Small Miracle #5: Stretch
Line up: Radna Rumping, Monica Tormell, YuJing Liu, Phantom Wizard, Barbara McCullough
Open: 11:30 - 16:00
Tickets: € 10,- / | Stadspas: €2,50
Dutch below
We invite you to a gathering dedicated to stretching and exploring what happens when limits are extended over time and space
ENG:
Small Miracles
Small Miracles is a series of interdisciplinary programs, part of the Plein Theater program for co-creation, that tend to the existing and possible communities of Plein Theater. Taking place across different Saturdays throughout the year, the series brings together diverse artistic practices in extended, durational formats.
Each Saturday is dedicated to a word—or a word-mode—that serves as an invitation to explore the possibilities a theater offers for coming together. With a focus on desirable abundances and communal luxury, the programming of Small Miracles leans toward words aligned with these notions.
#GetInvolved
We believe that a theatre is not only a stage, but also a meeting center where artists, local residents, communities, and audiences collectively shape what is presented. Our co-creation programme, where shared ownership and participation are key, can be recognised by the #GetInvolved label. If you would like to participate, please contact Community Producer Lorenzo García Andrade (lorenzo@plein-theater.nl). Read more and view recaps of past events on our page Community >
Small Miracle #5: Stretch
We welcome you to a gathering dedicated to Stretch: exploring what happens when we extend beyond the boundaries we hold over time. Stretching as expansion and remaining with something long enough for it to change sense and meaning. As autumn draws in, the rhythm of Small Miracles shifts with the season. After the long, extended gatherings of spring and summer, this edition takes on a slower, shorter form, conceived as one continuous programme to experience together from beginning to end.
Through an exhibition and text by Radna Rumping on the floating gardens (Drijvende Tuinen) of Amsterdam Oost, their history and changing role within the city’s landscape and idiosyncrasy; a screening of Shopping Bags, Spirits and Freeway Fetishes: Reflections on Ritual Space by Barbara McCullough, exploring how nine artists based in Los Angeles use habitual actions and spaces to generate "spiritually cathartic experiences" (Third World Reel); a Sparkling Ritual by YuJing Liu; a sonic offering by Phantom Wizard in the theater; and a shared lunch by Monica Tormell (Käket), the gathering moves between bodies, infrastructures, sounds, places and ways of being together, asking what happens when we stretch across an extended time together.
As mentioned above, this is a continuous day programme, we hope to see you early to experience it all: doors open 11:30, the film starts at 12.00, lunch will be served, and the programme finishes around 16:00.
11:30 am: doors open
12:00 pm: screening Shopping Bags, Spirits and Freeway Fetishes: Reflections on Ritual Space by Barbara McCullough
13:00 pm: Sparkling Ritual with YuJing Liu
13:30 pm: lunch by Monica Tormell (Käket)
14:30 pm: reading by Radna Rumping and exhibition opening
15.00 pm: sonic offering by Phantom Wizard
NL:
Small Miracles
Small Miracles is een multidisciplinair programmaserie, als onderdeel van het Plein Theater programma voor co-creatie. Elke 'Small Miracle' staat in het teken van een thema van één woord en dient als een uitnodiging om samen te komen en te onderzoeken wat dat woord in het hier en nu teweeg kan brengen.
#GetInvolved
We geloven dat een theater niet alleen een podium is, maar ook een ontmoetingsplek waar makers, buurtbewoners, communities en publiek samen vorm geven aan wat er te zien is. Ons programma voor co-creatie, waar gedeeld eigenaarschap en participatie centraal staat, is te herkennen aan het #GetInvolved label. Als je wilt deelnemen, neem dan contact op met: Lorenzo García Andrade (lorenzo@plein-theater.nl). Lees meer en bekijk terugblikken naar voorgaande events op onze Community pagina >
Small Miracle #5: Stretch
Tijdens deze editie van Small Miracles onderzoeken we het thema Stretch: wat gebeurt er als we buiten onze vertrouwde grenzen treden, of juist langer bij iets blijven en het daardoor anders gaan ervaren?
