Edinburgh Fringe Q&A: Luca Rutherford

Tell us about your show. What can audiences expect?

Audiences can expect a fierce, super physical loud show about quiet power. You Heard Me – which comes to this year’s Fringe as part of the Here & Now showcase – is for anyone who has ever been underestimated, told to shut up, made to feel smaller than they are, or afraid to walk home alone. This is a one person show that experiments with form; it is an ensemble between high physicality, enveloping original composition and responsive intricate lighting. The show is a conceptual representation of a true story that happened to me. We wanted to forensically look at a moment between a woman (me) and male sexual violence (the person who attacked me); to examine the messiness of it, the humanness of it. We wanted to share the confusing, weird and wild moments in something so extreme. 

This is not a show about me working out my trauma on stage. We have used the process of trauma to inform the structure of the work, specifically through the use of looping. This show doesn’t hide from the darkness at the core of my story and opens out into a fierce invitation to connect with your own voice, power and choice to listen to those around you. 

What would you like audiences to take away from seeing this production at the Fringe?

You Heard Me holds mess, ugliness, intangibility and a world of care. The show starts with unapologetic joy and fun and then moves into a deep look at how a personal experience of being attacked led me to understand what it means to take up space, refuse to be silenced and not apologise. 

Care is at the very heart of You Heard Me – in process and final performance. The show is a relaxed performance meaning audiences are welcome to move, make noise, tic, stim and leave and re-enter the space as often as you like. There is a content advice document available on all advertising of the work that explains the black outs, haze, sound, lighting and details all text and performance that directly talks to sexual violence. Content advice is listed on all advertising as well. Our intention is that all audiences feel held, safe and informed.

I hope audiences leave thinking about their own power, feeling fierce and fired up. 

Can you talk about some of the creative team involved?

You Heard Me is a collaboration between myself, Maria Crocker, Melanie Wilson, Tanuja Amarasuriya, Linzy Na Nakorn, Bethany Gupwell and Bethany Wells. We devised the work together in a non-hierarchical structure, in varying combinations of the creative team, in person and online (during the pandemic). Conjuring a piece of work with collaborators is a feat and the team that made You Heard Me are a huge inspiration to me. We made our own ecosystem, a way to navigate shitty days and celebrate the smallest of wins, as well as all the big wonderful things. We traversed through a global pandemic, chronic illness, new motherhood, more motherhood, care around a collection of individual trauma and different ways of processing! I am super proud to be part of the team. 

Where do you draw inspiration from for your work, both in terms of creation and performance?

Inspiration for making work comes from things I am curious about; things I can’t stop thinking about; things that hit me in my guts and either explode into a whole load of brilliant gorgeous feelings; or things that twist everything up and leave me more confused than I was before. I need to find enough juice in something to know I can play with it, work with it, question it for a good stretch of time. It takes on average two years for me to get an initial idea into a finished piece of work I am performing. 

Sadly with You Heard Me it was something horrific that began the impulse for the work. (I will be really direct about this but first want to give anyone reading a heads up. The next few sentences contain direct reference to sexual violence…) On 24 February 2019, I went for an afternoon run before performing a show when a man, a stranger, violently attacked me, tried to get me into a derelict building and rape me. I got away. I was not raped. The man is now in prison with a 17-year sentence. He was found guilty of assault; crimes of a relevant sexual offence; and attempted kidnap. This experience was huge and I did a lot of personal work to heal around it. It is the worst thing that has happened to me and also it ignited so many things that have been incredibly positive. This sounds odd to say but let me explain. It was the first time that I had unapologetically taken up space. I had to fight physically and vocally for my own space. It is the first time I heard how loud I could be – how scary I could be and how fierce I was. What's confusing about it is that it was simultaneously the smallest, most afraid and fragile I have ever been. 

I wanted to capture this. Having this experience does not mean that I never apologise when I don't need to, or I never make myself smaller as a way of minimising/ or protecting myself/others. I still sometimes do this but I can see it now, name, try to disrupt it. 

What are your thoughts on the festival in general and how do you feel about being a part of it this year?

