Passé sous silence

From classroom to stage

Y-Collective spends half a school year working with a fourth-grade class from École Plurielle Maritime in Molenbeek to dream up a performance for the grand stage of Théâtre National. Through a series of short workshops, the students explore a variety of media—building their own amplified sound boxes, experimenting with tags and graffiti, and using their bodies to form living sculptures. How these fragments come together on stage is entirely up to them. The Y-Collective team offers guidance, shaping their ideas without imposing, allowing the students’ creativity to take the lead. Ultimately, a night at the theatre—and the mishap that unfolds there—becomes the thread that weaves their performance together.

The class attends Rage, a theatre performance that addresses the sexist micro-aggressions that women face in their daily lives. During the show, a group of boys from another school touches the hair and backs of some of the girls in the class. At first, the girls don’t react, and it’s only later that the full story of what happened begins to unfold. Inspired and enraged by the experience, the class decides to write a play about it, using their own words and ideas.

And so Passé sous silence comes to life—a courageous act of theatrical activism that speaks to the violence women endure, expressed through the voices, writings, actions, and movements of 23 youngsters. It serves as a scenic trace of the process they journeyed through together, each contributing in their own way, yet united by a raw, unflinching honesty and commitment.