Raw is about playing, dreaming and pretending. It’s about being a child, which can be difficult. It’s about growing up in a world that seems too big and too chaotic to understand. And it’s about grown-ups, who can seem just as incomprehensible.

A gang of seven children, aged 8 to 12, inhabit a rubble-strewn landscape of stones, tin cans, dripping water and a dirty mattress. Standing strong against what seems to be a constant, invisible threat, they play together, their adventures morphing into a fierce kind of dance, at once brutal and tender. They are powerful but also vulnerable, masters of their actions but equally yearning for attention and affection. Two adults – a young man and an older woman – seem at first like invaders in this children’s world, but grow to become companions.

Belgian dance company Kabinet K place children right at the centre of their powerful, high-energy dance-theatre work, looking unflinchingly at the world through a child’s eyes, and harnessing their young performers’ non-professional naturalism and instinctive charisma.

With powerful soundscapes of live electric guitar music from Thomas Devos, Raw is a wordless show that challenges our preconceptions of children, their strength and resilience, with a sense of innocent wonder never far away.

Kabinet K, directed by choreographers Joke Laureyns and Kwint Manshoven, has been widely acclaimed for more than a decade for its powerful shows designed to connect equally with children and adults, often bringing together untrained and professional performers

For children aged 12+

…outstanding

De Standaard

Tender, brutal and genuine

De Standaard