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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Soa Ratsifandrihana / Fampitaha, fampita, fampitàna

A shot of Soa Ratsifandrihana’s Fampitaha, fampita, fampitàna.

Sept 18–22, 2024

This year’s bounteous and imaginative Festival d’Automne stretches all the way to December and the Paris communes (the large urban districts on the city’s margins). Meanwhile, the programming does the opposite—it puts the margins at the center of our attention, even if you have to take a train to witness it. The young Franco-Malagasy choreographer Soa Ratsifandrihana, for example, delivers truth to power with the fractured, fantastical, stylish, and funky Fampitaha, fampita, fampitàna (“Comparison, transmission, rivalry”). And with the festival-inside-a-festival Carte Blanche Dream City, artists of all stripes with ties to north Africa reconceive the Maghrebi-heavy commune of Aubervilliers as a Tunisian utopia. —Apollinaire Scherr