Performance

DNK is DEAD… 20 years of DNK Amsterdam

DNK Amsterdam, the ever-adventurous concert series and artist collective for experimental music, sound based art, and performance marks 20 years of activity with concerts and a retrospective publication created during W139’s Para-siting over the month of November. A new generation of performers joins the fold, alongside some familiar faces.

DNK Concerts
Wednesday 5 November — 20:00
The Social Music Club

Monday 10 November — 19:30
Danya Pilchen (solo) & Rubén Patiño (solo)

Monday 17 November — 19:30
Anne La Berge (solo) & Gert-Jan Prins (solo)

DNK Amsterdam Festival Weekend
Saturday 22 November — 19:30
Montoriol, Eckhardt, McGuire, De Gendt re-interpret the classic DNK Ensemble performance Simultaneous/Synchronous & a performance by The Social Music Club. Followed by an after-hang with music by the DNK DJ team.

Sunday 23 november — 15:00 (Beursplein)
The Social Music Club plays To Cast A Net (2025) by Koen Nutters. A group piece for sine tones in the public space.

DNK Amsterdam is an artist collective actively producing concerts and exhibitions of media, sound and performance artists, as well as their own collective and individual pieces since 2005. Core members are André Avelãs, Seamus Cater, Koen Nutters, and Martijn Tellinga.

Desert Without Sand: Sequential Practices

Desert Without Sand: Sequential Practices is a space for contemplation and investigation into the desert as both a physical landscape, an abstract concept, and a site for speculation. Through a cluster of activities, including performative reading, public events, and mapping and diagramming workshops, Sequential Practices aims to navigate and discuss multiple performative practices approaching to the desert’s complexity.

Desert Without Sand came out of urgency to negotiate the multiplicity of the desert as a space of fugitivity, a land of resistance, as space of hermeticism, as nature, as un-nature, as site of erasure, as site of emergence, as stage for speculative futures, as memory keeper, as a map of silence and echoes, as witness, as site of grief, as myth, as home, as desert.

Every Friday from 10 October until 31 October, Sequential Practices is open to public.

Tempodesert is a performance-based collaboration between Fay Aldhukair and Mohamed Abdelkarim, with occasional contributions from others. It emerged after experiencing the world “after 8/8,” a term coined when Fay and Abdelkarim watched The Draw of the Desert 8/8 Seminar by Iranian philosopher Reza Negarestani on March 15, 2024.

They operate as a performative lab, poetically exploring the holistic and layered temporalities of the desert, geological, ephemeral, eternal, and mythological. Through various mediums such as performances, plays, texts, songs, films, publications, workshops, and walks, Tempodesert seeks to investigate, reclaim, and liberate the desert from colonial narratives and imposed perceptions.

Desert Without Sand: Sequential Practices was made possible by Ettijahat and CBK Rotterdam.

W139 x ADE: A Nightmare on Warmoes Street

A Nightmare on Warmoes Street is a triple bill performance night with artists Mette Sterre, Diane Mahín and G at W139. Presented inside the immersive group exhibition Temper Tantrum Bonehouse, these three solo performances explore the beyond-human body and its limitless potential.

G-string Theory – Attempting to Rise by Mette Sterre gives value to the devalued, both aesthetically and conceptually. Emerging as a monstrous femme creature with rotating manicured fingers and accompanied by a talking cyborg dog, the artist makes room for exploring and exploding the power structures that silently—although violently—regulate our lives.

In GRUNT by Diane Mahín, a woman communicates solely through growling. The growler navigates various moods, telling what seems to be an urgent story or holding a seemingly intimate conversation. As she attempts to tell a joke, trauma-laden growls twist humor into a shadowy reflection.

FEELING FEELINGS by G is a repeated performance of grief from 2016 to present day. A * is added everytime something shifts.

Get your ticket via the Eventbrite page.

