A SMART reviewer shouldn’t approach a performance with too many expectations, but that’s difficult ahead of an FKA twigs show. In the weeks leading up to her MIF residency, speculation about the singer, dancer and visual artist billed as ‘the greatest entertainer of the past ten years’ was rife. Manchester hungrily snapped up tickets without much of a synopsis of the show that lay ahead.
“She was spotted in an astrology shop in London,” said a man with a pointy moustache in the MIF Festival Pavilion, “She’s clearly going to explore an astrophysical theme.”
It seems part of the FKA twigs hype is the deliciousness of the pent-up mystery. He was wrong, mind.
Soundtrack 7 isn’t a performance as it is a prequel to one to come.
FKA twigs as a director is self-effacing.
Over seven days Twigs would be weaving a narrative of her life using her much talked about visual prowess. By the end, she will have created a film and new dance-based performance piece which she’ll debut in a live show – another hot ticket. Here, small groups of twenty would be privy to the full creative process for 40mins. There was hope it would provide a tiny insight into what it takes for 27-year-old Tahliah Barnett to transform into the otherworldly - almost extra-terrestrial - girl with calligraphied hair around the napes of her forehead.
Before entering Old Granada Studios, there were ground rules: no phones, no talking, no applauding, stay at the back. Hopes for audience participation quickly dissipated. We'd be mere voyeurs.
A shirtless male dancer begins to dance under a line of spotlights to song Closer (a haunting, electronic hymn) from her heavily praised album LP1. He moved with permeable fluidity while his expressive face appeared tortured under the stark lights of the studio. A loud directorial command of ‘CUT!’ destroys the moment. This was just a tease.
"That was amazing,” says a pigtailed Twigs, emerging from the shadows. “More lights, more often,” she orders the crew.
To her dancer: “Can you act as if you’re, kinda like, affected by the light?”
FKA twigs as a director is self-effacing.
Her delicate voice is diminutive yet still heard amongst her fifteen-strong team members. She’s hands-on in the way the best directors are; even taking over from the make-up artist.
It’s refreshing to see. Twigs emerges as a pop icon in control of her art. Here, Soundtrack 7 legitimises her role as an all-encompassing visual artist – her status as ‘pop-star’ less so.
Soundtrack 7 follows a week of spectacular MIF visual and musical feats. And I wonder whether it would have been intriguing to see McGregor, Jamie XX and Eliasson create the spectacular ballet Tree Of Codes. There’s few opportunities to watch an artist at work.
Yet the creative process is painstakingly repetitive, gruelling and sometimes, boring – from an audience standpoint, anyway. At Soundtrack 7 crew talk amongst themselves and FKA twigs blinkers herself from the audience she usually engages with. The mystique is diminished.
The final piece remains under wraps before 16 - 17 July. Good. There’s a magic in the not knowing. The beauty lies in the mystery.
FKA twigs is in residence at Old Granada Studios until Weds 15 July, she will premiere her new work in four shows on Fri 17 to Sat 18 July.
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