Brussels seems to agree. BRONKS youth theatre was founded in 1991 and nearly one year ago moved into its own building. This week, I was thrilled to attend my first BRONKS performance, Niet kunnen is een kunst (Inability is an Art).

On the surface, the show is about disabilities. But Niet kunnen turns them on their head, asking: what if disabilities were really superpowers?

The production is the brainchild of Jo Jochems and Randi De Vlieghe, winners of the Flemish Culture Prize for Youth Theatre in 2007 and 2008, respectively. Here, they are joined onstage by the blind dancer Saïd Gharbi and the deaf actress Hilde Verhelst.

Although the production never really explains itself, my interpretation is this: a team of three superheroes takes on a clumsy, timid new recruit, putting him through a series of tests to try to make him into superhero material.

On the one hand, Niet kunnen explores how we communicate – or fail to communicate – with one another. The blind and deaf may seem to us to face greater challenges in the realm of communication. But what we see onstage shows that we all have hindrances to overcome in communicating and that whatever holds us back, be it physical, mental or emotional, can and must be surmounted.

With different pairings, we find different challenges. Jochems, playing the new recruit, must learn to respond and hold his own in a weight-sharing quasi-dance with the blind Gharbi. Gharbi in turn calms down the deaf Verhelst, who signs her frustration at a game gone awry – but Verhelst must use her hands on his, or vice versa, to explain herself.

The show’s other goal seems to be the casting of these disabilities in a new light. Verhelst’s sign language is presented as an art form, as she signs wildly against dramatic backlighting to bellowing orchestrations. It then becomes a superpower as she uses her signs as an invisible force to beat up the three men.

Gharbi, on the other hand, finds his way around the stage with such ease that you can easily forget he is blind. The careful choreography and his own sensitivities to stage space are to be commended in this transformation.

Niet kunnen is extremely physical; words and text (in Dutch) are secondary to action and movement. The set is clearly built for the show’s physicality – it reminded me of the gym where I went as a child, including cushy mats, large foam tubes and a trampoline. The production also uses music to great effect, particularly in action sequences plucked out of a summer movie blockbuster.

All in all, Niet kunnen was creative, thought-provoking, well paced and even moving. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that it’s just for kids.

Niet kunnen is een kunst
14 February, 15.00, BRONKS Theatre
Varkensmarkt 15, Brussels
Until 23 March across Flanders
www.bronks.be