F*cking Future, Marco da Silva Ferreira
Marco da Silva Ferreira, F*cking Future © João Octávio
Urgh that was just so cool man.
That’s it. That’s the review. We can pack up our bags now. She’s done it. She’s written the review to end all reviews. Why should any other critic ever bother again? The Pulitzer is hers.
No, but in all seriousness, the latest work from Marco da Silva Ferreira, last seen in London presenting CARCAÇA at the Rose Prize showcase last year, just oozed cool. Enviable cool. The kind of cool where you want to be them, but there is no way you could ever touch their level and by trying you fail instantly. The ‘you can’t sit with us’ cool that’s somehow also down to earth and totally a girl’s girl.
Encased by audiences on all four sides of the stage, his troupe of nine dancers transported us to a sweaty club for an hour-long hypnotic rave. They walked then jolted to a stop then walked again in repeated patterns across the floor, dancers joining and re-joining from the corners of the stage. In amongst the walking (and there was a lot of it) were hints of salsa and voguing, a moonwalk even entered the scene at one point and songs of rebellion (“I don’t care what people say”) were shouted. Their arms flowed around their bodies and their heels shuffled in a particular way that made them look like they were skating across the shiny black floor. Near the end, the dancers fully broke out of this restrained movement to climb over the audience, only to reappear on the other side of the stage to climb back down through them again.
Marco da Silva Ferreira, F*cking Future © Blandine Soulage
It really had no business being as enthralling as it was. It was, for all intents and purposes, highly repetitive. The work took an age to move on from the original walking and, dynamically, many of the faster highs were short-lived before we re-entered the status quo. da Silva Ferreira’s aim with this work was to create ‘machine guns in a state of grace’, to reflect on the rigidity of a society facing issues such as toxic masculinity and militarisation. While this repetitiveness, and the breaking from it, reflects this, I can’t say that the sweeping aims of the work were particularly clear. In the moment, it felt like a hedonistic expression of freedom. The sort of moment you see on TV when a beleaguered character loses themselves to drugs or alcohol during a slow-mo club scene.
The strength of the work, and my hypothesis as to its hypnotism, was in its production quality. Dance costuming can feel a little outdated, but the dancer’s vinyl trousers and chainmail tops, paired with pink eyeshadow sweeping the underside of their eyes (and one dancer’s fantastic blonde moustache) felt Gen-Z approved, à la mode and a little bit futuristic. The electronic score pulsed and switched with certainty, a relieving change from the many droll versions of this musical genre contemporary dance often makes me sit through. Laser-style lighting from the ceiling added interest to a work that was inherently set-less due to its 360 seating. They scanned the floor, created a triangular wall of light and encased the dancers.
Marco da Silva Ferreira, F*cking Future © Blandine Soulage
But arguably most impressive was Ferreira’s confident use of the dancers themselves. The shapes the group moved around the stage in smoothly and continuously morphed, adding interest where the choreography otherwise didn’t change. This was helped by the dancer’s dedication to the piece. They really sold it, all the more impressive when the work was evidently tiring and likely difficult to count due to the mass of repetition.
I’m going to be honest, I went into this with low expectations. I didn’t get to see Ferreria’s Rose Prize-nominated work last year and word on the street was that it wasn't that great. However, having witnessed his work for myself, I can see why the Portuguese choreographer is having quite the moment (he was recently awarded the Chanel Next Prize 2026). His style is confident, fresh and assured. I look forward to seeing what he brings to London next.
★★★★
F*cking Future, Marco da Silva Ferreira
Sadler’s Wells East, London / 4 June 2026
Press ticket
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