Unchilded is a physical and visual theatre performance written and directed by Alessandro Ienzi and produced by Raizes Teatro.
The work explores the loss of childhood and the experience of growing up in contexts marked by violence, displacement and conflict. Through the body, movement, football freestyle, dance and spoken word, Unchilded creates a visual and poetic language around the fragility of childhood and the desire to recover freedom, play and human connection.
At the centre of the performance is the body: a body that remembers, resists, transforms and searches for a place in the world. The stage becomes a space where childhood is represented not through a single story, but through images, gestures and fragments of memory.
Performed by William Cochart, the work combines physical theatre, contemporary movement and freestyle football with a Mediterranean-inspired theatrical language. Objects, sound, light and movement create a symbolic landscape in which innocence, violence, loss and hope coexist.
Unchilded does not seek to represent war through spectacle. Instead, it asks what happens to childhood when violence enters everyday life, and how artistic practice can create a space in which experiences of loss can be transformed into expression, imagination and possibility.
The performance is conceived for international touring and for presentation in theatres, cultural spaces and educational contexts. Alongside the performance, Raizes develops workshops and encounters with young people, using the body and artistic creation as tools for dialogue and expression.
Unchilded is an invitation to look at childhood not only as a period of life, but as a fundamental human space: the space of play, imagination, freedom and the possibility of becoming.
