Ever since learning to pole dance for her “Cellophane” video, FKA Twigs has stuck with the artform. Now she has chronicled a moving experience she had with pole dancing in a new video, titled “We Are The Womxn,” made in partnership with WeTransfer.
The video explains, “In late 2019 FKA Twigs traveled to perform at Afropunk Festival in Atlanta. There she joined forces with healer and spiritual leader Queen Afua to host a moon dance in celebration of the sacred womxn. After the moon dance, Twigs led the womxn to Blue Glame: Atlanta landmark and the city’s first Black strip club. Summoning the divine feminine, together they created an environment in which womxn danced for each other.”
Twigs said of the experience:
“I decided to hold the second part of the all-female and femme sacred moon dance at Blue Flame, firstly to honor the heritage of pole dancing, but also to create a matriarchal dominance in a space that’s usually filled with, and run by, male energy. […] I found it incredibly powerful to see womxn admiring and encouraging each other to dance and celebrate all different expressions of femininity and the female form. The space was filled with laughter and joy, something that Queen Afua advocates as a form of healing for the womb. […]
For the past few years I’ve been curious about [my personal traumas], and actively trying to not only heal [them] but to also set free the ancestral traumas I carry with me. These traumas don’t belong to me, and should not hold me back, but they do…as a woman of color, the lineage of pain within my bloodline can be deafening, like tinnitus that only I can hear, so to be able to acknowledge my search for healing and peaceful silence amongst womxn who may feel the same was incredibly comforting. […]
I’m actually pretty shy, but I felt so encouraged to dance and enjoy my body by all the amazing womxn who came together. I particularly bonded with one dancer at Blue Flame [named] Kharisma. She had such vibrant energy and at the beginning of the night she called the other girls on to the stage to be admired and supported in their expression. My experience at the Blue Flame solidified that, although historically womxn are often pitched against each other for their looks or their assets by the patriarchy, when left to our own devices we are incredibly nurturing and healing for each other.”
Watch the “We Are The Womxn” video above.