(Lliane
Loots (centre) surrounded by Flatfoot dancers and right, Ambassador Farnaud &
eThekwini deputy mayor, Fawzia Peer)
In a glamorous event hosted at Durban’s
Alliance Française on April 25, Durban’s award-winning choreographer Lliane
Loots was awarded the honour of Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of Arts
and Letter by the Ambassador of France to South Africa, Mr Christophe Farnaud.
In a moving acknowledgement and celebration
of Loots’ life’s work in growing, making and supporting dance in South Africa,
and in conjunction with the support she has offed to French artists visiting
and working in South Africa, this Knighthood was gently and beautifully
bestowed by Ambassador Farnaud on his very first visit to Durban.
The Ordre des Arts et des Lettres is a
medal of honour that is bestowed by the French government in recognition of
significant contributions to the arts and the propagation of the arts and in
significant connection to also enriching the French cultural inheritance. It is
an award that was established in 1957 by the French government and, in 2017
three South African – all in the dance sector - will be receiving it; Lliane Loots,
Gregory Maqoma and Georgina Thompson.
Loots presently holds the positions of
Dance Lecturer in the Drama and Performance Studies Programme at the University
of KwaZulu-Natal (Howard College Campus). She has a Master’s degree in Gender
Studies and is presently completing her PhD looking at contemporary dance
histories on the African continent. She also holds the founding position of
Artistic Director for the Centre for Creative Arts’ annual JOMBA! Contemporary
Dance Experience (a festival that will make its historic 20th edition in 2018).
She has also recently been invited onto the Grahamstown National Arts
Festival’s Artistic Committee (for dance).
Loots founded Flatfoot Dance Company as a
professional dance company in 2003 when it grew out of a dance training
programme that originally began in 1995. As the artistic director and resident
choreographer for Flatfoot Dance Company (now the longest surviving
professional dance company in Durban), she has won numerous national
choreographic awards and commissions and has travelled quite extensively in
Europe, America and the African continent with her dance work. Loots and Flatfoot
are also known for the vast amount of youth dance education and development
work done in KZN, and, through JOMBA!, for putting Durban on the global dance
map.
This award has honoured all of these
divergent parts of Loots’ life as a cultural worker in Durban and her award was
accompanied by support from the Flatfoot company as they stood by her to
receive the medal of honour.
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