Doors — 19:00
Programme — 19:30-21:00

Admission fee: €12
Students: €8
ADE pass: Free

Mette Sterre is a visual artist who investigates the limits and transformative potential of the body. Her work resists categorization, fusing performance, sculpture, body masks, and digital technology into immersive, otherworldly environments that explore the threshold between the organic and the artificial. By entering her work we are cast into the materialisation of her mind processes: a sensorial and embodied experience.

Diane Mahín is a performance maker and sociologist who creates visceral, performative worlds shaped by sound and image. Her work dissects the body as a social artifact: fleshy, noisy, and molded by social absurdities. A single sound from the body can open an entire world. Diane follows this sound, tears it apart, and reassembles it into theatrical codes drawn from the learned behaviors of an unbearable society. The strange becomes eerily familiar. In that disarming recognition, audiences encounter something disturbingly intimate: themselves, shaped by a brutal world.

G: “Suburbs, Mall/s, Shopping Centres. People who are really ‘into’ things / Subcultures. Mourning, natural death. Graveyards. Urns. Memorial pictures. Bits n Bobs. Raves. The ‘Anti Bio’. ‘Non performers’, ‘Non Dancers’ everything that we are told we are not good at or need a qualification for. Humour x 10000000000000000000000000. Power Dynamics. Eye rolls from children. Writing how I speak.” (Edited* to fit the word count, the bio continues) – G

Monster Ball

Step into a night of gruesome extravagance at Temper Tantrum Bonehouse’s Monster Ball, where you’re invited to transform into your biggest fear. Hosted by Mette Sterre, Ainhoa Hernández Escudero, and Taka Taka, with drag performers from the House of Løstbois: Alfa Hoer, blueberriboi, brooms tic, Labello Dickodello, Naza Løtus, Lucian Squid, Helena, Vinny Von Vinci, and LOST TIME, as well as Lady Bag, the Monster Mashers, and with music by Jiji Jizu. Expect creaturely activations, creepy-crawl dancing, shadow play, and ghoulish performances.

Join us in a festive ritual of becoming, an explosion of mania that explores the dark side of your moon (and everyone else’s). A prize awaits the best-dressed monster of the night.

The evening culminates in a Monster Mash protest parade, where monsters reclaim the streets of Amsterdam. The parade leads us to Club Church, where the ball continues deep into the night in an intense embrace of the danse macabre.

Please note: This event is 18+

Please note: We encourage visitors to come in costume as much as possible, since there is no dressing room at the event. The toilets will of course be available to change, and to do touch-ups or finishing touches. We will also have an (unattended) cloakroom in the front space of W139. There will always be two hosts there, but it will be at your own risk.

Doors — 19:00
Programme — 19:30-22:00

Admission: €12
Students: €8

Get your ticket via the Eventbrite page.

House of Løstbois is the first drag king house established in the Netherlands, founded in 2019. It is a warm, queer space that welcomes underrepresented people in the drag community, using the walls of the fetish Club Church as their headquarters. Living queerly for Løstbois involves meeting weekly to play with makeup and costumes, rehearse for the sake of rehearsing, and share processes and stories of our reality. A reality lived within patriarchal archetypes.

100 Years of Absent Academy

On the weekend of 19 and 20 July, Absent Academy celebrates their 100-year anniversary, dedicated to the memory of those who have been forcibly disappeared. Sîpan Sezgin Tekin and Agat Sharma are opening their work space during an open rehearsal, asking the question: “How can a performative space provide a ground for disappeared knowledge to be present?”

They invite the audience to participate in a drawing exercise that explores how to speak about enforced disappearances under the looming threat of state violence and surveillance. They imagine a new country—one where it is possible to confront and process enforced disappearances. Maybe a new country for all those who have been made to disappear by the deep state.

Participation is free, Reserve your spot on the Eventbrite-page of the event.

Absent Academy is a semi-public pedagogic space, aiming to think about enforced disappearances, which is an extrajudicial practice employed by deep state actors across Central and South Asia.

