensely ritualistic work that uses the old African storytelling idea of communal circles to navigate some very contemporary stories and identities. It is show-stopping dance theatre that Flatfoot is hoping will find a synergy in audience responses in Cameroon. The company returns home to Durban on May 6.
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