FROM THE CLASSROOM TO THE STAGE

Youngsters spends half a school year working with a fourth-grade class from École Plurielle Maritime in Molenbeek to imagine a performance for the main stage of the Théâtre National. Through a series of short workshops, the students explore different mediums: they build their own amplified sound boxes, experiment with tags and graffiti, and use their bodies to form living sculptures. How these fragments come together on stage is entirely up to them. The Youngsters team supports them, shapes their ideas without imposing, letting the students’ creativity lead the process. In the end, an evening at the theatre — and an incident that occurs there — becomes the central thread of their stage creation.

The class attends the show Rage by Emilienne Flagothier at Théâtre national Wallonie Bruxelles, a play about the sexist microaggressions that women face in daily life. During the performance, a group of boys from another school touch the hair and backs of some of the girls in the class. At first, the girls do not react, and it is only later that the full story begins to emerge. Inspired and outraged by the experience, the class decides to write a play about it, using their own words and ideas.

This is how Passé sous silence comes to life — a courageous act of theatrical activism denouncing the violence suffered by women, expressed through the voices, writings, gestures, and movements of 23 students. It is the stage trace of the process they went through together, each contributing in their own way, united by raw honesty and uncompromising commitment.

A collective creation led by YoungstersCollective (Anika Edström Kawaji, Marie Goudot, Robin Haghi, Youness Khoukhou, Michael Pomero and Thomas Vantuycom) with the students of the “District” class at the École Plurielle Maritime de Molenbeek.
Production: Théâtre National Wallonie-Bruxelles, Youngsters Asbl
Executive production: Entropie Production
With the support of the Yehudi Menuhin Foundation.