Lacuna

LOUISE COETZER (b 1980, South Africa) is a multidisciplinary dance artist working within the genres of site-specific performance, digital & tech - based art, choreography for the stage, and dance film. Her works are experiential, experimental, and often have interdisciplinary approaches at their core.

Her research on the use of new technologies and media applications as presentation tools, is ongoing. A focus on developing new audiences for dance, by connecting the form to the world outside the theatre, informs this exploration of placing dance in surprising juxtaposition with everyday life, both real and virtual.
 
Recent commissions include deus::ex::machina for the Pan African Telematic Art Project, featured at Ars Electronica (Linz,Austria), Vrystaat Kunstefees, The Pan African Creative Exchange and Fak’ugesi Festival of African Digital Innovation; META | m o r p h for CREATIVATE at the virtual National Arts Festival; and WRPD for the Iziko Planetarium Under The Dome Festival. Her performance installations have been showcased at the Zeits Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, the Centre For The Less Good Idea, Dance Umbrella, Kucheza Afrika Festival, Baxter Dance Festival, the National Arts Festival, and the Norval Foundation.

Coetzer’s work has been featured in group exhibitions for Gallery MOMO, Puncture Points & World Design Capital Cape Town. Her dance film works have screened at Video Art Miden (Greece), 40 North Festival (Calif. USA), Foreign Exchange (Paris, France), Ubumuntu Arts Festival (Kigali,Rwanda), Agite Y Sirva (Oaxaca, Mexico), The British Film Institute (London, UK) and Global Art & Moving Images (Pinsio, Finland).  Awards include Best Film Award at Under The Dome Festival and Top Three Jury Film Award at Danceador Videodance Fest (USA).

Coetzer trained as dancer and obtained a B. Tech Degree in Dance, with Movement Composition as major from the Pretoria Technikon, and is currently living and working in Cape Town. She is founding Artistic Director of Darkroom Contemporary Dance Theatre, a project-based company formed as a vehicle to reimagine dance through its innovative approach to staging and presenting interdisciplinary works. Coetzer is a guest lecturer at the University Of Cape Town’s Centre for Theatre Dance and Performance Studies.