FLATFOOT’S things we hide from the light

 

(Above: Sbonga Ndlovu, Siseko Duba & Ndumiso "Digga" Dube. Choreography by Sifiso Khumalo, Jabu Siphika, Zinhle Nzama & Lliane Loots. Photo: Val Adamson

20th Anniversary Season FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY

Celebrating a monumental 20 years as eThekwini’s most prolific and awarded dance company, FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY honours this milestone with an extraordinary season of new contemporary dance - things we hide from the light which will run at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre from May 19 to 21, 2023.

Returning to the Sneddon Theatre where the company offered its first season in 2003 – FLATFOOT has crafted an intoxicating new work that honours past legacies, current directions, and future imaginings. Provocatively titled things we hide from the light, FLATFOOT offers its inimitable serious and deeply personal dance-making – a style of working that has seen the company for over 20 years invited to perform on countless international stages, and which has seen the company win commissions and awards honouring the excellence of its vision.

Fearlessly led by founder and artistic director, Lliane Loots, FLATFOOT’s 20th anniversary is a landmark worth celebrating. “It has been both a slow burn and a blink of an eye getting to 20. Struggling for funding and survival while simultaneously being in awe of the daily grace of dancers who turn up every day to work, train, teach, and push their craft - often in environments that have not been easy. It’s been a deeply humbling time!” says Loots.

“We also honour the hundreds of dancers who have danced with us in township halls, university, and school spaces, and in our various developmental and rural spaces. And the audiences who have called us family and come out to all sorts of spaces to watch us and support us … it takes a village to raise dancers and FLATFOOT is so grateful for our village,” she adds. 

(Left: Siseko Duba & Jabu Siphika. Choreography by Sifiso Khumalo, Jabu Siphika, Zinhle Nzama & Lliane Loots. Photo: Val Adamson)

Reflecting on this new 20th anniversary season, Loots says that it has “offered me and the three senior FLATFOOT dancers a moment to stop and reflect and to revisit - albeit in new and exciting ways – on what got us here. It is also a moment to honour the younger dancers in the company (Siseko Duba, Sbonga Ndlovu and Ndumiso Dube) who are exceptional performers and who feed into so much of our dance-making. It is a moment to also feel incredible joy and the sheer power of the moving body to narrate so much of who we are.”

things we hide from the light, is a full-length work made up of four ‘movements’ that are connected by theme, intention, and meaning”. With choreography by FLATFOOT’s Sifiso Khumalo, Jabu Siphika, Zinhle Nzama, and Lliane Loots - each offering is a deeply personal dance journey into each choreographer’s respective heartland. Reflecting and referencing FLATFOOT’s history, these four ‘movements’, speak to ideas of community and belonging that are set against the private and public ideas of healing and renewal. In confronting what we – both personally and collectively - hide from the light, this quartet of connected works is about the power of memory in forging what it means to be a South African at this time in our history.

things we hide from the light will run at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre from May 19 to 21, 2023, and only has four public performances: May 19 (Friday) – 19h00, May 20 (Saturday) – 14h30 and 19h30, and May 21 (Sunday) – 14h30.

Tickets R100 (R80 learners, students, and pensioners). Booking is via Computicket: https://bit.ly/FlatfootThingsWeHideTickets