Agat Sharma is an artist, educator and theater maker who focuses on long-term research into the history of cotton. Through theatrical experiments, he explores the pre-colonial legacy of cotton, colonial extractivism and the ongoing agricultural crisis in India. His work focuses on themes that explore the origin, evolution and erasing of the relationship between land and body. Agat uses a broad view of what a song and a story can be, and uses them as instruments to bring collective postcolonial imaginations to life. Agat works both in the Netherlands and in India.

Sîpan Sezgin Tekin, born in Amed/Kurdistan, is a multidisciplinary performer and theatre maker whose work explores political and historical narratives through the embodied use of language. Focusing on multilingualism, language physicality, and identity politics, he creates immersive performances that examine the role of mother tongue in shaping identity, performance, and the perception of borders and nationality. Sîpan based in Turkey and in The Netherlands.

Para-siting: Absent Academy

The 100-year celebration of Absent Academy is dedicated to the memory of those who have vanished, ceased to be visible, receded from view, faded, melted, withdrawn, departed, dissipated, dispelled, dematerialised, evaporated. Those who have been forced to disappear. Those with the power to shapeshift and become wind, water and snakes to pass through borders, barricades, checkpoints, fences, walls, watchtowers, frontiers and restricted zones. By force and deception, those in power have made them disappear, but their songs still resonate in the landscape. In this edition of Absent Academy, we will learn to sing these songs and draw out their faces from our dreams.

On 25 June, we will welcome our next Para-siting residents: Absent Academy. Sîpan Sezgin Tekin and Agat Sharma will create a shared semi-public pedagogic space, aiming to think about enforced disappearances, which is an extrajudicial practice employed by deep state actors across Central and South Asia. In both their cultures, it is possible to talk to those who have ceased to be amongst us through songs and drawings. The form that Absent Academy takes in this edition is that of an open research rehearsal process, towards making a performance to culminate the residency. During the residency, the visitors can join the rehearsal and research process.

FLUSH #7: PITXANTU

Eli Wewentxu has arrived to the swamp, from the distances of Wallmapu where he currently lives and works with the land, sowing and caring for animals. Wewentxu will close FLUSH’s cycle in the W139 toilet in the best way possible: with his sounds and his music.

PITXANTU sound archives, as a work, is born from deep listening during walks through the pitxantu, or pitxa forest, located in the territory where Wewentxu lives and where his family has lived for several generations. Field recordings, soundscapes, synthesizer layers, and melodic lines with bowed string instruments and txompe compose these pieces, which seek an imaginary dialogue with the territory, the beings that inhabit it, and their forces, which in turn perceive and listen to us.

Entry to concert is free.

Eli Wewentxu is a Mapuche artist from PLC, Gulumapu – Wallmapu, now known as south-central Chile. He trained as a violinist from an early age. In sound, he works with improvisation and musical composition with the idea of redefining listening through a narrative close to the territory in resistance to which he belongs.

FLUSH: a sudden rush of intense emotion is a flourishing collaboration between Espacio Estamos Bien and W139, located in the toilets of W139. FLUSH operates as a flexible form of organizing and creating, enabling various types of collaboration. FLUSH aims to foster inter-local relationships, viewing Amsterdam as a hub for facilitating diverse interactions and building connections that bridge distances. Joyful, friendly and decentralized connections extend beyond the Amsterdam art scene.

FLUSH #6: NO PARES (SIGUE SIGUE)

PRODUCE, HAVE FUN, IMPROVE AND SMILE! by Sergi Casero

Like hamsters on a wheel, we run in a race that has no finish line – because every now and then another goal appears on the horizon. This performance is for everyone who feels overwhelmed by too many responsibilities and activities. For those who are learning a new language, playing an instrument, obsessively setting goals and making to-do-lists, or in a constant quest for fulfilment, self-development and being a better version of themselves. Every second counts! In an achievement society doing nothing is a grave sin. But we are more than the sum of our achievements, or are we? How does the productivity obsession shape our desires, our bodies and our limits?

