Learning from our nomadic seasons

In June 2022, Kaaitheater closed its doors for renovation and began operating as a nomadic organisation. What we initially planned to be a two-year period will, in the end, have lasted more than five. 

Over these nomadic years, we will have presented 1.116 evenings in 64 different locations. In theatres and outdoor sites, on both sides of the language border, in and around Brussels. 

During this time, we have witnessed how sharing our resources and networks has been beneficial for us and all the other theatre houses involved. How it has brought many people together. But, in a city that hosts so many different lived experiences and perspectives – where living, working and organising with others is never self-evident – we want to believe that this gesture (however small) of making a common programme went beyond pragmatic alliances. 

Looking back at these five seasons, we see a diverse group of theatres that coexisted alongside one another and decided to open their doors to the possibility of ‘doing something else’, allowing themselves to be transformed by that decision. We see theatres that chose solidarity and, as a result, moved from competition to coalition.  

Working as a festival for five seasons was not a walk in the park. It demanded the continuous and stubborn belief that Kaaitheater had something in common with all those different theatres. In this period, we actively searched for the parts of our symbolic territories that we could share with one another, in order to form a common ground. And together with all those partners, we did manage to develop a shared understanding of which works and stories need to be shared with a broad audience in Brussels today. 

We learned that theatres, organisations or people don’t necessarily have to agree on everything before organising something together and contributing to building a city they believe is worth living in. Affinities are the result of ongoing practice of organising together, across differences and towards a shared horizon – not its precondition. As this last nomadic season is about to start and we prepare for the reopening of our newly renovated building, we want to carry this learning with us. We want to continue to believe that theatres are generative spaces, where one can realise what it means to live, to work and to organise together. Where something else can happen. Where audiences, artists and organisations can open themselves up to the possibility of being transformed.  And where practices of hospitality and solidarity can grow between us. 

For Kaaitheater, 

Agnès Quackels