La Compagnie Jolie Mome is a troupe that has celebrated its 40th anniversary! Who perform plays, their own pieces or a repertoire inherited from Brecht, Prévert… Who often sing, on stage as well as in the street or at dinner shows. Who sometimes fight for their rights or in support of other workers. Who created and maintained a theater, La Belle Etoile in Saint-Denis, for almost 20 years. Who sets up a marquee, to set up shop for a few weeks in a region. Who has organised a festival for more than 15 years, the last weekend of July in Saint-Amant-Roche-Savine, a small village in Auvergne. Jolie Môme is still an association, whose members constitute relays of information and mobilization.
Is it useful to continue to carry a fighting word in the streets, in union meetings and in places of culture, in an allegorical way? We still ask ourselves this question after 4 decades of artistic activism. We are well aware that the horizon is darkening, that it will be all the more difficult to carry our flag, that it will take all the more courage, determination, even self-sacrifice for our troop to continue in these activities.
Time passes. We had a La Belle Etoile theater, they took it back from us. Of course the troop broke out into dozens and dozens of stars. We meet up occasionally but it seems like it’s time to recreate a constellation with new little stars. This is why we offer an internship to those, rather singers-singers, musicians-musicians, whom we will eventually train as actresses-actors, with the dream, ambition of strengthening our group and why not of recreating an available, demanding and reckless troupe .
No war between peoples, no peace between classes. Yes, their work of artistic and political intervention is proselytizing and is hidden behind a charm, they are told, inspired by popular education. Why “this charm”? No doubt because their wish has always been to address the child that lies dormant in the hearts of those who pay attention to them. “Our words, our music, our energy indeed claim a certain naivety, a candour.”
Certainly they have remained children to think that those who find social injustices normal are sickly, pathological extremists (normal for the rich to get richer and poorer; normal for states to appropriate resources) wherever it is normal for people to believe themselves superior to others because they were born where they should be, born well.
