Introduction to the fall of 2023 at MDT Moderna Dansteatern

In this autumn's programme, we invite you to the future and cutting-edge of dance and choreography with both local and international dance artists. 

This autumn's grand attraction is an international guest performance by the renowned New Zealand/Belgian performing artist Kate McIntosh, who will also open the new season. For the interactive work Lake Life, we invite an audience between 14 and 100 years old to explore the depths of ourselves with the help of other creatures. Interactive works may seem daunting but we can assure you that this is imaginative, existential and very kind. 

We are proud to present two choreographers and dancers who are presenting a stage performance under their own names at MDT for the first time: Mona Namér and Bianca Traum. Birth Liquid by Namér is a dance performance and an audiovisual experience that is inspired by the biological metamorphosis that happens in a cocoon. Using dance styles such as hip-hop and house as well as movement textures such as flow and groove the dancers elaborate on concepts like identity, vulnerability, exhaustion, dreams, struggle, collective and balance. With TR3I Traum leads her own transitional ritual influenced by pop culture, Romanian folklore and mythology. The performance investigates how inbetweenness affects and can transform one’s identity(ies) through her flow-practice. 

For the third year in a row, we will be continuing our hit concept of a long performance period in Studio 1. This year it's several attempts at braiding my way home by Adam Seid Tahir & Amina Seid Tahir, a work that brings together strategies for creating a home in an Afronordic landscape. Adam Seid Tahir is also MDT's selected dance artist for Creative Crossroads, a two-year international support programme for choreographers within the EU network Life Long Burning.

Mette Edvardsen, a frequently presented choreographer at MDT, returns to us with Livre d'images sans images (picture book without pictures), a work in three parts: a stage performance, an LP and drawings. Edvardsen shares the stage with her daughter in this work inspired by Hans Christian Andersen. 

There will be more world premieres when Aleksandar Georgiev, Zhana Pencheva and Darío Barreto Damas (who together form the artistic team STEAM ROOM) present dragON forever, the third part of the choreographic trilogy dragON, which draws inspiration from the drag scene. Following dragON aka PONY (also presented during Kulturnatt Stockholm 2023) and dragON aka PHOENIX, the trio explores lip-sync in relation to choreography and dance.

And speaking of the final parts of trilogies, Pontus Petterson takes on the final part of the trilogy MOPA. In the dancy group piece MOPA - The Last Stand with six dancers, Petterson returns to the classic choreographic tools of time and space. Petterson's characteristic way of mixing different practices and genres, where text, objects, sculpture and choreographic instructions are also present in the piece. 

No season without a festival, and this fall there will be two! First, we have the honor to present EarEye, a traveling festival (Norrlandsoperan, Umeå and Inkonst, Malmö) that blurs the line between music and performing arts, curated by choreographer and dancer Alma Söderberg. The last stop of the festival is MDT, which will present works by experimental flamenco dancers Jossette Reilly and Phyllis Akinyi together with musician Afra Rubino, vocalist Sofia Jernberg and performing artist/musician Stina Fors. The second festival is September Sessions, a brand-new contemporary art festival taking place from September 21 to 24 in Stockholm. Accelerator, coyote, Filmform, IASPIS, Index, Konsthall C, Liljevalchs, Mint, Tensta konsthall and MDT are participating.

But first of all, we will have a soft opening of this season on September 5-6 with a symposium and publication release: In the Mirror of Care Work. This two-day performance symposium invites professionals in the fields of performers and care workers to take part in the project's methods of storytelling and performative interviews, reading sessions with texts from the project's publication, and poetic score works for collective reflections. In the Mirror of Care Work is initiated by performance artist Inga Gerner Nielsen with a knowledge production team consisting of choreographer, Ar Utke Acs, and publisher Nat Marcus.

Welcome to MDT Moderna Dansteatern this autumn! 

Anna Efraimsson

Theater Director, MDT Moderna Dansteater