La Bouche is a self-managed queer cabaret in the basement of a bar-restaurant in Paris's 18th arrondissement, near Porte de Clignancourt. It was founded by four artists who run it collectively, one of them a Drag Race France alumna, and it describes itself in plain words as a cabaret auto-géré et queer, self-managed and queer.
It is a small room, seating for a few dozen people with some on the floor when a show sells out. A programme runs several hours and mixes lip-sync numbers, rewritten songs, spoken word, piano pieces and short theatrical monologues, put together by the resident artists and guests. Shows run on selected evenings rather than every night, and the same production sometimes tours to other French and Swiss cities between dates at the home venue.
One of its founders describes the space as engaged, conscious and a little feisty, while also wanting it to feel tender toward whoever walks in.
