20 years of spectacular dance

The very first performance of the Flatfoot Dance Company in 2003 was The Orion Project choreographed by Lliane Loots in collaboration with the dancers, from left, Seren McMurtry, S’fiso Magesh Ngcobo, Sphelele Nzama, Musa Hlatshwayo (jumping), Marise Kyd, Wesley Maherry, Suhana Gordan and Caroline van Wyk. Picture: Val Adamson

The very first performance of the Flatfoot Dance Company in 2003 was The Orion Project choreographed by Lliane Loots in collaboration with the dancers, from left, Seren McMurtry, S’fiso Magesh Ngcobo, Sphelele Nzama, Musa Hlatshwayo (jumping), Marise Kyd, Wesley Maherry, Suhana Gordan and Caroline van Wyk. Picture: Val Adamson

Published May 13, 2023

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Durban - This year Durban’s Flatfoot Dance Company celebrates its 20th anniversary. As one of South Africa’s most prolific and awarded dance companies, it honours this milestone with an extraordinary season of new contemporary dance.

The company’s latest offering – “things we hide from the light” – will run at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre from May 19 to 21.

Flatfoot’s home in Durban KZN offers a unique flavour to this African contemporary dance company. Often working with memory and history, Flatfoot has developed a unique identity as a contemporary South African dance company that is known to offer artistically and socially charged dance theatre.

Dancers Sbonga Ndlovu and Mthoko Mkhwanazi in “under the same sky” in 2018. Picture: Val Adamson
Jabu Siphika with Iain Ewok Robinson in Last Thoughts in 2013. Picture: Val Adamson

Lliane Loots began Flatfoot in 1994 as a part-time training programme that aimed to offer technical contemporary dance training to any Durban/eThekwini-based dancers who were able to make the classes.

The company began with no funding but simply the goodwill and political and artistic impulse to offer dance training to primarily black dancers who had historically and economically been denied access due to the apartheid system.

Sifiso Majola, Julia Wilson, Tshediso Kabulu, and back, Jabu Siphika, Sifiso Khumalo and Zinhle Nzama in Hope in 2013 choreographed by Lliane Loots in collaboration with the dancers. Picture: Val Adamson
Vusi Makanya, Sifiso Khumalo, S'fiso Magesh Ngcobo, Nobuhle Khawula and Shayna de Kock in Bloodlines in 2009 choreographed by Lliane Loots. Picture: Val Adamson

In 2002 a decision was made to secure a more permanent base for some of the exceptional dancers who were coming through the training and so, in 2003, the company became a registered and now internationally recognised African contemporary dance company.

The company prides itself on not only offering dance theatre that has won numerous awards, commissions and invitations from all over the world, but also on the vast amount of dance development and dance education work that they run in both rural and urban areas of KwaZulu-Natal.

The initial impulse of creating it – the idea of growing dance and dancers – is something that the company still remains true to 20 years later.

Sbonga Ndlovu, Ndumiso “Digga” Dube, Sifiso Khumalo, Zinhle Nzama, Jabu Siphika and Siseko Duba in their latest work “things we hide from the light”. Picture: Val Adamson
S’fiso Magesh Ngcobo, Sifiso Khumalo, Nobuhle Khawula, Teekay Quvane and Mlondi Zondi in “talking spirits” in 2010 by guest choreographer Sifiso Kweyama. Picture: Val Adamson

The company today includes one of the founding dancers, Sifiso Khumalo, alongside stalwarts Jabu Siphika and Zinhle Nzama. They are joined by the younger generation of dancers – Siseko Duba, Sbonga Ndlovu and Ndumiso “Digga” Dube all of whom journeyed into the professional company three years ago from Flatfoot township dance development programmes. The company continues to be run by its founder and artistic director, Lliane Loots.

Their 20th anniversary offering, “Things we hide from the light”, is a full-length work made up of four “chapters” that are connected by theme, intention and meaning.

With choreography by Khumalo, Siphika, Nzama and Loots, the season plays on subtle references to the past 20 years of the company’s dance work and is simply beautiful.

Catch things we hide from the light at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre. It has only four public performances: May 19 and 20 at 7pm, and May 20 and 21 at 2.30pm. Tickets R100 (learners, students, and pensioners R80) via Computicket.

Jabu Siphika, Siseko Duba and Ndumiso “Digga” Dube in “seven ways to say goodbye” in 2021 with choreography by Lliane Loots in collaboration with the dancers. Picture: Val Adamson

The Independent on Saturday