“Maybe when I finally have the answer, that’ll be the end.”
You come from a family where music has always played a central role. When did you truly know that you wanted to make music?
I knew when I was very, very young, the moment I fell in love with the violin. I told myself, “This is what I want to do.” I have a vivid memory of watching TV and seeing Anne-Sophie Mutter perform Bach’s Chaconne. I said to myself, “That’s what I want to do.” After that, the question never came up again, even though my path changed. I studied theatre along the way. Singing in front of an audience wasn’t something I consciously chose—it wasn’t something I expected at all. It’s as if I simply couldn’t do anything else. It almost feels like a calling, a spiritual duty, a responsibility toward the gift of music.
Even so, I get the impression that the violin is less present on this album. Is your relationship with it almost spiritual as well?
Yes, there’s definitely something spiritual about it, but it’s also much more personal. Since I stopped playing for a long time, I’ve lost a lot of technique, and with touring and everything else that comes with it, it’s quite difficult to find time to practise. Still, I try to make time to keep it alive. The reason there’s so little violin on the record is, I think, out of modesty. I’d like to play it differently. It’s very discreet on this album—it’s mostly there to provide the harmonic foundation. I use it constantly when I’m composing, and it’s actually going to play a much bigger role in something I’m working on now, which will be like the negative of a photograph of this album. I’m going to make an unplugged record, a completely acoustic album, with much more emphasis on the voice—placing the voice at the centre and stripping away many of the additional elements, so that the harmonies, the lyrics, and the things that matter most to me, like the violin and Brazilian musicality, can take centre stage. This album is really a patchwork of everything I’m going to develop later. That’s why it’s a little confusing—in the loosest sense of the word. There are so many different sonic worlds. I see each song as an era, like the rooms of a house, or even like different stages of life. It’s almost a rite of passage. The opening song, Mainha, which is sung in Brazilian Portuguese, says: “Little Mother, give me permission to enter the world. I know I’ve been here before, but I can’t remember.” Every song that follows is as if the person speaking those words gradually regains their memory through the music. That isn’t entirely clear yet. It’s more psychological than narrative. Ultimately, I’d love to turn it into a film.
In the long term?
Very, very soon! (laughs) Honestly, I think people will understand it—if I manage to finish everything—once the whole project is complete.
Is this character the expression of a kind of alter ego?
Yes. Gildaa is both me and all the women in my lineage. It’s difficult to explain because I don’t entirely know who she is myself. But whenever she’s there, she takes up all the space, and for about a year and a half now, there’s been a kind of fusion between us. Sometimes she’s not there at all. Sometimes she appears when I wasn’t expecting her. She’s there during concerts; sometimes she doesn’t show up, and when that happens I feel completely exposed. It’s very rare, but it does happen. Gildaa is, above all, an energy that is absolutely uncompromising when it comes to truth. So, for example, if I’m in a completely superficial environment, she’ll either come in and stir things up, or she simply won’t appear because I can’t quite… On the surface, this project already has something rather unusual about it, so if she shows up when I don’t feel safe in the environment around me, I don’t want to put either of us at risk. So I protect us both.
So you do have some control over whether she appears or not?
Yes. Sometimes it’s difficult. The hardest part is when I don’t let her come through. When that happens, it causes physical pain. But little by little I’ve gained a certain amount of control, because we’re learning to live together.
Do you think she knows you better than you know yourself, or is it the other way around?
I think she knows me better. I’d never thought of it that way before, but it also answers the question of why I don’t really know who she is. She’s both me and another facet of myself, and she takes on different forms too. The most recognisable version of her is very grounded in her body, so she’s extremely slow. She has a hunched back. She’s endlessly fascinated by everything, yet she carries herself as though she’s already lived through it all. She’s a real troublemaker—she loves to play, she loves to stir things up. And then, at other times, she’s incredibly upright, incredibly calm. She has no age. That’s what makes the relationship between us so unsettling.
She seems to possess a great deal of knowledge. Is she a manifestation of your ancestors’ voices—or are the two inseparable?
Oh, absolutely. But you know, that’s how I explain it because I have to answer questions. So I say that she’s the sum of all the women in my lineage. But in reality, I’m not certain. For all I know, we may have no connection at all. She could be someone else entirely.
Do you think you’ll ever have a definitive answer to that question?
I don’t know. Maybe when I finally have the answer, that’ll be the end.
This self-titled album feels very much like an inward journey. Are the voices of those ancestors, embodied by Gildaa, expressed through the many choral arrangements and vocal canons that run throughout the record?
I think that ties back to the idea that she takes many different forms. There are different eras, different people.
I’m mixed-race. I have very strong white-passing privilege, but I also have Afro-descendant, Indigenous, and European roots. So this isn’t just about me. It’s about my mother, my grandmother, my great-grandmother…
Can you always tell where the boundary lies between these two personalities?
