The Antwerp Correctional Court pronounced an eighteen month in prison suspended against the Flemish artist.
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His late apologies, formulated in writing, invoking his creative freedom will not have been enough: Flemish choreographer and plastic artist Jan Fabre was sentenced to an eighteen month prison sentence with a five-year stay by the Antwerp Criminal Court, Friday April 29. The 63 -year -old artist was absent, as in the first two hearings of the trial that eleven old dancers of his company, Désityn brought him. The court estimated that half of the accusations were insufficiently proven, or prescribed, but it retained a case of sexual assault and five others of violence and humiliations, facts which took place between 2012 and 2015.
“It is an important recognition and step, not only for the courageous women who testified, but for other victims who wondered if such behaviors were punishable, commented M e An-Sofie Raes, one of the lawyers for young women. The judge considered that Mr. Fabre had created, for years, a harmful, hostile and insulting work environment. “
If the public prosecutor had claimed a firm three -year detention sentence, the creator’s lawyer had asked for the release of his client. M e Eline Tritsmans, however, said he was satisfied with a judgment which, according to her, brings the case to “just proportions”. Speaking of the sexual assault retained by the court as a supported kiss – and “consented” – and violence attributed to the choreographer as a simple attack on the “well -being of workers” – within the meaning of a Belgian law Adopted in 1996 -the lawyer opposed the testimonies of the complainants to those of 169 other members of Déboreyn. They challenged that the director of the troop behaved tyrannically or created a deleterious atmosphere. As for the formula “no sex, no solo”, used since 2018 to summarize the case, it would only be a “cancan”, according to M e tritsmans: her client would never have exercised No blackmail of this type on her dancers.
deprivation of civil rights
The trial, and the details he provided about mockery, insults or very intimate photo sessions, in any case, made his pedestal drop a world famous creator, appreciated until Palais de Buxelles, where he was entrusted by Queen Paola the decoration of a room. The fact that the conviction pronounced on Friday is accompanied by a deprivation, for five years, of the civil rights of the person concerned could weigh heavily on the future of the company, several productions have already been canceled or postponed.
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