Through the structure of a spinning class, NO PARES (sigue sigue) confronts the hidden violence within neoliberal ideals of efficiency, self-optimization, and endless improvement.

How did we buy the neoliberal tale that we are the architects of our own fate?
Can we resist? Can we break free from the inertia of productivity and its seductive pull?

Join us for this participatory performance – an opportunity to reflect and endure.

Doors open — 18:30
Performance — 19:30
End — 20:30

The artist is supported by Amsterdam Fund for the Arts

Curatorial Text: José Rosales
Production: Julia Nowicka and Espacio Estamos Bien
Design: Sergi Casero

Rainbow Social Music Club

Join us for a drink to celebrate the end of the exhibition together with the Rainbow Soulclub members in an informal gathering followed by a sonic activation by The Social Music Club from 20:00 hrs onwards.

The Social Music Club is a participatory music session for musicians, non-musicians, amateurs, and professionals alike hosted by Aimée Theriot and Koen Nutters. In these gatherings for musical improvisation without dogmas, the emphasis lies on meeting and getting to know each other, while also discussing, putting into practice and stretching the understanding of what exactly music is and can be. Bring an instrument, an object or your own voice if you want to join.

Rainbow Soulclub is an art and solidarity collective founded in 2005 by visual artists Saskia Janssen and George Korsmit. Composed of makers and thinkers coming from different social, economic, and cultural backgrounds, they meet regularly at the collective studio in the drop-in centre of Stichting De Regenboog Groep, an organisation in Amsterdam dedicated to people experiencing homelessness, addiction, poverty, and the challenges that come with undocumented status.

This event is free, but The Social Music Club has a limited capacity so please register here via Eventbrite.

Storytelling Evening

Get ready for a special double bill performance night of theatrical storytelling with Sipan Sezgin Tekin and Basak Layic at W139, in collaboration with TuzBiber.

Theatre maker and actor Sipan Sezgin Tekin will take us through an immersive theatrical experience that will blur the boundaries between fiction and reality. Presented in the format of a language class, the performance YEK/E will provide reflections on political and existential realities by exploring themes such as multilingualism, identity politics, and the embodiment of language.

Basak Layic’s Divine Madness will invite viewers to reflect on the transformative and connecting nature of storytelling as a way of bridging cultural gaps. By infusing comedic situations into serious narratives, we will explore the complex yet universal human condition through the depths of madness and the divine feminine.

Sîpan Sezgin Tekin, born in Amed, Kurdistan in 1996 and now based in Turkey and The Netherlands, is a performer, theater maker, and actor. As an artist and nomad, Tekin’s exploration of meaning is expressed through a fusion of performance, choreography, sound, and documentary, drawing from an oral tradition of narrative and storytelling. His work provides dynamic reflections on political and existential realities, weaving together mythological and real stories to craft experimental narrative performances, blurring the boundaries between fiction and reality. Tekin examines the political dynamics of language as a power dynamic and delves into identity politics, exploring themes of multilingualism and the embodiment of language in performance for enhanced accessibility and narrative diversity. His artistic inquiry focuses on the embodied communicative and sensory potential of language, aiming to create immersive theatrical and performative experiences.

Başak Layic wears multiple hats as a theatermaker, storyteller, artistic director, and community builder. Born and raised in Istanbul, her endeavors continually captivate and unite audiences, highlighting the transformative influence of storytelling in bridging cultural gaps and fostering a profound understanding of humanity. After moving to the Netherlands in 2019, Başak became a household storyteller at Mezrab and later wrote her first play: The Millennial Immigrant, for the Amsterdam Fringe Festival, directed by Mara van Nes. This marked the beginning of a series of creative collaborations between the duo. Since then Basak has had the privilege of taking the stage in various Amsterdam venues as a storyteller. By infusing comedic moments into serious narratives, she strives to address the universal human condition and unite diverse audiences.

Reserve your spot via the Eventbrite page here.
Tickets: € 7,50

Student tickets: € 5

Images by Elodie Vreeburg