G r oo v e, Soa Ratsifandrihana
Soa Ratsifandrihana, G r oo v e, © Lara Gasparotto
Plunged into darkness but for a golden warmth radiating over the central stage, I spent the first couple of minutes of G r oo v e trying to find our soloist.
Was she already sitting in the audience ready to jive? Was she about to shout “boo” from behind my shoulder? Suddenly from the corner of my eye I spotted a shadowy figure slowly crawling to the centre of the stage. Hard to pick out through the low light, she slowly made her way around the 360-stage, repeating a slow series of lunges, steps, mouth touching and floor sweeping. Despite the lack of music, the piece was entrancing (although it took a tad too long to get going). Over the next twenty minutes distorted electronic tones zapped in and out, Ratsifandrihana ‘malfunctioning’ and distorting in response.
What had drawn me to this work was the opportunity to experience a work inspired by the Madagascan social dance Afindrafindrao (which the synopsis promised would stand alongside sketches of 1960s dance the Madison and nods to popping dancer Pepito). So far, this had felt all rather contemporary.
Soa Ratsifandrihana, G r oo v e, © Lara Gasparotto
As the lights dimmed again and I got ready to applaud, the music suddenly changed into a more upbeat thrumming of drums. This second half, unrelated to the first in all but the smooth transition of one to the other, saw a tonal shift in Soa’s movement. Her body flung to the sides, her legs gained a bounce and salsa feel. Near the end she danced with an invisible partner – a comment on the loneliness of dancing by oneself?
As she crawled back off stage back into the darkness, I was struck by how impressive it is for a solo dancer to hold ones attention for nearly an hour. Especially in a work with no obvious message, to keep an audience transfixed for that long with movement alone is credit to her skill as a performer. Her ability to confidently sit in the slow and then move her limbs with power and intent during bursts of energy, or to strut with model-like purpose around the stage was commendable. What made this work was the way that the piece developed at just the right pace. It constantly had me asking where’s the going, intrigued to see how the work was going to pan out. As I seem to comment a lot on this site, that’s no easy feat.
However, the lack of relation between each act made the work a tad confusing. I also wonder if her references to the Madison and Pepito were both too niche and subtle for the audience to pick up on. I would love to see this work developed further, to bring the two halves together into a work that experiments with the merging of the slow and the fast and a bolder mix of her choreographic inspirations. Then we could be onto something really exciting.
★★★★
G r oo v e by Soa Ratsifandrihana
Lillian Baylis Theatre / 19 February 2025
Press ticket
Part of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels Festival.
Find your next dance show
All dance shows happening across the UK, all in one place. Only on Like Nobody’s Watching.
Check out these related reviews
🪩 Brought to you by Like Nobody’s Watching. Read about our mission →
