07 Nov

19:00

Internationaal Theater Amsterdam

Leidsekade 97, Amsterdam

With performance, music, visual arts, and storytelling, we explore the archives our bodies carry, and what in turn preserves us.

Museum Night: The Archive Is Alive

More info & tickets

The archive is alive. Let's unbox it.

An archive lives not only in documents, showcases, or boxes with acid-free paper. It lives in bodies, voices, rhythms, alter egos, desires, and stories that haunt from generation to generation. Some pages are missing. Some stories were never written down. A gap in the archive is a loss, but it can also be an opening: a place where fantasy enters. During Museum Night, various creators bring living archives to life.

Free entry with a Museum Night wristband or register for free via the website.

Zaïre Krieger

The work of Zaïre Krieger (1995) speaks of a call for justice, love, and the freedom to be more than one thing at once. During Museum Night, her blue-scaled, extraterrestrial, foul-mouthed alter ego Zireïa takes over and introduces us to other versions of Zaïre that are not easily categorized. She is joined by theater maker and pianist Djuwa Mroivili (1998), who remixes music, word, and movement into her own form of storytelling. Perhaps Djuwa’s underwater alter ego Mx. CoelaCunt will also appear: a hybrid glitter creature that is fish, human, auntie, ancestor, god, archive, and griot all at once, and who has always wanted to be elusive and undocumented.

Kyara Harley

Singer Kyara Harley is not just a performer, but also a world builder. Inspired by her love for fashion, ballroom culture, and music, she transforms The Bookshop into the Mothership during Museum Night. Central to the Mothership is her hit ‘Activate’, Kyara’s explosive empowerment Pride anthem. Driven by heavy drums, pumping bass, and ballroom attitude, it is a call to the girls, the gays, and allies: take up space, move loudly, and refuse to be erased.

Foxy Roxy

Performer Roxanne Pratt from London, also known as Foxy Roxy, uses pole dance, twerk, heels, and body language as forms of storytelling. From her Sierra Leonean and Zimbabwean background, she approaches the body as a living archive: a place where knowledge, memories, rhythms, sensuality, pleasure, and survival strength are stored and passed on. Her performance is therefore not only a way to tell stories, but a form of archiving in itself.

DJ NyameCmplx

Born in Paris, rooted in Ghana, and based in the Netherlands: NYAMECMPLX has a deep love for African history, culture, and style, from the Akan culture to Nollybabes and the colorful splendor of African bubu clothing. She connects tradition with the future. Her sets move fluidly between Highlife, Afrobeats, Alté, and Afrohouse—an energetic mix where research and rhythm come together. Through her initiative cmplx.rythms, she works as a digital archivist. She delves into vintage music from the past and shows how it resonates in the sound of today.

Mural Painting

Throughout the night, a mural will be created, slowly emerging as Museum Night unfolds around it. The design engages with the history of the Schouwburg and the traces of the Amsterdammers who once entered the building through The Bookshop. Thus, the painting will grow throughout the evening into a new archival piece: tangible proof that this night took place.