As a starting point for an artist’s oeuvre, you don’t get much more symbolic than the womb. Contemporary and Highland dancer Charlotte Mclean’s first piece, a solo called And which garnered rave reviews at 2022’s Fringe, was about her experiences with her own womb. But when producer Helen McIntosh came to ask about her next piece, she still felt there was more to explore. ‘Helen was like “we want to make a new work.”’ Mclean recounts. ‘And I was like “brilliant.” “And what will that be?” Helen asked. “Oh, wombs still, but… what’s everybody else’s story?”’

The piece that emerged from that conversation is Futuristic Folktales. From the outset, Mclean says, she wanted it to be very much a collaborative work, in which every player, from composer Malin Lewis to cast members Orrow Bell and Astro Scheidegger, was able to bring their own experiences into the rehearsal space. ‘Everybody has come from a womb,’ says Mclean. ‘So there’s some sort of connection to this word, although a lot of people still don’t want to talk or even think about it.’

It was important to Mclean that a variety of bodies were present in the work, and that it subverted the usual womb imagery: ‘it could have been this very floaty, long hair, luscious womb, womb, womb, laaaaa,’ she sings. People of all genders have been involved from the start, and while the cast began by comprising a cis-woman, a non-binary person and a cis-man, eventually Mclean felt the two latter performers were better suited as a duet.  

‘We have had performers in the work that find the wombs they have very dysphoric,’ says Mclean. ‘And then there’s Astro, who doesn’t even have a womb, and is very young, nowhere near thinking about future generations or children.’ During this year’s Fringe, Scheidegger already had prior commitments so Seke Chimutengwende will join the cast instead. He has a 15-year-old son, bringing yet another perspective into the mix. ‘I think it’s cool that the work is really going to mature,’ Mclean says. The body is to an extent at the heart of the piece. But Futuristic Folktales is also about the womb as a site of genesis for art and storytelling, a protective space, a place of creation.

This idea resonated with Mclean not least because of her background in Highland dance, a practice rooted in its heritage, protected by its performers and reincarnated in every generation. As a custodian of the tradition, Mclean had the weighted task of passing it on to contemporary dancer Bell and breakdancer Scheidegger. ‘It was a big question of the work in terms of what story can you pass down? Or what dance can you dance, especially with folklore or traditional dance? Or even breakdance. Who can dance that? Which culture is this from? Do I belong there?’

The answer, with regard to Highland dancing in Futuristic Folktales, had to be yes. For Mclean, like the womb, that genre is essential to her work. ‘I think Highland dancing will always be there in some form. I’m really interested in how we can use it, rephrase it, reform it, transform it, into the now and the future.’

Futuristic Folktales, Assembly @ Dance Base, 13–18 August, 3.50pm.