http://stronglytypedblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/java-vs-scala-vs-groovy-vs-groovy.html
The blog post compares the performance of quicksort implemented in Java, Scala, Groovy and Groovy++.
(Groovy++ is an effort to create a statically typed variant of Groovy, so that dynamic and static programming can be mixed).
Bottom line: Scala and Java compare in performance, Groovy is 512 times slower and Groovy++ is only 42 times slower. This is obviously just a micro-benchmark, but I don't see how manipulating any other sort of data will make the difference in performance smaller.