The Picnic is a new immersive movement performance by Chinese artist Portia Yuran Li, commissioned as part of
Stanley Arts’ COMMONS Festival 2026.
Performed at floor level, the work invites audiences to sit within the same shared space as the performers, exploring public ground as a site of migration, memory, intimacy and collective ritual. Leaving traditional seating behind, The Picnic transforms a familiar social act into a quiet choreographic ritual.
Performers weave through and around the audience, tracing how human relationships unfold across an enduring landscape. The grass remains. The people change.
“A picnic is one of the simplest ways we occupy common ground,” says creator and director Portia Yuran Li. “For migrant artists, public space is never neutral. It holds memory, intimacy, displacement and the possibility of belonging.”
Full Team Credit:Concept and Director: Portia Yuran Li
Set and Prop designer: Effie Gu
Costume Designer: Effie Gu
Composer and Sound designer: Portia Yuran Li
Performers: Erin Alles, Wenqi Yu, Peiyi Zhong, Mary Emma He, Roseline Jingyuan Zhang.
Lighting designer and lighting technician: Yuqing Wang
“An ensemble that creates unexpectedly deep and fascinating layers.”
—— Kirsty Fraser (Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society - Artist Development Manager)
