> The importance of taking up space with Luca Rutherford, bringing You Heard Me to Edinburgh Fringe 2024 - SNACK: Music, film, arts and culture magazine for Scotland

The importance of taking up space with Luca Rutherford, bringing You Heard Me to Edinburgh Fringe 2024

Content note: discussion of violence, including sexual violence

There are quite a few obstacles for artists performing at the Fringe. One of the biggest ones is being noticed and heard amongst hundreds of shows competing for audience. Here comes Luca Rutherford with You Heard Me – a piece exploring a single moment of lifesaving loudness and claiming our space – something that we women should perhaps get more comfortable with. 

Can you describe You Heard Me? 

Super physical. Really integrated sound and light. Deliberately sparse text. Punchy, fierce and soft. It’s about unapologetically taking up space. I’m so excited about it being at Zoo Southside. What’s beautiful about the venue is that we’ve actually got space to take up. I’m hoping that it will be beautiful to watch for the audience. Which is quite strange because it’s also rooted in a story of sexual violence, and while we don’t hide from that, there’s a lot of beauty in the story in the sense of finding your resilience and thinking about what your power is.

Going back to that idea of taking up space metaphorically but also physically, how important was it for you to have enough space as a performer during the Fringe, to do this show?

I think it’s really important and it’s something that I’ve had to learn as an artist, too. What’s amazing about this is doing a show that’s not apologising for taking up space. And what felt important in the decision making is that the audience have more capacity to step back from it. Access is important on many different levels, like access to do with people’s own trauma and needs. 

Do you feel like this consideration of triggers and how people might feel has shifted quite quickly in the theatre world?

Yes, and I think what’s really shifted is also people’s consideration around access on a bigger scale. What hasn’t shifted is the amount of people that need it. It’s not new. What’s great is to learn the power of access and what that does, how necessary that is. We want people to come together and feel together in a room full of strangers. Also, safety. When you don’t feel safe, nothing can shift. If I don’t feel safe, I don’t really change, because I’m just thinking about keeping myself safe. Inclusion doesn’t exclude anyone. 

You Heard Me talks about your experience of a sexually violent attack. Are you comfortable telling us a little more about this?

I was on a run, and I got attacked by someone out of nowhere from behind. It wasn’t a mugging. Essentially, they were trying to get me into a building to rape me, which is a hard thing to say. I fought back but there was no way I was going to get out of it. And so I used my voice and I just screamed for help repeatedly. There was nobody around, but I kept going and then an industrial worker came out of a building far away. There was a huge metal fence between us, but he came out. I didn’t know that he’d come out, but the person who was attacking me saw him. It was just a quick moment where he looked up and the punching stopped for a split second, which allowed me to run. So I ran, and because someone else was there, he didn’t run after me. I got away and it was that one moment of someone choosing to listen to a call for help. The only thing I had was my voice and then this ability to scramble on my feet and run away.

Do you think that even in those crucial situations women are still afraid to raise their voice because we don’t want to be a nuisance?

Yes, one hundred percent. And it’s easy for me to now be articulate and say ‘oh, I screamed.’ And the sound that I made was so deep, it was like this wild beast. But before I decided to scream and punch him back, I thought, maybe I should do what he says? Maybe if I’m nice, maybe if I’m kind, maybe if I try and ask him if he’s okay and what he needs.

Then there was a point where he grabbed me by my hair and something clicked and I thought, I’m going fight you. It also feels important to say that this was my reaction to it, and I know for a lot of people silence is the only thing that they can do. We’re internalised to be accommodating. In a moment of terror and shock, you make choices and it’s not on you as to how it happened.

That man was found immediately, and we went to court. My lawyer said I was too fierce in court. I thought, ‘Oh, sorry, because it doesn’t fit into the box of the meek woman?’ But I’m not a witness. It’s my story and I’m not going to be the smaller version of myself. I’m going to be a lion because I feel like a lion. 

You Heard Me will be running at Zoo Southside, Edinburgh, from 20th August till 25th August

Photo Credit: Camilla Greenwell

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