di 27 jan '26

Was ik maar een muis (12 till 99+)

Songs full of big and small truths

Starting from € 8,5 with Ha'pas

€ 19 Basic price
€ 12 (-18 years)
€ 3.8 Uitpas reduction + EDC

19:15 Doors
20:15 Was ik maar een muis
21:15 Start Q&A with moderator Jan Hautekiet
21:45 Einde

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This show takes place in Dutch

Musical theatre with a voice from and for young people

Niels Boutsen (from the band Stoomboot) worked for two years as a musician at 'De Rotonda', a shelter and counselling centre for teenage girls. With no experience in youth care, he played the piano with the residents and wrote songs with them about their lives and challenges.

In 'Was ik maar een muis' (If only I were a mouse), he shares his story and brings these songs to life. About small and big truths, what moves them, what happens to them, and what it's like to live in a world full of expectations. Without grand gestures, but with an open mind. You get a unique insight into an often closed world, from an underexposed perspective: that of the young people themselves.

Was ik maar een muis
Vocals and piano: Niels Boutsen

Q&A afterwards

After the performance, Niels will take part in a discussion with a moderator and an expert, as well as members of the audience. All audience members are welcome to ask questions.

For everyone who is affected

The 'Was ik maar een muis' debate is an open invitation to organisations working in youth care, as well as to young people and adults who want to contribute ideas about a system that affects more people than we realise.

According to reports from 'Kind en Gezin' and the Children's Rights Commission, among others, approximately one in seven children in Flanders grows up in a vulnerable household, experiencing issues such as poverty, divorce, abuse, and parental mental health problems. This makes this performance relevant to everyone.

It is a moment filled with music, stories and perhaps a new perspective.

Ha Concerts is a music house where different genres stand side by side, and audiences can, if they wish, experience the songs of Balthazar one day, the guitar work of Marc Ribot the next. That for both adult and young ears.

Artistic director Wim Wabbes

The podcast

Niels also created a podcast about youth care that delves even deeper than the performance. Key figures in youth care (the court, the CLB, the JAC, psychologists and psychiatrists, and experts by experience) are indirectly addressed in the performance, even though they are essential to understanding the world of youth care.

In the podcast, Niels talks to these key figures to shed light on a world that still operates too much in the dark. Because the story of young people in residential groups is a story about all of us: how we as a society deal with people who (temporarily) colour outside the lines.