At the MANN in Naples, eight evening openings featuring performances, music, and interactive installations

From September 3 to October 22 , the National Archaeological Museum of Naples will launch MANNight: Extraordinary Openings. The Future Meets the Past, a program of eight evening openings that combines tours of the collections with a schedule of performances, multimedia installations, live music, and participatory activities. The initiative will take place weekly on September 3, 10, and 17; September 26, in conjunction with European Heritage Days; and October 1, 8, 15, and 22, 2026.

On all these evenings, the museum will remain open until 11:30 p.m., with last admission at 10:30 p.m. Starting at 7:00 p.m., visitors can enter with a special 10-euro ticket, while beginning at 8:30 p.m., various performances will take place simultaneously throughout the museum’s galleries, repeating at regular intervals along the exhibition route. The project aims to create a dialogue between the MANN’s archaeological heritage and the languages of contemporary art, inviting the public to actively participate in the proposed experiences.

“The museum is a space for experimentation: with the MANNnight series, we want to offer our visitors not just a journey through time, but a new inner journey to discover how the museum is, above all, a place of art as well as a place of history,” comments MANN General Director Francesco Sirano. “The itinerary we’ve designed is full of surprises and engagement: visitors can watch the various performances, but above all, they’re invited to participate by following the performance map and interacting with the artists. When this creative, immersive journey unfolds within the halls of our splendid museum, the magic that only each visitor can create is guaranteed.”

Commissioned by the MANN from Casa del Contemporaneo theatrical productions, in collaboration with La Santissima Community Hub, MANNight emerges from the fusion of different artistic disciplines. Audience participation is one of the central elements of the initiative: visitors can serve as models for body-painting sessions inspired by the museum’s collections or contribute to the creation of digital works that transform emotions, words, and gestures into graphic and auditory expressions. There will also be moments dedicated to dance accompanied by tribal percussion, alongside performances by a string quartet that will alternate between classical repertoire and pop songs.

The program includes numerous musical and choreographic performances. The string quartet—comprising Veronica Menditto, Ledia Nikolla, Alessandra Gallo, and Giovanni Sanarico—will perform arrangements of “Pompeii” by Bastille and “Wuthering Heights” by Kate Bush, evoking the romantic sentiment sparked by the rediscovery of the cities around Vesuvius. Luca Iovine, together with dancers Ida Marino and Giosuè Carbone and with choreography by Stefania Contocalakis, will present *Prisma* by Mimmo Napolitano, a fantasia for clarinets based on themes from Liberato’s *Partenope* that reinterprets the founding myth of Naples. Enrico Valanzuolo and Francesco Scelzo will perform reinterpretations of the soundtracks from *Gladiator* and *Braveheart*, while Giusy Lo Sapio and dancer Marta Peperna will stage a vocal and dance performance dedicated to the ritual and folk roots of ancient Campania.

The itinerary will also include the Tableaux Vivants by the Teatri 35 collective, which will blend into the normal flow of the visit without any separation between spectators and performers. The compositions will take shape progressively, drawing inspiration from the resonance evoked by sculptural fragments, Pompeian frescoes, and details from the collections. In the Salone della Meridiana, Sara Lupoli will present a choreographed piece set to music.

Ample space will also be dedicated to the multimedia installations by the Cose dal Futuro collective, all of which share a participatory principle: the works take shape only through visitor interaction. Mixels is a generative installation composed of moving particles that record the passage of the public, creating a layered visual memory of the faces observed. Hoop, on the other hand, invites participants to make a wish inside a structure containing a microphone, computer, and printer; the wish is rendered as a printout, transforming into an object to keep or leave in the exhibition space.

Each evening will also feature a Docubeat created by the Club Tasso collective, a sound and visual workshop that reinterprets the museum’s collection through audiovisual collages built from recordings, images, and testimonies from staff and visitors. Rounding out the program are body painting and face painting performances by Weronique Art, who will create figures inspired by the archaeological collections while also involving the audience, the presence of artist Antonella Romano, who will create her wire sculptures live, and DJ sets by the Soul Express Collective, which will present musical journeys designed as tools for a contemporary interpretation of the museum space. The program will be accompanied by the Sound Archives, listening experiences built around vinyl culture featuring diverse musical repertoires and geographies, while the museum garden will host aperitifs and a closing event that will bring artists and the public together at the end of the activities.

At the MANN in Naples, eight evening openings featuring performances, music, and interactive installations

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