Those who saw FKA twigs’ extraordinary Glastonbury performance this year, all silk, smoke and slick sensuality, will be unsurprised by her next move, or, more accurately, series of moves. The singer was a professional dancer before she turned to music, and has always incorporated spectacular movement into her live shows. For Soundtrack 7: The Performances, her contribution to the Manchester international festival, the focus is almost exclusively on motion. For seven days, the public have been invited to sit in on the real-time creation of a brand new dance-based performance piece rooted, we are told, in seven narratives from her own life, and set to her own music, old and new.
Those who did not get tickets have been able to follow its progress on a dense, abstract Tumblr page filled with short snippets of film; those who did are summoned to the Old Granada studios in small groups of around 30, where they will watch for an hour as the work comes together. The hope is for an experience like that of PJ Harvey’s recent Somerset House residency, Recording in Progress – the promise of intimate insight into the creative process which should, in turn, enhance the finished creation. I sit in on a couple of sessions for the work that will accompany How’s That, on the penultimate day of rehearsals. Before we enter, there are formalities to adhere to: no talking, no eating, phones off – a reminder that letting us sit in on this is a matter of trust, lest we be tempted to crack open a packet of Hula Hoops and start taking selfies in front of the stage. It’s all very serious, but as an extra layer of theatricality, it’s fun and adds to the intrigue. One last reminder before we’re let into the studio: we are not to clap. “This is absolutely not a performance,” says a nice volunteer, sternly.
It may not be a performance, but late in the day, it’s certainly near completion (of course, these hour-long spectator slots, staggered across the afternoon and evening, must bring something entirely different, depending on the time). Eight dancers, with twigs at the centre, position themselves in a line across a stage swirling with whirlpool-ish lights and a thickening carpet of dry ice. They run through the track once, moving and jerking and coming together and breaking apart, before coming to a standstill as three-man sculptures, pillars supporting the centrepiece that is twigs and her partner, who appear to be negotiating some sort of romantic pain. I look at the audience throughout the sessions to see where their eyes are in this busy, bustling room; inevitably, they are on on the star. She is silent-movie mesmerising, as part of the group, and out on her own.
The glacial magic that has captured the room shatters into a debrief, as the stage is towelled down, runners are sent out for more dry ice, and twigs talks her dancers through what she wants from them, with a quiet but authoritative air. “You all need to feel that a bit,” she says, gesturing to her face, telling one dancer to come in a bit more, the other to go further out, reminding them to stay in character, working out what she wants filmed, from where, and how. It is impressive, not least because you can practically feel the good will towards her from everyone present, from director to camera operator to makeup artist. When I wrote about FKA twigs’ debut album at the end of 2014, I said she was the year’s most promising pop star, clearly operating in a world of ingenuity and original ideas. For me, this glimpse behind the scenes only enhances that perception.
Two days later, it is time for the absolutely-not-a-performance precursor to be put away as Soundtrack 7 debuts in its entirety. It is strange to be in the same studio again with all the working fuss cleaned away, and it is hard not to be impressed that this has all come together in the space of a week. The 40-minute show is heavily reliant on the Thomas Wyatt poem I Find No Peace (a line from which also forms the backbone of Preface, the opening track from her debut), and she reads it in full, in that breathy, cut-glass, girlish voice. There are seven songs tonight (one, Mothercreep, is brand new), each with its unique dance piece telling some story, though I am not much clearer on what these narratives of her life are supposed to be: there is a hint at gang violence, some romantic entanglements, bad boys and heartbroken girls, all to the repetition of Wyatt’s words, particularly: “I desire to perish and yet I choose health / I love another and yet I hate myself”.
It is exquisitely tasteful and current, all geometric spotlights and minimal sportswear-Ophelia costumes, and it is fantastically watchable. I am no dance expert, but it sat perfectly with twigs’ music, so oddly spacious and inventive, filled to the brim with unexpected lurches and shifts. These bodies writhe and tangle to the beats, some deep emotional truths rendered in the dancers’ dramatic facial expressions. It is sparse and rough and beautiful. Twigs absents herself from a couple of the pieces, leaving those angular lights to shine upon her dancers, but when she is not there, she is missed – as soon as she returns to the stage, all eyes are on her again, unable to look anywhere else.
