Photo credits
Luc Greliche
Clémence is a fiddler—which means she is powerfully skilled on the violin and can play off-key when she feels like it. On the other hand, she sings by accident, which makes people listen closely just to be sure it’s really her. Bilingual on her instrument and multilingual in her lyrics, she improvises without warning (or sometimes in dialect) in many ARFI projects, including La Bête à Sept Têtes, La Marmite Infernale, Nosferatu, and Canto General, where the amplitude and precision of her playing contribute to the collective utopia. In the past, she could also be heard in Au Dessus du Monde and Les Plutériens.
Sometimes an Occitanist, sometimes a libertarian—is she perhaps a pragmatic incarnation of what some might call “imaginary folklore” in certain circles of initiates?
Before joining ARFI, Clémence brought the same generosity to the fertile, community-driven musical landscape of her homeland, rooted in traditional music. She co-founded numerous dance and concert groups within the Brayauds association (Komred, La Viehla, Miraillet), the Excentale company (Louise, La Dévorante), and the La Crue collective.
Her fondness for acronyms has also led her to encounter important consonants and vowels over the course of her training, including CEFEDEM, CFMI, FAMDT, and CDMDT63.
A significant part of her work, Clémence is also a renowned specialist and teacher of the bourrée, the exhausting traditional dance of the Massif Central. She plays the trombone like a false beginner, in order to keep starting something new somewhere.