Queering Puppets Festival Amsterdam 2025: CREATING BODIES
“Bodies take shape as they move through the world, directing themselves towards or away from objects and others,” – Sara Ahmed, queer feminist thinker and writer.
From March 25 to 30, the Plein Theater and Cat Smits Company present the fourth edition of the international Queering Puppets Festival Amsterdam!
Since 2022, Queering Puppets Festival Amsterdam has offered a stage to queer perspectives through groundbreaking forms of visual theater, object theater and puppetry. This quirky festival defies the norm with a motley and bold program full of exuberant, visual outburst from the Netherlands and abroad.
The theme of QPFA 2025, CREATING BODIES, challenges us to see bodies not as just given, but as something that is constantly being created, shaped and defined — by ourselves, by others, by systems and structures, both political and cultural. How do we experience our body? How does it move between boundaries of gender, identity and perception? When does a body become an object, and when does it acquire agency? And to what extent do we shape our bodies according to our own choice?
In the program of CREATING BODIES the body is played with, manipulated, dismantled and reconstructed. The body moves objects, becomes an object and escapes objectification. Be welcome!
PROGRAMMA DAY 2 DAY
TUESDAY MARCH 25
20:00 – 21:00 | THEATER
Vis a Vis(a) Try Out
Cat Smits Company & Centre National d’Art de la Marionnette (TN)
21:00 – 01:00 | DJ & DRINKS
WEDNESDAY MARCH 26 OPENING DAY
19:30 – 20:00 | TALK
Creating bodies resisting paper
Yentl de Lange
20:00 – 21:00 | THEATER
Vis a Vis(a) Première
Cat Smits Company & Centre National d’Art de la Marionnette (TN)
22:00 – 22:30 | PERFORMANCE
Zielswenteling
Josje Eijkenboom
21:00 – 01:00 | DJ & DRINKS
THURDAY MARCH 27
19:00 – 19:30 | TALK
Puppets and the queer art of failure
Dr. Maja Hertoghs
20:00 – 21:00 | THEATER
One Man Show – Première
Vox Muziektheater
23:00 – 23:30 | PERFORMANCE
Plastic Life
Claire Hermans & Tijmen Teunissen
21:00 – 01:00 | DJ & DRINKS
FRIDAY MARCH 28 QUEERING NIGHT
19:00 – 19:30 | TALK
Creating spaces voor other(ed) bodies
Carly Everaert
19:30 – 20:25 | | PERFORMANCE
You Can Take Me Home Toni
Lorraine Smith Arts (UK)
20:45 – 21:10 | TALK
Q&A: Wearable Sculptures
Daphne Karstens, Lorraine Smith, Soley Sigurjónsdóttir, host Fransien van der Putt
22:00 – 22:40 | PERFORMANCE
Re:shape or headless into the sea
Laura Boser & Ghenwa (noiré) Abou Fayad
22:45 – 01:00 | DJ, DRINKS & BALLROOM
SATURDAY MARCH 29 QUEERING NIGHT
20:00 – 21:30 | PERFORMANCE + Q&A
GPO Box No.211
Chun Shing Au
22:00 – 22:30 | PERFORMANCE
becomingSLUG
Thommy Kraft icw Christina Reinhardt
21:00 – 01:00 | DJ & DRINKS
SUNDAY MARCH 30 QUEERING PUPPETS X NIEUWE NOTEN
16:00 – 17:00 | SOUND PERFORMANCE
Materize
Sól Ey (IS)
TICKETS & INFO
- Kijk op onze agenda voor meer informatie per programma-onderdeel.
- Kijk in de ticketshop voor de beschikbare tickets per dag/avond.
- Per dag is er een Combi Ticket beschikbaar, waarmee je toegang hebt tot alle voorstellingen op die avond
- Sommige programma’s zijn gratis. Hier kun je je voor aanmelden in de ticketshop.
- Tickets zijn inclusief een consumptiemunt, deze heeft de waarde van een frisdrank, koffie, thee, pils, wijn of een Pringles mini bij de bar.
- Wij hanteren kortingen voor (kunst)studenten en stadspashouders met een groene stip! Neem je pas of bewijs mee naar de kassa, deze wordt gescanned en/of gecontroleerd. Per kortingskaart is er een kortingspas nodig.
Queering Puppets Festival is a co-production of Plein Theater and Cat Smits Company. The initiators and artistic leaders are Cat Smits (theater maker, puppeteer) and Berith Danse (director Plein Theater, theater maker). Queering Puppets Festival is made possible by the Municipality of Amsterdam Stadsdeel Oost, Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunsts and Fonds Podiumkunsten.