FKA twigs // Kings Theatre, New York, 2019 – Red Dziri
Vivid memory snapshots have a tendency to sneak up on you when you least expect them to. Flashbacks interrupt mundane acts so regularly you start paying less attention. A smile in the sun you’ve seen before, a voice deemed familiar, strangers passing in the streets: all are potential triggers for those introspective surges.
On rare occasions you experience them collectively. Some unearthly force draws the most intimate recollections out of a crowd reduced to admirative silence. FKA twigs’ Brooklyn stop on the MAGDALENE tour at Kings Theatre in 2019 was such an occasion. Reverence was palpable throughout a performance that started with a whimsical tap dancing sequence and took the audience through a storyline complete with elegant swordplay, bestial choreography and an exquisite pole dancing excursion.
The odyssey came to a close with a rendition of ‘cellophane’ that transcended into a collective Proust madeleine. No one made a sound for seconds turned eternal before we all came back to our senses and united in a euphoric standing ovation. And it wasn’t the typical kind where you join in for fear of being singled out. For a brief moment we had been one and it felt worth celebrating.