Our Friday night show on a cramped, makeshift stage at the Karibohotel – the location of last week’s after party – was nothing to write home about. Where we ended up afterwards, however, is another story.

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It is already well after midnight when we set out. We traverse the capital, driving along streets that are anonymous and forlorn-looking at this time of night. At what feels like the edge of the city we discover a crowded parking area. Light and low frequencies pump out of a long low building. “The sound system won’t be very good,” Monique warns me.

Indeed upon entering, our ears are assaulted by powerful waves of distorted bass. At the same moment our eyes are dazzled by the sparkle of silver and the glitter of gold lamé. For once Monique seems underdressed. The style is body hugging, short and shiny. Fish skin framed by bare legs and shoulders. Dangerously high heels with hair-dos to match. Men are decked out in suits of exuberant cut and color.

Vast, low-ceilinged and hanger-like, the place holds perhaps 800 people at a wild guess. At one end is a high stage with musicians and singers. The immense central dance floor is packed. Ringed around it are white-clothed tables. They hold a profusion of bottles of every shape and glasses containing liquids in rainbow colors. Bow-tied waiters in white jackets ferry over additional drink and plates of food.

I am gently ushered – being ushered is pretty much how I’ve gotten around since arriving in this country – to a table next to the dance floor with a good view of the stage. We are greeted by its smiling occupants – Monique’s introductions are inaudible – who graciously make room for us. I look out at the dancers. A gaggle of nieces and nephews are already gyrating furiously.

It turns out this is the annual get-together of people from the southern coast, where Monique hails from, who for professional or personal reasons live here in the capital. They represent different ethnic groups: Antanosy, Antandroy, Vezo, Bara and Sakalava. What they all have in common is a love of tsapiky, the high-octane dance music blasting from the stage.

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Back when a teenage Monique was starting her musical career in the Wild West port of Tulear (Toliara), tsapiky, which means spicy-hot, began migrating from village to city in time-honored fashion. The musicians around her, including her older brothers, took this traditional rhythm, amplified it with electric instruments and added South African influences picked up on the radio from across the Mozambique Channel. It eventually replaced the staid, bourgeois party music of Tulear and became the craze that it is today.

Tsapiky tempos are terribly fast, never falling below 152 bpm. Live performances are all-night, non-stop affairs. Fresh drummers replace exhausted ones in mid-song, passing drumsticks between them without missing a beat, like runners in a relay race. Tsapiky singers are dancers too, interspersing their lyrics with call-and-response exhortations urging the crowd to an ever-higher frenzy.

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At our table Monique receives a constant stream of tsapiky celebrities taking a break from their stage duties. There’s Tsiliva, the handsome and flamboyant popularizer of kilalaky, a dance of cow thieves (says Monique) that has swept the nation. He’s followed by Kalheba, by Theo Mikea and by Mamy Gotso, the brother of Hanta, our daughter-in-law. Looking bored at the nearby politicians’ table is the stunning Onja. Sister of Surgi, our back-up singer and lokanga player, she’s the product of a startling transformation from simple Antandroy village girl to S&M-flavored pop goddess.

But my biggest thrill comes when Monique introduces me to Rasoa Kininike. Her name translates into something like "Beautiful Shimmier”. She is known for her high, ethereal voice, which has become a staple of parties across Madagascar and throughout the diaspora. Yet she’s also responsible for turning a hip-shaking village dance into the highly provocative butt-quivering that now dominates the island’s music videos. Age and alcohol have not been kind to her. (Have they been to any of us?) But even garbed as she was for a trip to the supermarket, defiantly violating the dress code, when I squeeze my way up to the front of the stage she does not disappoint. 

The Beautiful Shimmier & me