WOMADELAIDE - Jane Cornwell

1 0 SAWEEKEND FEBRUARY 9-10 ADVE01Z01WE - V1

WOMADELAIDESAWEEKEND FEBRUARY 9-10, 2019

Classy stage sets, tight choreography and catchy tunes with lyrics about gender and sexuality are set to make

Christine and the Queens — now just Chris — a WOMAD hit

WORDS JANE CORNWELLPICTURE JAMIE MORGAN

A s career highlights go,this might have been asurreal dream: gettingspanked on the bum byMadonna before 15,000fans, then beingrewarded, and told toimprovise, with abanana. But the proof is

there on YouTube, in footage shot at Paris’sBercy Stadium, a clip remarkable not just forits high entertainment value but for the poise,skills and good humour of special guestHéloise Lettisier, aka Christine and theQueens, aka – as of the last few months – Chris.

“I was so impressed by this immense powerMadonna has,” says Chris, 30, of her 2015cameo, made when on the brink ofinternational fame, her cult status pouncedon by the Queen of Pop, a notoriousgatekeeper of hot new talent.

“I was terrified but I fed off the sensation,”she continues, perched on a couch in theliving room of her Paris apartment. “I could donothing but surrender.”

Fans of Christine and the Queens continueto surrender in increasingly large numbers,charmed by an audiovisual package thatincludes classy stage sets, a tightlychoreographed ensemble of six dancers andfiercely catchy tunes sung, songbird-like, inEnglish and French, and driven by synths,samples, Prince-style funk, a mission tointerrogate gender and a love for JacksonsMichael and Janet.

“I am a tiny, horny, angry, nervous, joyful,wanting thing, full of desires I want toexplore,” declared Chris during her recentsold-out residency at London’s EventimApollo, midway through a show she isbringing to Australia – including a headlineslot at the WOMADelaide festival – nextmonth. Between international smash hitssuch as iT (“I’m a man now,” she sing-teases)and Tilted, with its sparkling flutes andmechanical breaths, Chris engaged in a spotof silent theatrics with her dancers,repeatedly failing to squeeze herself into theircircle. “I’ve been trying to fit in, and it wasexhausting,” she announced, grinning, beforeflouncing away. “So I stopped trying. I feelmuch better now.”

Lithe and handsome, given to wearing loosesuits, flowing unbuttoned shirts and whitesocks-and-loafers a la Michael Jackson, Chris/Christine rode the Zeitgeist into a mainstreamready to consider notions of gender fluidity inways previously dismissed as marginal, taboo. Her electro-pop-laden debut, 2015’sChaleur Humaine (Human Warmth), was afreedom-loving ode to being yourself,presented by an artist whose own strugglewith feelings of loneliness were laid bare,albeit leavened with a playfulness thatincluded earwormy choruses and samples ofChaka Khan.

Chris was big in France for ages before therest of the world caught on. Early EPsincluding 2012’s Miséricorde and 2013’s Nuit17 a 52, along with support slots thatinvariably saw her upstage the main act, gotpeople double taking. She scooped bestnewcomer awards. Her tunes crept up theFrench charts. Then came Chaleur Humaine,that spanking by Madonna (who she repaidby, er, jousting with aforementioned banana)and a decision to re-record her songs inEnglish, in detailed translations that lost noneof their poetic lyricism.

Then no one could get enough of the uber-talented French performer with the flashingeyes and floppy fringe. She appeared onGraham Norton and The Tonight Show andwas recruited by Elton John to perform withhim at the iTunes festival in London (“Sheblew me away not just musically but visually,”

said Sir Elton, introducing, “she’s anincredible artist who is becoming a globalstar”), duetting on John’s classic hit TinyDancer. iT was played on the credits of anepisode of the HBO comedy drama series,Girls. She sold a million albums worldwide.“This is a free zone,” she hollered to thethousands dancing in the rain at the 2016Glastonbury Festival, in a gig widely held to besuperstar launching.

Fame, however, brought more isolation.And misunderstanding: Christine andthe Queens was held up as a poster girl

for the queering of the mainstream, as herhonesty was appropriated, bent into other’sagendas. She agrees when I call her a reluctantspokesperson. “You’ve just given me an imageof someone mumbling into a mic and backingaway,” says the former introvert, laughing herready laugh. “I guess I’m wary of being putunder plastic as ‘the gender girl’. As someonewho is interested in queering things up. Ithink it’s important to talk about these thingsbut not to sugar-coat them for the sake ofentertainment.”

She pauses, sighs. “Sometimes interviewersdon’t even asked me about the musicanymore. I just get personal stuff like, ‘Okay,so you’re a pansexual! Did you invent this?’And I’m like, ‘Er, no. Maybe look it up?’”Another smile. “None of which is the point.The point is the bigger picture.”

Fiercely intelligent, proudly non-binary,Chris/Christine described herself aspansexual – that is, attracted to peopleregardless of their sex or gender identity – in2014. Released in September last year, hersynth-laden second album, Chris, reinforcedthe inadequacy of labels, coinciding with anew shorn haircut and new abbreviated name(“A way of reaffirming freedom”), an alter-egoof an alter-ego she’d invented during a periodof introspection and identity reconstructionwhile hanging out in London with a group ofdrag queens.

Back then Chris was in her early twenties:“Christine started out as a sad clown,“ shesays. “I don’t encourage you to watch earlyvideos of me because they’re a bit weird; mefilming in my room in a black jacket withwhite face make-up on, sort of thing, or doingshows where I stop and stare at the audiencefor a minute in silence, which I guess wasslightly creepy. I wrote the character before Idid the music.”

Chris grew up in Nantes on the Frenchcoast, the daughter of academic parents,music lovers (“Everything from Vivaldi to JoeJackson”), who encouraged her to read, thinkoutside the box.

“When I was 15 my dad gave me Tipping theVelvet” – Sarah Waters’ historical novel abouta lesbian love affair – “which was clever since Iwas just starting to have girlfriends. It was hisway of saying, ‘It’s okay’.” She went out withguys now and then, reinforcing a laterrealisation that nothing is simple, and aged 17fell in love with a woman and went aboutdressed like 18th century queen, MarieAntoinette. Theatre school in Paris was anatural calling.

Chris’s voice is remarkable. Sweet andstrong, with a lilting vibrato and apparentinability to hit a wrong note.

She is looking forward to visiting Australia,she says, though not to the lengthy flight. Still,even that has upsides: “I’m going to see if I canhave an entire relationship on-board theplane: meeting someone, falling in love, thehoneymoon period, the boredom, arguments,break up and recovery,” she laughs.

“If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’sthat anything is possible.” ●Christine and Queens play WOMADelaideMarch 8-11. womadelaide.com.au

QUEEN ofFRANCE