Kids kabaret tv#

‘It’s very important to us that the children aren’t self-conscious, or pretending to be anyone else,’ says Manshoven. Although they have adults performing in their productions, it’s the children who give their work its special alchemy. But one of their early works happened to have children in its cast, and after it was nominated for a prestigious youth award the two choreographers slowly recognised that this could be their niche. It was crucial to them that the stories unfolding on stage were seen principally through the children’s point of view.”įifteen years ago, when Laureyns and Manshoven first began creating work together, they didn’t intend to collaborate with children – they were simply interested in exploring ways in which non-trained dancers might move and respond to professionals on stage. The choreographers guided the group through improvised tasks and games, so it was crucial that the process felt like play. “The cast of Raw were originally aged between seven and 10 when the work was premiered three years ago and during its five-month period of creation. “It’s very important to us that the children aren’t self-conscious, or pretending to be anyone else,” Manshoven explains. The richness of their performances is paradoxically rooted in the fact that Laureyns and Manshoven only ever ask the children to be themselves, and rarely discuss with them the ideas behind the work. With a fierce tension in their bodies, we can easily imagine them as survivors from Syrian war zones, youngsters from Indian slums or as Palestinian children throwing stones at Israeli soldiers. Throughout the hour-long performance, they inhabit a world that’s almost entirely independent of the piece’s two dysfunctional adult characters: a volatile, irresponsible young man played by Manshoven, and a strange, witchy older woman.ĭuring the final moments the children advance towards the audience, crossing over a litter of tin cans that scatter from their feet. Even though the final performance is staged, the way they giggle or move intuitively to protect each other looks spontaneous. Yet as the seven child dancers race through wild (but tightly patterned) games of tag, romp on a battered filthy mattress and play with stones, there’s an astonishing quality of innocence in the way they’re together.

The stage is a desolate wasteland of rubble, junk and dripping water all kinds of danger appear to be lurking in its dark shadows.

Kids kabaret tv#

Laureyns and her partner, Kwint Manshoven, were inspired to make tit by a TV documentary about children living below the poverty line, and while their own material makes no specific reference to place or circumstance, it’s a bright, funny, startling evocation of the resilience of children who survive on the margins of society.