You mean, can I tell when it’s Gildaa and when it’s not? Yes, absolutely. There’s never any doubt. People can sense it immediately too. The rhythm changes, the voice changes, the body changes, the gaze changes. People feel it. They just experience it differently. The people closest to me, my team, can tell and they interact with me differently. But people who don’t know what’s happening are often confused. I’ve been asked whether I’m schizophrenic or bipolar. The truth is, I don’t know—I have never been diagnosed—but I don’t think so. Mainly because I’m fortunate enough to have a certain degree of control over it. From what little I understand about these kinds of coexistences, my impression is that they’re usually much harder to manage. It’s actually a question that fascinates me. Psychiatry is a field I’m deeply interested in, and there are so many different cultural contexts in which these kinds of experiences are understood in completely different ways. There aren’t necessarily medications that dull or suppress them; there are places where this kind of behaviour is welcomed and given space to exist.
Gildaa reveals herself through—or thanks to—the audience, yet sometimes she doesn’t appear at all. Isn’t that a bit of a paradox?
Completely. Depending on the circumstances, there simply isn’t room for her to appear because it would put us in danger. And then there are days when I don’t have to do anything at all—she’s been there since the moment I woke up to catch the train. She reveals herself with the audience. Because she’s something intangible that comes to me, within me, she isn’t visible in herself. She’s only visible because I embody her. That’s also why she takes on so many different forms, why my face changes. It’s the reason the project’s visuals are so varied as well. That’s something that’s quite difficult to explain within the music industry, when people ask me why the visual identity isn’t more clearly defined. She has so many different forms that it’s impossible to fix her appearance once and for all. Even the album cover can be read in several ways. The dark circles under my eyes are those of every generation before me, but they could just as easily be smudged makeup after a concert or a night of partying. You don’t know what happened beforehand—you only know that, at the moment the picture was taken, that’s what she looked like.
The revelation happened during your clown training, is that right?
Actually, I think there had already been signs before then, but it was the art of clowning that allowed it to emerge. I can’t say it’s a universal process or that it happens to everyone. In fact, I think it’s a little dangerous to present it that way, because it could encourage people to chase that feeling in an almost obsessive way. I spent a year and a half studying techniques and exercises that I didn’t understand. It was incredibly difficult. I wanted to quit. But I was profoundly moved by something I simply couldn’t make sense of. Then, at one point, there’s a process called the birth. In practical terms, you work through a series of exercises with someone else. You observe one another and play with whatever naturally emerges from each person. That’s what makes it so unique: your clown is your clown. I could never perform your clown, and you could never perform mine. And when that “birth” happened, it was like an electric shock. Suddenly, I was seeing the world through eyes that were no longer my own.
Did it feel like you were losing your footing?
I dissociated completely. I was there, but at the same time I was off to one side, almost behind myself. You’re present, but you can’t stop the process. Ivo, our teacher, changed my life. We still keep in touch regularly. He handled the whole experience incredibly well. When I came back, he asked me, “What’s your name?” And I replied, “Gildaa.” I took off my clown nose and said, “But I don’t know who that is.” He simply answered, “Neither do I.” After that, I started researching. I discovered there was a film, and that in the folklore of northern Brazil there’s a figure named Gildaa. Then I started writing. That was ten or eleven years ago.
Was that the turning point that made you decide to pursue music more professionally?
There were several turning points. That one was really about directing and staging. I was choreographing, arranging vocal ensembles. The musical turning point came when Sandra Nkaké performed her version of Brassens’ La Mauvaise Réputation. Around the same time, one of my theatre teachers liked to challenge us—he kept criticising the fact that we weren’t creating enough collective projects. So I ended up making a sort of reinterpretation of Sandra’s reinterpretation. As I was doing it, it felt so spontaneous and so natural that I realised: I actually know how to do this. After that, people kept asking me to create similar arrangements for other productions. But when it came to singing, I was never the one at the front. It was always someone else. Then Gildaa arrived. That’s when I wrote my first theatre piece, inspired by Hoffmann’s tales—particularly The Sandman—with Gildaa as the central axis. She’s essential to the story, without ever being its explicit subject.
Time for the Crush question. Do you think carefully about what you wear when you go on stage?
Four or five years ago, at the Molières ceremony, I was playing Jeanne Moreau for an interview. A costume designer had brought a whole rack of clothes, including this incredible burgundy sequined dress with long sleeves. I told him it was absolutely beautiful. He offered to sell it to me. By some miracle I happened to have my chequebook with me—which never happens. But at the end of the ceremony, he had disappeared, while the dress was still hanging on the rack. I had to leave, so… I took it. I’ve told this story so many times, hoping he’ll eventually find me so I can finally pay him for it. So now I own this absolutely magnificent dress that I wear all the time. I also have a kimono that belonged to my mother, and I wear that constantly as well. These days, I’m refining my eye and my taste for fashion. I still don’t know that much, but I’m beginning to understand what I love. I like strong shapes and sharp lines. I love a defined waist. I adore Mugler. I adore Yves Saint Laurent. There’s also a more Latin aesthetic that really speaks to me—the colours, the rich tones, bold, vibrant hues, orange for example. Recently I was given a Barbara Bui trench coat, and honestly, I absolutely love it. Maybe that’s really what it comes down to: I love clothes that tell a story the moment you see them. Something that immediately makes you think, “This belongs in a film,” or “That’s a character.” Even if it’s something very simple, it has to tell a story.
Gildaa will be performing in Paris/ L’ Olympia May 13th 2027