(Above: FLATFOOT and the FLATFOOT DOWNIE DANCE COMPANY in Loots's "same difference". Dancers (centre): Sifiso Khumalo and Jabu Siphika. Pic by Herman Verwey)
Durban’s much-loved FLATFOOT Dance Company is delighted to offer its first Flatfoot Access Dance Festival 2022 at 18h30 on November 25, 2022, at the Courtyard Theatre, Durban University of Technology. Three new works created by FLAFTFOOT will be showcased celebrating the power of dance to transcend narrow definitions of who can dance.
FLATFOOT’s approach to community dance development in KZN, has seen it offering what artistic director, Dr Lliane Loots calls, “a dance philosophy and practice we refer to as “living democracy” where we find ways to make dance accessible to all, no matter physical or intellectual ability, geography, race, gender and any other intersectional category around identity”.
The Company has nationally spearheaded one of South Africa’s only dance programmes with dancers living with Down Syndrome affectionately called the FLATFOOT Downie Dance Company. This programme began in 2017 and continues with four incredible dancers, Kevin Govender, Michaela Munro, Charles Phillips and Karl Hebbelman. Working in a partnering methodology that sees the FLATFOOT company dancers working alongside, this festival offers three works.
The first is Loots’s collaboration with the dancers called same difference that premiered to standing ovations at SIBIKWA’s Body Moves Festival in Johannesburg in October 2022. Loots says: “same difference is an idiomatic phrase often used in English that indicates that two things are not really different in any important way. This was the starting point into creating a dance work that plots the meetings and partings of a group of eight South African dancers who journey into ways of seeing one another”.
The second work on offer, sees FLATFOOT partnering with guest choreographer from Chicago (USA), Sydney Erlikh, who has come to Durban to share integrated dance practices with FLATFOOT. Erlikh is an artist, educator and doctoral candidate in Disability Studies at the University of Illinois Chicago. She was co-awarded a 2019-2020 Schweitzer Fellowship which lead to the creation of the Inclusive Dance Workshop Series at Access Living in Chicago. Talking about her new work with FLATFOOT and the FLATFOOT Downie Dance Company called Shield of the Heart, Erlikh says “in a world where safety is a concern, those who guide you become a shield you wear on your heart. We all came together here in Durban as a disability community to share knowledge and culture. This dance work - our dance work - is a score that will never be the same. Through it, we share our vulnerability and create safety for one another. The dance piece asks where you find safety and who has been a shield for your heart”.
The final work on the programme is a collaboration between Loots, FLATFOOT and Julia Pitt, a dancer living with cerebral palsy. Pitt has always considered herself a dancer and has literally watched every local performance FLATFOOT has ever done. A chance meeting started a working process in February of 2022, and this festival offers her first public performance with the company. Loots has worked collaboratively with Pitt and FLATFOOT’s Jabu Siphika and Zinhle Nzama to create an intimated and moving trio called perpetual motion.
Tickets R50. Seating is limited so booking is essential. Contact Clare on flatfootdancecompany@gmail.com
Pre-booked tickets can be collected at the Courtyard box office from 45mins before the start of show on Friday November 25, 2022.
The Courtyard Theatre is situated at the Durban
University of Technology, 51 Steve Biko Road, Musgrave.
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