KAARO is a creation bringing together 2 men and 1 woman, elaborated on the island of Mayotte and in Hexagon for 2 years. It  is a work of contemporary writing whose sources of inspiration are as  much ancestral dances and music as the study of daily gesture, a work to  nourish of differences, travel in the culture of the other and enrich it.   KAARO  is the desire to report in a poetic way observations on the ground, the  encounter between what one imagines to find in Mayotte and what one  really finds there, the fantasy of an elsewhere and the reality of the place.
KAARO is a step towards the other, where everyone is the keystone, it is the finger pointed to the real and necessary interdependence between two cultures so that they flourish, to understand where we come from and to know where we are going, step by step

Jeff Ridjali is a choreographer, born in Tsingoni, Mayotte (part of the Comoros archipelago in the Indian Ocean). In 1989, he went to Paris to continue his apprenticeship in dance and was struck by the emergence of styles from the United States, brought to France by artists from Guadeloupe, Martinique, and the Caribbean. He was awarded a study grant for the Higher National School of Dance in Marseille. There he discovered the German techniques of Karine Weiner, but also those of Roland Petit and Vaganova.

He met Isabelle Camatte with whom he founded the Kashdance school in Marseille. He then created the Urban Concept company, made up of pupils from his school. In 2001, he left to carry on teaching at the Alvin Ailey School where he started to tackle the techniques of Horton, Graham and Simonson.

This experience marked the beginning of his search for his own choreographic technique around the question of identity, something which was very much present in American artistic reflection and based on this he began to consider his own style.

He returned to his island in 2005, and founded the “Ballet de Mayotte” in collaboration with Isabelle Camatte. The aim of the Ballet de Mayotte was to create a scheme for promoting dance on the Mahorais territory: he introduced ways of encouraging public awareness and training.

A programme of events grew up around this scheme: Les Journées de la Danse (Days of Dance) and Les rencontres régionales de la Danse contemporaine: Maoré Danse (Regional encounters with contemporary dance: Maore dance), a two-yearly event bringing international artists together.

In 2007, Jeff Ridjali’s company became the island’s first official company. 

Source : Lalanbik’s website

More information : https://www.lalanbik.org/ 

Lalanbik was founded in 2014, in Reunion Island. It contributes to the  valorization of actors and choreographics writings of Indian Ocean  territories. Lalanbik implement online ressources tools : the first is  its website, concerning the Indian Ocean Dance news, and the other one  is its online video library, which brings contents about contemporary  and traditional dance writings. Lalanbik works in partnership to lead  its actions in favor of the widening of publics with : libraries,  theatres, dance schools, schools and higher education.

Source : Lalanbik's website

More information : www.lalanbik.org/