Four Letter Words

Four Letter Words

Made entirely under the 2020 Covid-19 lockdown in South Africa with dancers separated from one another, and (in most parts) shot off mobile phones, “FOUR LETTER WORDS” has been made as a way to keep our connection (with each other as dancers) alive while our embodied dance work has come to a halt. Collaborating with slam poet/artist Iain ewok Robinson, who took Loots’s first ‘four letter word’ (HOPE) and wrote a whole poem made only of four-letter words – this became the soundtrack of the film and the impulse for editing and the visual choreography. Sensitively edited by Wesley Maherry, this short dance film is a brief inhalation and exhalation

Details of work
Choreography: Lliane Loots and the dancers.
Editing: Wesley Maherry
Poetry (written and performance): Iain ewok Robinson
Country: South Africa (Durban)
Affiliation: Flatfoot Dance Company

About
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.

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Date

September 27, 2021

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