The question How to Be Many? has been central to the Kaaitheater’s work since 2019. It acts as a backdrop to (re)assess what we do and how we do it. It’s our cherished problem—the one we’ll never fully solve but want to keep close. The question mark reminds us that the work is never done. 

How to Be Many? stems from an ongoing reflection within the performing arts field: Who has access to our cultural institutions and the power they represent—whether on stage, in the audience, or behind the scenes? 

In that sense, this question is less about representation than it is about agency. It is the driving force behind our work, helping us reflect on the (re)distribution of power, space, resources, entitlement, and the right to participate in decision-making processes. 

Who claims these rights? Who takes responsibility? Who invites whom? Who speaks—and about what? And who is still missing? 

How to Be Many? In our program 

In this exercise, we aim to open up our platform to other voices and bodies within our programme. This means engaging in various forms of co-authorship – a notion that we understand as sharing agency with people outside the organisation to shape some part of our programme. Artists, activists or collectives present programs that reflect both their own societal agenda's and esthetical references, as well as their wish to share it with an audience. 

These people are already taking a certain responsibility in the cultural offer in Brussels. In this way, this practice reflects our commitment to building a shared program through dialogue and trust, one that challenges our assumptions and broadens our perspective. It is also a way, for us, of continuously questioning how we can make room and amplify the voice of others and how we can more fairly and structurally share our spaces, resources, and forms of power. 

How to Be Many? In our audience 

Kaaitheater is committed to a long-term trajectory so to better understand the mechanisms that either facilitate or block access to our theatre. We recognise that systemic discrimination—based, among other things, on race, income, gender, education, and ability, ... —deeply shapes who feels welcome, and who doesn’t. 

How to Be Many? is our lens to question these blind spots and to experiment with both small and bigger gestures that make our institution more accessible to a broader spectrum of people. Beyond working on a program that aims at representing a larger part of our city and society, we’ve introduced a Pay What You Can ticketing system (since 2021), allowing visitors to set their own price based on their self-assessed financial means. 

We’re also working to reduce barriers for people with physical disabilities and for neurodivergent visitors (see our accessibility page for more info). 

How to Be Many? In our team 

Participating meaningfully in an institution requires clear and transparent organizational structures, decision-making processes, and clear methods of feedback and remediation. We are striving to find the right balance between supportive frameworks, fixed structures and the flexibility needed to remain responsive and adaptive to the needs and capacities of everyone involved. 

We are actively working to make our team better reflect the diversity of the city we inhabit, and we are committed to creating a hospitable work environment for a wide range of people, in all their possible differences. This includes ongoing efforts to address structural forms of discrimination through recurring workshops focused on race, gender, neurodiversity, and more, as well as through group and individual coaching. 

Our (temporary) nomadic existence has also opened up space for learning.  As the renovated Kaaitheater gradually takes shape, we imagine as many futures as possible where that question mark remains present.