In 2023, while researching medieval music, Kevin Malfait discovered an Occitan song, La marca de la pièra, whose poetic text diverged from typical medieval themes. The damaged manuscript’s melody was reconstructed using a similar 18th-century piece by Guillon. Inspired, Malfait collaborated with dancer Charles Pietri, who recognized the story from Corsican family traditions. Together, they created a performance exploring the connections between Occitan and Corsican cultural memory.
September 18th – 22nd, 2024 MC93, Bobigny October 3rd – 4th, 2024 Ballet national de Marseille, Marseille November 20th, 2024 La Manufacture CDCN Nouvelle-Aquitaine, Bordeaux December 10th, 2024 Théâtre d’Orléans, Orléans 90 minutes
Fampitaha, fampita, fampitàna – three Malagasy words that mean comparison, transmission and rivalry. In a score of abstract and figurative gestures, dancer and choreographer Soa Ratsifandrihana makes use of her own experience of diaspora and her Madagascan origins to tell us the kind of story she would have liked to have heard or seen as a child. Blending radio, musical and choreographic storytelling, the show plays with orality and movement, reminding us that our bodies, just like our words and sounds, are bearers of stories. Ratsifandrihana – who came to attention as a dancer in Rosas’ new version of Fase – drew inspiration from the words and stories she picked up on a recent trip to Madagascar. Joined by guitarist Joël Rabesolo and performers Audrey Merilus and Stanley Ollivier, she travels towards a form of wandering, exploring how several influences can lead to an unheard-of explosion of cultures like creolisation. Just as the change in accentuation between ‘fampitaha’, ‘fampita’ and ‘fampitàna’ alters the word’s meaning, the dancers glide from one state to another, seemingly following a constantly changing movement – or perhaps a form of creolisation.
