Flatfoot Dance Company

FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY’s home is on the East coast of South Africa in the province of KwaZulu-Natal. It is nestled in the heart of the warm ocean-facing city of Durban. Our sense of geographical location is important as is 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 politically and socially charged dance theatre work.

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 and simply the good will and political and artistic impulse to offer dance training to those who has historically and economically been denied access due to the historical apartheid systems in South Africa. 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 become a fully registered and now internationally recognised African contemporary dance company.

FLATFOOT prides itself not only in offering dance theatre work 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 FLATFOOT - the idea of growing dance and dancers - is something that the company still remains true to almost 27 years since its beginning.