Queering Puppets Festival Amsterdam 2026: The Nature of Things
The international Queering Puppets Festival Amsterdam will once again provide a stage for visual theatre, puppetry, and performance at Plein Theater from 1 to 6 April. The theme of this 5th anniversary edition, ‘The Nature of Things’ offers a radical response to Eurocentric and colonial perspectives on sexuality, gender, and racial framing, while questioning the assumption that humans stand at the centre of nature.
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“Magic is one of our most powerful allies in the fight against patriarchy, capitalism, and industrialism.” - queer activist and writer Arthur Evans
Queering Puppets Festival Amsterdam is queer, feminist, activist and above all stands out in quirkiness. It is the only festival in the Netherlands that links puppetry and object theatre for adults to queer imagination. In the safe space created by puppetry, everyone can be who they, she or he want to be. Expect a challenging mix of bodies, stories that refuse to conform to existing dominant structures, visual and erotic outbursts, edgy performances, stimulating lectures, queer food, and clubby afters.
The festival aims to break with binary thinking. Man versus woman, human versus animal, nature versus capitalism, and normal versus deviant. These boundaries are implicitly violent, oppressive, and never neutral—they are instruments of power, linked to exclusion, discipline, and destruction.
But the nature of things cannot be pinned down. It is fluid, changeable, rebellious. It reveals itself in bodies that do not fit into a single category, in biodiversity that refuses to be silenced, in voices that have been suppressed for centuries.
Visual theatre makers and performers from across the world will come together during the festival to present bold, imaginative and pleasantly unsettling shows and performances in which puppetry and object theatre break through the boundaries of identity.
Come to the Plein Theater and embrace the magic, not as an escape, but as resistance, as a collective source of strength.
PROGRAM DAY-2-DAY
WEDNESDAY 1 APRIL
19:30 | CAFÉ
Opening Festival & Exhibition 'In Touch' by Queer Gallery
Berith Danse, Cat Smits (Queering Puppets Festival Amsterdam), Prins de Vos (Queer Gallery), Myrtille Danse (COC Nederland), Special Ke (drag performance)
‘In Touch’ showcases the work of 14 international queer artists and explores how queer bodies are seen, presented and interpreted within the context of art
20:30 | THEATER
Body Concert – NL Premiere
Lone Wolf Tribe (USA)
We are alive with life all around us. This visual solo performance allows you to view your own body in a completely different way
‘'Resonates unsettlingly….both tender and disturbing.” - The New York Times
21:30 | CAFÉ
DJ JXSSX & DRINKS
THURSDAY APRIL 2
20:00 | THEATER
Pleasure Parts (for de(con)struction) – NL Premiere
An Kuper & Lucian Squid
Productiehuis Plein Theater
The body is a construction site: fluid, unfinished and constantly changing. During their residency at the Plein Theater, they explore euphoria and self-determination through wearable sculptures, spoken word and physical performance
21:00 | CAFÉ
Talk: Nature of Things
Selm Merel Wenselaers- historian and dramaturg
22:00 | THEATER
Verbotene Lieben 3000 – NL Premiere
Duckie L’Orange & Die Puppenspieler (DE)
This rock star puppet theatre duo brings all kinds of dubious characters to life in a bizarre comedy
FRIDAY APRIL 3
19:30 | CAFÉ
Talk: indigenous rights & decolonisation
Teatro Walabis (HN)
20:00 | THEATER
And God saw that it was almost good….
Dienke Groenhout en de Maakfabriek
In this humorous and visually spectacular dance and theatre performance, the artist God, who is invisible, has doubts about the latest creation: the human
21:00 | CAFÉ
Ladies
Vera Kaye, Maj van der Mersch and Anneriek Bekhuis
A tribute to a few 'Ladies' who follow their own path in a unique and outspoken manner, flamboyantly and without apology
SATURDAY 4 APRIL
19:00 | CAFÉ
Filmscreening Soya & Piet
Filmhuis Transketeers
21:00 | THEATER
Queere Tiere – NL Premiere
Soya the Cow & Piano Prince (CH)
+ Q&A after performance
Between stories and songs, post-dramatic opera and drag shows, you will immerse yourself in the world of diversity in sexuality, love and lifestyles in the animal kingdom
22:00 | CAFÉ
DJ JXSSX & DRINKS
SUNDAY APRIL 5 // RE ERRECTION BRUNCH
13:00 – 16:00 | CAFÉ
Re Errection Brunch
#getinvolved
13:00 – 16:00 | PLEIN
Café The Glowing Pickle
Electric Circus
Join our regulars and their little lives full of engines and electronics in this cosy miniature pub
13:00 | CAFÉ
Talk: Queer rights and puppetry in Hungary
Bori Oláh-Bebesi (HU) - journalist and dramaturg
14:00 & 16:00 | THEATER
Raíz de la Ceniza – NL Premiere
Teatro Walabis (HN)
A performance about the oldest Indigenous Lenca people from Honduras. In a world threatened by the climate crisis, they show that caring for water, forests and the earth is not only ecological, but also a spiritual and collective act
MONDAY 6 APRIL
10:00 – 16:00 THEATER
Masterclass: Material dramaturgies by Thommy Kraft
Everything is material. Your body, the stage, the audience’s expectations. Let’s play!
Queering Puppets Festival is a co-production by Plein Theater and Cat Smits Company. Queering Puppets Festival Amsterdam is made possible in part by Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst, Fonds voor Cultuurparticipatie, Fonds Podiumkunsten, Fonds 21, Cultuurfonds NH, Pro Helvetia, VSB Fonds en Gemeente Amsterdam Stadsdeel Oost.