OUTSIDER

Is dance the art of movement? Yes, but there’s more to it. Continuing her research into “what dance can do,” Julie Nioche turns dance into an act of self-defense and a healing practice in the burning issue of sexual violence and harassment. Even if #MeToo has allowed more women to speak out and has given rise to multiple discourses and analyses, silence prevails when it comes to the physical and emotional experience of the victims of these attacks. In 2024, Nioche created this “danced manifesto” designed for public spaces, in which nine performers give flesh to these bodies forced into silence. Drawing on their discussions with activists from various associations, the performers evoke, without depicting them outright, the different stages they went through in the face of the wounds they suffered and their struggle to rebuild themselves. The piece, which includes a preliminary period of “documentary and poetic support,” ends with a collective—and liberating—invitation to sing and dance together for a different world.

Julie Nioche

Julie Nioche danced for Odile Duboc, among others, and gained notoriety as early as 1995 with 3, Avenue de l’Espérance, created with Rachid Ouramdane in the CCN de Belfort. A trained osteopath, Nioche founded A.I.M.E. (Association d’Individus en Mouvements Engagés) in 2007 and she has choreographed over thirty pieces. Her work on the social and individual body, as well as on the connections between power and vulnerability, especially in places considered as “vulnerable”, defends a conception of art as public property.