Museum Nights at Villa Vauban;
Credit: Otilia Dragan/Chronicle.lu
The seven museums in Luxembourg City organised the 22nd edition of Museum Night (Nuit des Musées) on Saturday 14 October 2023.
All participating museums combined recorded 27,033 visits in total, an increase of 21.45% compared to last year, and the most attended edition to date.
From 17:00 to 01:00, the various museums offered nighttime discoveries. In addition to the museums’ collections, DJs, music and dance performances, workshops for children and adults, guided tours of temporary and permanent exhibitions, as well as culinary surprises were on the agenda. Seven podcast creators from different backgrounds presented a visit to their favourite work in one of the seven museums for the traditional joint project of “favourites”.
The evening programme was extensive and drew in people of all ages for cultural experiences in the gradually darkening autumn evening.
At Villa Vauban, saxophonist David Ascani and double bassist Sebastian “Schlapbe” Flach merged melody and groove in a harmonious synergy during a strolling concert.
At Casino Luxembourg, the Luxembourg art rock/wave duo Sheebaba offered a proto-wave closing concert on the edge of the genre, between kitsch and noise, introducing the listener to visions of a lost future while at the Lëtzebuerg City Museum, the audience sang classic, well-known songs from a wide repertoire (including ABBA), accompanied by a piano.
At the Nationalmusée um Fëschmaart (MNAHA), a ballet dance performance entitled “Art makes history”, with the Ballet National Folklorique du Luxembourg, awaited visitors. This ballet, a creation by Simone Mousset, went back to the country's mythological past and the current exhibition at MNAHA provided a richly historical backdrop to bring this performance to life.
At the Luxembourg National Museum of Natural History, Matt Dawson, an English singer, songwriter and guitarist based in Luxembourg and also working for the museum as an astronomer, discovering asteroids, combined his two passions: music and astronomy. He performed well-known songs as well as some new songs from his recent album "The Cliffs of Lone".
At the Dräi Eechelen Museum, Luxembourg strongman Georges Christen measured himself against history. He explored aspects of the fortress and showed the audience how unstoppable it truly is.
Finally, Mudam Luxembourg presented "Long Story Short", a new performance by Lukáš Hofmann, created especially for the "After Laughter Comes Tears" exhibition. Blending the disciplines of performance art, theatre and music, the collective performance spanned a succession of evocative and fleeting tableaux and explored the elusive concept of authenticity, encouraging spectators to reflect on the shifting boundary between reality and artistic interpretation.
The aforementioned were a few artistic and community highlights, but the evening’s programme also included various workshops, such as “Night Impression” for children at the Villa Vauban, “Smelli-Graphie” creating scented post cards at the Casino Luxembourg as well as two printing workshops at the Lëtzebuerg City Museum (for adults and children alike), to name a few.
Shuttle buses provided return trips between the Ville-Haute, Grund and Kirchberg districts to facilitate the nighttime journey. The next edition will take place on Saturday 12 October 2024.
