FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY is set to dazzle audiences with its 2025 showcase premiere of BODIES OF WATER at Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre from 10 – 13 April 2025.

Award-winning choreographer, Lliane Loots joins forces with celebrated Durban musicians Refiloe Olifant on violin, and Mandla Matsha on percussion, to offer a beautiful, soulful and thought-provoking new season of contemporary dance.

Loots says, “BODIES OF WATER embraces a double meaning as the dance work negotiates the ecology of water alongside an awareness that the human body is made up of 70% water. Setting the dancing moving body as a breathing metaphor for climate justice, the six FLATFOOT dancers face what happens to bodies in times of personal and political crisis”. She goes on to say, “Set against our own African geopolitics, and a larger ‘body’ of social dis-ease, BODIES OF WATER comes back to the ideas of how we relate to ‘bodies of water’ as both artistic and political metaphors for survival. Even though the human body is made up of mostly water, this fluidity is not our daily reality as we see a world becoming more intractable. The remarkable thing about water is that it is always travelling back to source, back home”.

Loots always acknowledges the six FLATFOOT dancers (Sifiso Khumalo, Jabu Siphika, Zinhle Nzama, Siseko Duba, Sbonga Ndlovu and Ndumiso Dube) as her co-creators. “In this work the dancers courageously face off with their own flow and sometimes immovability as BODIES OF WATER open space for all of us to examine the very beating of our own hearts and the (wished for) lightness of our footsteps on this Earth. BODIES OF WATER is a daring and deeply beautiful navigation of both the human condition and the ecology of our planet.”

BODIES OF WATER is performed to an original and live score jointly created in rehearsals with Refiloe Olifant (violin) and Mandla Matsha (percussion). Refiloe (aka Fifi) is a violinist who hails from Bloemfontein and is currently employed by The KZN Philharmonic Orchestra as a principal violinist where she also features as an assistant concertmaster with a baroque ensemble based in Durban called Baroque 2000. Loots says, “Her ability to improvise and create a score with the dancers is a unique talent and I am so grateful to have her beauty in the room when we are working. I consider her and her music to be the 7^th dancer in BODIES OF WATER”.

Fifi is joined by long time FLATFOOT collaborator Mandla Matsha. Loots says, “Mandla is a percussionist whose particular ability to score when working with dancers, is what hold BODIES OF WATER together. His range of instruments from djembe drums to the istolotolo (mouth harp) are truly phenomenal”.

BODIES OF WATER sees FLATFOOT partnering once again with lighting designer Wesley Maherry whose bespoke designs for this dance company has seen him win numerous awards. His lighting design is supported by his audio visual/cinematic stage projection designs that give BODIES OF WATER a unique performance landscape.

BODIES OF WATER only has four public performances at the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre from 10 – 13 April. Performances are on 10 and 11 April at 7pm, and 12 and 13 April at 2.30m. Booking is via WEBTICKETS. Tickets cost between R95 and R120.

There is a special schools’ performance on Friday 11 April at 10.30am where learners can watch the show and engage in a special one-off Q&A with FLATFOOT after the performance. Scholars pay R60 and accompanying teachers get a free ticket. This is via prior booking only via Lootsl@ukzn.ac.za.

BODIES OF WATER is made possible by a partnership with the Elizabeth Sneddon Theatre (UKZN).