Christine and the Queens's Héloïse Letissier Explains the Feminist Twist in Her 'Comme Si' Video

By Kat Bein


Does art imitate life, or is it the opposite way around? Héloïse Letissier, better known to music fans as Christine and the Queens, can no longer be sure. In 2014, she wowed the world with her raw power of her debut album Chaleur humaine. It was lyrically poetic and emotionally weak, complicated of society's approach to gender and sexuality. Onstage, she captivated crowds with her movements, so angular and agile yet somehow aggressive.


Her all-in approach to efficiency abandoned her body more lean and muscular, and the power she felt on stage as a successful artist fueled her second album, Chris, the self-produced LP exploring '80s synth-pop sounds. She cut her hair off, and explored androgyny as she became even more sexually empowered.


Last Saturday night (April 13), she brought raw power to Coachella's Outside Theatre. The bare stage used mindful fireworks to amplify the theatrical movements of Letissier and her sort of dancers. She climbed the rafters and let her voice boom by means of the night air.


Yet, right after losing her mother earlier this week, Letissier is no longer playing Coachella's second weekend. (She is now scheduled to return to the States in May for a tour with Florence and The Machine). On Weekend 1, we sat backstage with her to talk about the efficiency and where her art is headed next.


MTV News: Thanks for taking some time to speak with me. How are you feeling? How did you wake up today?


Héloïse Letissier: I woke up like this [laughs]. Actually, I didn't. I feel excited because, naturally it's Coachella, and it's madness, blah blah blah, nevertheless it's the second time for me. The initial time is really about discovering the full thing, people freaking out around you, so you slightly freaking out as well. I plan to freak out at some point, however you get to come back knowing a little bit what to expect, and as a performer, it feels a little bit more comfortable. I have a great slot this time also, the outdoors theatre just before Billie Eilish. It's sort of like stamina-infused in a good way. Like, let's do it.


MTV News: You have this theatrical show proposed. Somebody called it “weird Shakespeare” in another interview. Did you have Coachella in mind once you're putting it together?


Letissier: It's actually slightly adapted from the tour. I did work on the stage design, and we've got huge paintings, yet it was also fragile for open air. I mean, I love theater and I habitually have theatrical ideas, and open air is a nightmare for theatrical ideas. So I have to give up my paintings, and I was like, how can I work on something sort of pictorial and really raw and bare? Pyrotechnics! Still pretty simple yet hopefully a little moving. I want people to be a little bit moved. I don't know if it means anything. I don't really wish to impress them. I mean, Coachella is all about that anyway, nevertheless I'll be the tiny thing that tries to move your heart.


MTV News: I was just watching the “Comme si” video that you recently put out, and that is Shakespearean-inspired, taking the story of Ophelia and retelling it. Did you choreograph that dance yourself?


Letissier: Some days I do, although on this, I collaborated with a good crump dancer called Cyborg. He's one of the primary crump dancers, and he's French. In France, we have a wonderful dance scene. I wanted to crump as a woman, because not a lot of girls are crumping. It's not “pretty.”


MTV News: There were so several moments I loved. Some days, you're almost like a gorilla showing your power.


Letissier: I do desire to work that energy as a woman. Also, the idea to twist the end of Ophelia was a feminist statement: “Let's bring Ophelia back from the dead.” Because in the play, she's dead because she's unwanted, which is such a violent statement. I'd like to be dumped however enjoying that.


MTV News: I've read the physicality you experienced and the strengthening in your body partly drove the character of Chris, yet I've also spoken to artists about how the act of performing some days changes the music they make. Chris is a little bit more angular in its sound. Did you want that in your performance?


Letissier: I think I did. I wrote the second album really shortly right after I finished the opening one, and I think I was still oozing what happened to me on the initial tour. I wanted to write songs that I may inhabit physically with more than a few new stamina, and yes it was deliberate. I did desire to work on minimalism, although in a way that would be more gripping physically and immediately. At the same time, I didn't overproduce it. I was routinely removing layers as a substitute opposed to adding them, so it feels like a spinal cord moving some days. Even on “Comme si,” it's like a heart pulsing.


I wanted that sound, that physicality for the second chapter — almost like are a novelist. In the event you fantasize about the dream career, you have like 10 chapters, right? Every time you write a chapter, you're scaring yourself a little bit. You're giving yourself a dare, and my dare for the second album is like, I'm going to own that sensuality I've Been afraid to own any time While I was younger. I'm going to own my female body lusting immediately after someone.


MTV News: You're working on some more music right now. Where's it going?


Letissier: It's already sort of shifting. I'm working on songs that are like a weird addendum to Chris. It's like an epilogue. Chris is really an intense record. I routinely joked about how the record is like working on something that is also much. Then, releasing that recording and touring it, my life became also much also. It almost became a resemble of the record. Owning so much of my desire and my carnal personality, I got faced with some days blunt rejection and I really became like this meta — I should pitch it to Netflix because it became that on stage. Life becomes crazy.


MTV News: there really are so several facets that you are in control of, from the production to the writing, the dancing, the stage design. It's consuming. How do you find escape?


Letissier: I have to mention, I'm sort of obsessive. It shapes my life, which becomes interesting and dangerous at the same time. You fall in love with the work and everything infuses the work. My preferred movie of all time is All That Jazz by Bob Fosse. It's about a stage director who lets everything become a segment of the work. Folks are like, “Just get out of your stage.” At one point, I was like, I can't believe I'm reenacting that. I can maybe control that right now. Perhaps the next album I'll be a little bit calm before the storm. I felt everything for my art. The new songs are a little bit different in terms of production, nevertheless they sort of resonate with Chris. I don't wish to spoil it, however I think it's going to shift again.


MTV News: Is there anything on your mind that you just desire to share? Any musings that have been swirling around in there or anything that you just woke up today wanting to say?


Letissier: I woke up today [and I] just wanted to perform. I am becoming a performer. It shapes everything around you which is a little bit comforting, because you have that obsession again. Whenever you stop touring, that's the bad part. You don't have that catharsis every night. This is why you write new songs. My label is like, “Maybe not so soon?” And I'm like, please let me tour again.