Twigs was raised in rural England and trained in ballet, though, as she told LATimes, “I knew I was never going to be a ballet dancer…. I didn’t have that facility. I did enjoy it, but I always knew that my body wasn’t made to do that. I have flat feet, curvature in my spine, I can’t do some things that ballet requires you to do, but I can jump high because my Achilles are long, and that’s an aspect of my heritage.”
Mostly all Twigs’ dancers are from the hood, and possess raw talent. Dominant (Wet Wipez), Benjamin Milan, Mamadou Bathily, Kaner Scott, Ross Sands, and Denzel Daniels- are killing the choreography. More than just a krumping crew, Twigs relys on their energy. The dancers’ moves are integrated into the show, and their bodies are trained to mimick the music’s drum machines and synthesizers.
“Congregata,” she said, is the name she uses “whenever I take my dancers with me to tell a story.” Milan is trying to teach her to Vogue. While most celebs are in NYC for fashion week, F.K.A. Twigs is there attending underground kiki balls, where dancers critique each other. Dominant even introduced her to LA’s own, Miss Prissy, at a youth center. Miss Prissy is friends with Larry ‘The Clown’ Berry. Berry studied under Tommy The Clown. They were both featured in David LaChapelle’s 2005 documentary Rize. FKA Twigs is ripping the swag off the people who founded ‘krumping’. The dance form spread all the way to London.
In the final moments at Hollyweird’s FYF Fest, the crowd was spooked by Twigs’ spooky shrills, and vampire-ish vibe.
The final dance at FYF was choreographed to “How’s That,” a song from her 2013 release, “EP2.” When she describes the story of the dance later, at Soho House, she’s solidly pragmatic about her future. (Raised on an infinite number of documentaries available on YouTube, young musicians are much less likely to believe a career in music is a long-lasting or solid thing.)
Twigs described the dance she and Sillis created, which saw each of the dancers menacing Twigs with their signature moves and then running off stage. Several times, Twigs chased the dancers and then stopped herself. When all of the dancers had left, she went to a small platform centered upsatge and collapsed, followed by the lights cutting out.
“That dance signifies everybody leaving,” she said. “Everybody leaves you and you do get abandoned. You can put somebody’s name out there and help them get noticed and they’ll get work and build a career from dancing with you and go off and do their own thing. In the end, you’re the one that gets stabbed in the back. It’s like with your mom. You don’t realize how much washing and cleaning she does. You can seem ungrateful sometimes, because you don’t realize how much she’s doing for you, even when you don’t call her back that day. That’s the end bit, that thing of being thrown around, and at the end you’re completely by yourself. It’s sad, but it’s also kind of beautiful.”
