Soa Ratsifandrihana

How does one represent groove? A slang term associated with jazz and swing, it originally meant “in the groove of the record” or “with it”. In collaboration with two composers, Soa Ratsifandrihana plays with this spirit of rhythm, in which the malleability of dance meets that of music. In two phases, the dancer and choreographer engages in a dialogue with contemporary sound aesthetics. First with Sylvain Darrifourcq, whose electronic music is close to glitch, then with Alban Murenzi, who comes from hip-hop. Throughout the piece, Soa Ratsifandrihana invokes a series of heritages, from the Malagasy dances practised in her family to the contemporary world of Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker, for whom she was an exceptional performer. g r oo v e is also nourished by abundant visual references, from Botticelli’s Venus to the manga Ghost in the Shell – which inspired the costume made by Coco Petitpierre – to yoga postures. An invitation to rediscover the pleasure of grooving.

Soa Ratsifandrihana is a French-Malagasy dancer and choreographer. After training at the Conservatoire national supérieur musique et danse de Paris, she worked as a performer with James Thierrée, Salia Sanou and then with Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker’s company Rosas, before joining Boris Charmatz’s 20 danseurs pour le XXe siècle. Since 2016, she has been developing her own choreographic work, with pieces such as Tendimite (2016), Folia (2020) and her new production, g r oo v e.