RAW FUTURA is a study of chatartic matters.

Initiated in late 2023, with a series of raworkshops, different dancers, performers, actors and even a dog are invited to experiment with slime and laughter, an explosive and senseless combination called upon to tackle the most serious subjects in a playful way.

In these laboratories, a dramaturgy is in the making, involving rebellious bubbles, dubious beauty and skin-deep sexuality.

In 2024, the  slippery research draws inspiration from the mythological figure and goddess of the wild and unspoiled, Artemis. Disobedient and at odds with civilization, Artemis dances and sings, surrounded by dogs and muses, in wet, moonlit swamps. Her sacred temple, the fourth wonder of Antiquity, was rebuilt and in turn looted, burnt and demolished by the arrival of Christianity, leaving only a single column representing Artemis filled with mysterious protuberances whose meaning was never agreed upon in the centuries that followed.

Playing with slime quickly became a pretext for continuing to produce meanings about Artemis’ protuberances, inflating them to bursting point, like bubbles. Mocking, defying, transgressive and liberating slime bubbles, that like second skins crack, explode, breathe, laugh, giving birth to  mutant reinvented representations.

During 2025, a second phase is initiated around a totally different figure, the robot whose machine-like beauty has shaped the entire aesthetic of science fiction, Futura. Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, the first film to be inscribed on UNESCO’s Memory of the World Register, deals with a futuristic version of the Golem myth embodied by Futura, a female robot elevated to the rank of technological deity to whom humans submit. The purity of its overall shape, its smooth, transparent, gleaming appearance, its sparkling metallic finesse, make Futura a model and an aesthetic shift away from the protuberant Artemis. Visual artist and clothing designer Miguel Olmeda is invited to think about a malleable metal costume that bends under the weight of articulated flesh bodies, revealing and unifying the secret correspondences between organic and inorganic matter.

Adding metal to the equation, Raw Futura becomes a game of smooth and rough matters forced to exceed their properties, liberating our bodies from the contamination of polished aesthetics.

artistic direction : Sabina Scarlat

Guest performers : Pascale Gigon, Caterina Campo, Sophie Warnant, Elie Tass, Charlie Cattrall, Aretti Chourdaki, Marie Indeko Loleke, Tamara Gvozdenovic, Francesca Saraullo, Alessia Wyss, Pepe Kasses, Baptiste Conte, Nana Bilus Abafi and Plume (the dog).

Costume collaboration : Miguel Olmeda

Production : PILOTA
Coproduction : Charleroi-Danse
Residencies : La Factory, Garage29, BAMP, THOR STUDIO, Charleroi-Danse.

This project is supported by a research grant from the Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles.

This project is supported by Danse Dense.