I think the festival is wild. It has become so huge. I am really chuffed to be part of Here & Now showcase – their previous curation of work and artists made me super excited. It is brilliant to be going to Edinburgh alongside Dickson Mbi, Krishna Istha, Nwando Ebizie, Tim Etchells with Bert & Nasi, Wet Mess, and Ziza Patrick. You get to be part of a cohort of other artists. I have been following Wet Mess for years, (they designed a tattoo for me ages ago!!) – I can’t wait to see their show Testo. I am really looking forward to seeing Dickson Mbi’s work (we’ve met only once and they were absolutely lovely). Ziza and I both live (mostly!) in Newcastle; it is such a joy to be in their company and presenting work alongside them. I have seen loads of Bert & Nasi’s work, and every time left feeling more playful and slightly flawed. I missed Krishna’s First Trimester when it was at Battersea Arts Centre but heard such brilliant praise. I have not seen any of Nwando’s work before, but am fascinated to hear more about their Distorted Constellations. 

Looking at this new show, how would you say it links to your previous work both personally and thematically?

You Heard Me is really different from my previous work. The production value is super high. This is all down to working with such a big and beautiful team. We have created something that is super visceral in design, simple and striking to look at and experience. The sonic landscape matched with the lighting creates an environment that oscillates between tightness to a huge expansiveness. Other work of mine relies on a persona that borrows from clown, whereby I am real low status, real playful and is a lot more direct address. You Heard Me conjures a world quite separate to the room we are in. There is always an element of physicality in my work, but we have really lent into this with You Heard Me. 

Why is this an important story to tell?

Because I feel able to talk about it. The team and I have created something that captures a feeling, that captures the messiness of what it feels like to be in your power and have that twist out of your hands and what we do navigating in and out of that. 

You Heard Me exists because, without using my voice, I wouldn’t. It is an important story to tell because it exists along side a much bigger conversation and movement that does not silence people who have experienced sexual violence – and harrowingly that is a vast amount of people. 

Do you tend to take inspiration from events happening in the world around you in terms of your work? Do you think artists have a responsibility to respond to what's happening?

Absolutely. My intention with all my work is to extrapolate out from something very specific in terms of my own lived experience but transcend the autobiographical. I am not interested in staying without autobiographical limits and for me that means placing artistic content within the context of current, past or imagined future world events. 

How do you feel about the current arts landscape in your country and your part in it? Does it excite you and inspire you to keep pushing the boat out?

It scares me and excites me. The most exciting thing about the arts landscape for me is other artists. No matter how hard or bleak things feel, the pulse of artistic celebration, resilience and resistance is what keeps me going as a human and a maker. Outside of the You Heard Me team, major influences come from dance and circus as well as reading. I have just finished Miranda July’s novel, All Fours, and it is blowing my mind. I saw Cade and MacAskill’s The Making of Pinocchio in Bristol, at Mayfest, and was mesmerised; an absolute masterpiece. A masterpiece in theatre making, art making, storytelling and weaving the huge big political into the small, specific and tricky details of being alive. In terms of great minds Octavia Butler and Ursula K Le Guin are the two main influential mentors I have in my head at all times. 

Art can be a manual, a safe place, a wake up, an en-rager, a soother. The power of art is sometimes invisible; it's not so quantifiable and therefore too easy for people to underestimate. The arts have continuously been sapped by the last government, and it's harder and harder to keep making it, let alone for younger artists. If we stop feeding the arts, we are f**ked. Art keeps me learning, keeps me curious, keeps me sane, comforts me when I don’t feel sane. The things I enjoy most in life (apart from being outside and in the company of good people) are all wrapped in the arts. I’d be bored without music, I’d be lonely without books, I’d be less travelled without cinema; I’d be more 2D without theatre, I wouldn't understand form or beauty without sculpture, textile, or visual art, I wouldn’t understand risk without circus. 

What show are you most looking forward to seeing in August, and why?

Everything else that is part of the Here & Now showcase. Outside of that loads of circus and dance (I need to get my specs on and do some research though, I’ve been too caught up prepping everything on my side so far!).

What’s the one piece of advice you’d give a performer coming to Edinburgh for the first time?

Best advice I was given: drink loads of water. My advice to people is always share a deep fried mars bar, it's too much on your own! In terms of presenting and thinking about art: be really clear on the space you need to prepare as a performer before your show, treat that as sacred, don't squeeze in any shows or meetings. Have a conversation every other day with a pal of yours who does not care about performance! Give in to the wildness, whizz about, see loads of shows, hang out with people, as well as sit on some grass (big fan of walking up Arthur's Seat). I am a big fan of going for a swim in the Olympic pool near Summerhall. I need the moments outside of the festival to really enjoy the festival to its fullest.

How can Edinburgh audiences keep up with you beyond the festival?

Instagram: @luca_rutherford

Website: luca-rutherford.co.uk

X: @LucaRutherford

Facebook: Luca Rutherford - Performer/Writer