Lliane Loots is a South African choreographer, academic, curator and dance educator. She is the founding Artistic Director of JOMBA! Contemporary Dance Experience at the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Centre for Creative Arts, where she has played a leading role in shaping the festival’s international programme and curatorial vision. Alongside her work with JOMBA! and the CCA, Loots is a Dance Lecturer in the Drama and Performance Studies Programme at UKZN. She holds a Master’s degree in Gender Studies and completed her PhD in 2018, focusing on contemporary dance and performance histories on the African continent. In 2003, she founded FLATFOOT DANCE COMPANY, which grew from a dance training programme she established in 1994. As the company’s Artistic Director and resident choreographer, she has received numerous national choreographic awards and presented her work extensively across Africa, Europe and America. In 2017, Loots was awarded the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres by the French government for her artistic and curatorial contribution to the South African dance sector.
