Night Fever: Scissor Sisters and Young Fathers stars to launch V&A Dundee's club culture exhibition

Scissor Sisters star Ana Matronic and Young Fathers rapper Kayus Bankole are to help launch V&A Dundee's celebration of nightclubbing next month.

They will be taking part in a virtual club night which party-goers all over the world will be able to attend at the end of the first week of the exhibition, Night Fever.

Scotland's most celebrated nightclubs will be highlighted alongside some of the best-known venues from around the world in the show, which opens to the public on Saturday.

Plans for the virtual club night – which will feature a mix of live DJ sets, film, talks and experimetal performances - have been revealed as nightclubs await a possible reopening date in Scotland.

The four-and-a-half-hour event the following Friday – Tay Late: And the Beat Goes On – will get underway in Dundee and make visits to Glasgow, Dublin, New York and London.

American star Matronic, who shot to film with the Scissor Sisters in 2004, has performed all over the world as a DJ, presents the weekly Dance Devotion show on BBC Radio 2.

Matronic will be joining the event with a DJ set from her studio in New York which will include tracks inspired by clubs around the world.

Bankole, who formed Young Fathers with Alloysious Massaquoi and Graham 'G' Hastings in Edinburgh in 2008, will unveil a new short film billed as an exploration of “dance, communal experience and togetherness.”

Scissors Sister star Ana Matronic is to perform at V&A Dundee's Night Fever launch - from her studio in New York.

Matronic said: “Night clubs have always been spaces for innovation and exploration, and places for finding yourself as well as an escape from the everyday.

“My own personal evolution would not have been as grand or fabulous had I not spent my nights in sweaty, glorious communion with my fellow dancers, drag queens, and denizens of the disco.

“It is my privilege and honour to join forces with V&A Dundee to pay tribute to the vast culture that not only allows for fun and frivolity, but also for deep connection, self-inquiry and growth.”

Night Fever, which will run until January, will look at the how nightclubs have brought architecture, art, fashion, graphics, lighting, performance and sound together, from the 1960s to the present day.

Young Fathers star Kayus Bankole will be taking part in the V&A Dundee event.

Nichol Keene, creative programmer at V&A Dundee, said: “At a time when clubs and communal experiences have been starkly absent from our lives, we’re excited to be bringing together designers, DJs, artists, musicians and more to celebrate these important spaces and the people that make them.

"Doing this digitally means we can invite audiences to tune in from all over the world.

“The night will kick-off with a DJ set from Dundee’s very own Le Freak Records before heading over to Dublin for a special director’s cut of the 2021 mini-documentary Clubbing is Culture - a love letter to Ireland’s nightclubs.

“Later we will have moving image work by Glasgow DJ and performance artist TAAHLIAH and Middle Eastern visual and performance artist HUSS. Artist Farah Hussain, who is studying at the University of Dundee’s Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, has contributed a short film inspired by queer spaces.

“Throughout the night, audio reactive visuals from designer Connor Campbell will punctuate the sets. Our final stop will be in London for an after party with award-winning virtual LGBTIQ+ hosts Queer House Party.”

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