Adam Seid Tahir

Dawn

Main image of Dawn's Adam Seid Tahir

Photo: Adam Seid Tahir Dawn

Th 15.5.2025, 20:00-21:00, MDT

Fr 16.5.2025, 20:00-21:00, MDT

Sa 17.5.2025, 18:00-19:00, MDT

Su 18.5.2025, 15:00-16:00, MDT

"Dawn" is the first work in a series by Adam Seid Tahir that reinterprets the oldest Nordic runic alphabet through a queer Afro-Nordic lens. This runic alphabet is called the "Elder Futhark," and its origin is disputed, both in terms of mythical stories and geographical source.

This piece departs from the rune Dagaz, a rune symbolizing day, dawn, light and hope. But what can hope mean in the margins? Like all runes of the Elder Futhark, Dagaz carries many myths.

Through these stories "Dawn" forms reinterpretations and alternate associations for hope. With practices of engraving, etching, dragging and riding big matters, the room transforms into a shifting landscape in a never-ending cyclical dawn.

Adam Seid Tahir

Adam Seid Tahir (they/them) is a choreographer and creative technologist. Their two roles involve crafting performative work and designing/developing websites. These practices also merge and expand into writing texts, making video installations, 3D animation, crafting sensor-based instruments and building the new MDT website which launched in 2023. Seid Tahir uses speculative imagination as a tool of resistance and centres their work around creating loud and immersive black queer fiction. They are interested in mythological figures, daydreaming and crafting affective machines. These interests often intersect through water, where they take the shape of sirens, waterfalls and submerged transatlantic communication cables. In their latest works Seid Tahir keeps returning to the practice of braiding hair. Both its traditional meaning with its ancestral social traditions and through the expanded idea of braiding as a method for working together. In the latter notion Adam has recently collaborated with Amina Seid Tahir and the collective EMBRACE (Lydia Östberg Diakité, Meleat Fredriksson and Adam Seid Tahir).


They have presented their work in contexts including: Kunstenfestivaldesarts 2023 (BE), New Sh*t @ Dansehallerne 2022 (DK), Emergentia 2022 (CH), Batard 2022 (BE), My Wild Flag 2021 (SE) and Dubrovnik Summer Festival 2020 (HR). They have worked with other artists including: Bambam Frost, Pontus Pettersson, Frederic Gies, Theo Clinkard, Samlingen, Meleat Fredriksson, Lydia Östberg Diakité, Amina Seid Tahir, Paloma Madrid, Eleanor Bauer, Zoë Poluch and Michael Keegan-Dolan. They have studied courses and programmes including: Decolonial strategies within art and activism @ Uniarts (SE), Aesthetics @ LTU (SE), Programming for Artists @ Konstfack (SE), Ballet Junior de Geneve (CH) and Royal Swedish Ballet School (SE).

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Choreography & Performance

Sound Design

Lighting Design

Costume Design

Isabelle Edi

Co-produced by

Centrale Fies, Dansens Hus, MDT, Sophiensæle, Tou Scene, Slingan Tre Scener (Atalante, Dansstationen, MDT)

Supported by

Swedish Arts Council, The Swedish Arts Grants Committee, The City of Stockholm, Nordic Culture Point, Helge Ax:son Johnsons stiftelse

Co-production part of

Life Long Burning – Futures lost and found project (2023-2026) supported by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union.

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Life Long Burning (LLB)Co-funded by the European Union