As a professional photographer, Julie Artacho tracked light, the visible, the apparent. Today in his show Avalanches, which she directs, for which she wrote the texts and designed the choreographies, it is the invisible that she wants to bring to light. That of the trauma of sexual assault.
The avalanche is a metaphor for sexual assault, which arrives suddenly, without warning, with all its violence, which covers everything and which buries its secrets in the folds of the body.
“An avalanche is something extremely brutal, which appears in the middle of nowhere. It can be fatal too. And it’s difficult to get out of it,” she said in an interview.
Lurking in minds and bodies, sexual assault traumatizes. It is her feelings that Julie Artacho wanted to show to the public, so that they are forced to measure the effect, the consequences. “I wanted to look for sexual abuse, to play it, to show how one could feel, to also resonate with the public,” she says.
Julie Artacho draws in particular on her personal experience of abuse to depict the phenomenon. She brings together four dancers so that the public sees and feels, whether they like it or not, the affront of sexual violence and its consequences.
Those she calls to join the audience at La Chapelle are the victims of sexual violence, so that they feel less alone, but also those who have not experienced it, so that they understand better. the phenomenon.
For her, the #MeToo movement was obviously a trigger. It’s a “creative engine that would free my words a little,” she says. “As a feminist, this made me incredibly angry and it still makes me angry. I think we can never talk about it enough, in fact. Of course, for me, it’s super important to take that space on stage. » In his words, in his thoughts, there is anger, and the expression of this anger can offer “very satisfying moments for people who have experienced attacks”.
In earlier, shorter versions of the show, Julie Artacho depicted more of the assault itself. Today, social thinking has evolved, she says, and it focuses more on the long-term consequences of sexual violence on victims, which can sometimes, for example, give rise to surprising behavior.
The case of fat people
Julie Artacho is also known for having publicly defended the principle of body diversity and for regularly attacking fatphobia. She sees the consequences of this stigmatization of fat people even in online dating services, which sometimes lead to sexual assault, or very violent treatment.
“When a person is bigger, people will be less likely to believe them if they say they were sexually assaulted,” she says. And, in fact, on the apps of dating, there are behaviors like: “I’m going to fuck you, and because no one wants you, it’s going to be an act of charity.” This idea that sexual assault is almost a gift, because someone wanted you. It’s very twisted, but there’s also that side,” she says.
Already, in a text published in the collection Below the beltdirected by Nancy B.-Pilon, Julie Artacho told the story of a woman who is strangled by a casual encounter and is ordered to enjoy it.
With Avalanches, Julie Artacho fully embraces her work as a multidisciplinary artist, in the fields of staging, notably dance and theater, where she has less experience than in photography, for example. “My whole team knew it was my first time. I am very well surrounded by a very caring team who were there to support me. That means I think the result is really great teamwork,” she concludes.
When writing the texts, she met victims of sexual violence, whose stories she will tell.
In an interview, she also recalls that a significant proportion of sexual abuse takes place in the victim’s childhood, within their family. It comes from a father, a brother, an uncle. And this proximity to the abuser makes reporting even more difficult.