About Creating Bodies

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During the 4th edition of Queering Puppets Festival Amsterdam from March 25-30, we will be inspired by the way bodies are created, shaped and defined—by ourselves, by others, by systems and structures. How do we experience our bodies? How do they move within the boundaries of gender, identity and perception? When does a body become an object, when does it gain agency? And to what extent do we shape our bodies as we choose?

"Bodies take shape as they move through the world, directing themselves towards or away from objects and others," writes Sara Ahmed, queer feminist thinker and writer. Our body is not a fixed entity, but a dynamic process: shaped by the passage of time, by movement and touch, by resistance and the gaze upon the body both from within and without. Age is a dynamic factor, and the (cultural) place on earth where you are born plays a role. The body is read, regulated, desired, or denied. In a world where the body is constantly being claimed—by politics, religion, technology, and norm-reinforcing commerce—we ask the question: How has your body been shaped? And whose body is it really?

Creating Bodies questions in performances with objects and puppets how meaning is attributed to the body, how we create meaning with it ourselves, and the relationships the body forms.

We investigate the body through the maker and with created objects. In various performances the body is played with, manipulated, dismantled and reconstructed. The body moves objects, becomes an object and escapes objectification.

This edition of the Queering Puppets Festival is about bodies that are formed in their own way, bodies that do not fit within a (local/cultural) norm, bodies that refuse to be defined but want to remain fluid, bodies that disappear to rise again in a new form.

Queering Puppets Festival Amsterdam: Creating Bodies is a testing ground for playing with identity, in which puppets, (body) objects and technology form a mirror for the audience.

Come and join us!
 

Berith Danse en Cat Smits

Artistic direction QPFA2025