Het ritme van Small Miracles beweegt mee op het ritme van de seizoenen. Na de langdurige, uitgebreide bijeenkomsten van de lente en de zomer, krijgt deze herfsteditie een tragere, compactere vorm, opgezet als één doorlopend programma om van begin tot eind samen te beleven.
In een programma van een halve dag komen film, kunst, geluid, eten en gesprek samen. We beginnen met de film Shopping Bags, Spirits and Freeway Fetishes: Reflections on Ritual Space van Barbara McCullough, gevolgd door een Sparkling Ritual van YuJing Liu.
Daarna is er een gezamenlijke lunch van Monica Tormell (Käket), een lezing van Radna Rumping over de drijvende tuinen van Amsterdam-Oost en de opening van haar tentoonstelling. We sluiten af met een sonische bijdrage van Phantom Wizard.
Zoals eerder vermeld, is dit een doorlopend dagprogramma. We hopen je vroeg te mogen verwelkomen om alles mee te maken: de deuren gaan open om 11.30 uur, de film start om 12.00 uur, er wordt lunch geserveerd en het programma eindigt rond 16.00 uur.
11.30 uur: deuren open
12.00 uur: vertoning van Shopping Bags, Spirits and Freeway Fetishes: Reflections on Ritual Space door Barbara McCullough
13.00 uur: Sparkling Ritual met YuJing Liu
13.30 uur: lunch verzorgd door Monica Tormell (Käket)
14.30 uur: voordracht door Radna Rumping en opening van de tentoonstelling
15.00 uur: sonic offering door Phantom Wizard
About the artists
Radna Rumping is an Amsterdam-based curator, artist and writer. Her work is relational and collaborative, engaging with public space, experimental archiving, forms of gathering, and conditions of (in)visibility. She gravitates toward artistic practices that defy categorisation, with a particular interest in sound and performance. She is co-founder of Ja Ja Ja Nee Nee Nee, online radio dedicated to the arts. A selection of her sound pieces, text-based works and essays can be found at sofarsoreal.net.
@radna
YuJing Liu (She/ Her) is an Amsterdam-based choreographer and body-based practitioner from Yunnan, southwest China. She is part of KABRA, a BIPOC care space in Amsterdam. Her practice moves between body, voice, and environment, exploring how physical experience translates across cultural contexts. Drawing from improvisation, somatic research, and traditional Chinese medicine, she works with the body as a way to connect people, ecology, and lived experience.
Barbara McCullough (1945) is an American filmmaker, multimedia artist, and visual effects producer. She is a member of the L.A. Rebellion, a movement of Black filmmakers who studied at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) between the late 1960s and the 1980s. Her work focuses on Black feminism, the African diaspora, and ritualism in urban environments.
Film distributed by the third wheel newsreel. Since 1968, Third World Newsreel (TWN) has advanced movement storytelling and media arts for cultural and social justice. We champion the self-representation of historically marginalized communities—including Black, Indigenous, Latine, Asian, Pacific Islander, African, Middle Eastern, Mixed/Multiracial, People with Disabilities, and LGBTQIA+ individuals—through diverse genres and forms of media, such as documentary, experimental, and fiction. Our comprehensive support includes hands-on training, fiscal sponsorship, educational distribution, and preservation, all designed to advance cultural justice and societal change.
Phantom Wizard (b.1998, Amsterdam) is a composer and improviser whose work dissolves boundaries and reimagines traditions.
Rather than controlling sound, he attempts to guide it. Nurturing a space where multiple truths can coexist. This principle is the core of ‘Fribari’, a sonic philosophy. Phantom Wizard blends natural soundscapes, the sonorities of Afro-diasporic music, experimental electronics and the many ancient traditions sourced from the Surinamese melting pot.
Monica Tormell is an obsessive gardener and forager who operates with a trial and error mode. The garden is located at de Gele Pomp in Amsterdam north and occasionally we do harvest dinners under the name Käket (together with Felicia Ljusteräng and Felix Meijer).
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