The text Life is but a dream, which Julie Cafmeyer (36) posted on her website on Saturday and distributed a thousand printed copies to fourteen bookstores in Flanders and the Netherlands, has thirty pages. The story is about the fictional theater De Rotonde, but from its descriptions it can clearly be deduced that it takes place in De Studio, in Antwerp. Cafmeyer was associated with the theater on Mechelseplein for several years as a resident artist and created numerous performances there, including Bad Woman.
In the text, based on her own experiences, she accuses the theater director, whom she does not name, of inappropriate behavior. The text opens with a scene in which Cafmeyer, then 27, was invited by the director, then 50, for a tantric massage at his home because she had neck pain. Cafmeyer agreed, but blocked when he and his wife started kissing each other on her back during the massage, she writes in the text. Later, she talks about recurring sexual innuendos, derogatory comments and intimidation after she addressed the theme of MeToo in her columns for De Morgen.
(Read more below the photo)
Marc Verstappen. — © Alexander Meeus
Cafmeyer also writes that other fellow artists and employees of the theater experienced or were aware of similar experiences. For example, she blames ‘the lackey’, a woman who has been the director’s right-hand man for years as deputy, for a lack of action. “Everyone hears it, everyone sees it, no one does anything,” she writes.
After she went to a reporting center for inappropriate behavior, she eventually had a direct conversation with the director. He does not seem to be aware of any harm or is mainly trying to save his own skin, writes Cafmeyer. “You can’t spend your entire career flirting with everyone, seducing people and making sexually suggestive comments about New Tantra, and then being completely indignant when someone speaks to you about it,” she allegedly accused him of.
Asked why she is coming out with her story in this form, Cafmeyer answers that she wanted to “take one hundred percent control” and highlight the abuse of power without “being dragged into legal procedures as a victim”. For a long time, Cafmeyer felt “a shame” to speak out about this, for fear “of being punished or sabotaged” in her own artistic career. “That really made me paranoid. For a long time I thought not to do anything with it, because our society often deals hysterically with those who speak out about MeToo. But the fact that as a writer I was not allowed to say something about things that I experience made me unhappy.”
(Read more below the photo)
© jan van der perre
Asked to step aside
As chairman of De Studio, Bruno Segers writes in a communiqué that “the board takes Cafmeyer’s signal very seriously, but does not wish to comment on the content of this story at this time.” Asked for further response, he says that “Julie’s text is a work of art that contains fact and fiction, and every artist has the freedom to do so.” Yet there are already real consequences, now that De Studio announces that it has started an internal investigation for which it will seek external guidance. The board has also asked Marc Verstappen (62), the unnamed theater director from Cafmeyer’s story, to temporarily step aside “to maintain serenity”.
Segers has been chairman for years and knows Verstappen well. Yet he said he was completely unaware of the issues Cafmeyer writes about. Wouldn’t Segers have preferred if she had first raised the issue internally with the board? “We live in the artistic environment. I can live with this, it is her right to handle it this way.” Still, he hopes that Cafmeyer will still want to talk to him. “Personally, I would like Julie to call me back, yes.”
“I want to free myself from the lie”
Cafmeyer confirms that she has never contacted the board in the past. Does she think it is a good decision that Verstappen is now, temporarily, put aside? “I honestly don’t know,” she responds. “Nobody wants to ruin someone’s career, including me, but that shouldn’t stop you from speaking out about this. I find it very sad that when you, as a woman, talk about something that everyone knows, the finger is pointed at you. I want to free myself from the lie that I am the one causing the chaos.”
In her text Life is but a dream, which is named after a statement by Verstappen, she admits that she had a good relationship with him, that she was happy that he believed in her work as an artist and that she admired him for his courage , sense of adventure and outspoken opinions. “He meant a lot to my artistic career,” she says. “I would have liked to have had a longer career at De Studio, but in different circumstances.”
“Strange mixture of fiction and truth”
Marc Verstappen, who is currently abroad, only wants to respond briefly. “Julie’s piece mixes fiction and truth. I find this mixture strange, because that’s how you get away with everything. After the Easter holidays we will try to sort everything out and see if the procedures have been followed. We will do whatever it takes, whatever it is.”