In a 2024 interview with British Vogue, FKA twigs defined “eusexua” as the feeling of being so transformed by euphoria that you transcend the human body – a feeling of “pure nothingness, but also pure focus.”
When you listen to “EUSEXUA,” her Grammy-winning album, and its subsequent installment, “Afterglow,” you’re transported by this deeply pleasurable liminality. It’s both mellifluous and glitchy, angelic and edgy, alien and deeply familiar. It is eusexua (eusexual?).
Twigs’ “Body High” tour, her first tour since the COVID-19 pandemic, brings this wriggling, writhing, and weird eusexua to life.
Monday night’s concert at the Coca-Cola Roxy was the second stop on the “Body High” tour, transforming the venue into an ethereal queer rave. Russian electronic artist Eartheater opened the show (Brutalismus 3000, Tokischa, and Yves Tumor will join as openers in other cities), and during her two-hour set, Twigs performed tracks from “EUSEXUA” as well as fan favorites from across her catalog, and an unreleased but potentially forthcoming song, which twigs called “one of the most beautiful songs [she’s] written.”
The production of “Body High” was simple; the set included only scaffolding and poles while the light design and digital elements – like colorful and distorted footage shot live by an onstage performer with a handheld camera – did the heavy lifting. But what truly defined the show as a visual masterpiece were the dancers.
As the name “Body High” suggests, the body was the star of the show: Six queer male-presenting dancers writhed together like they were at Future at 3 a.m. They vogued one moment, jerked and contorted the next. They flexed their muscles and performed synchronized choreography like you would expect at a pop concert, then moved together like a single entity, a moving sculpture of flesh. Twigs and a seventh, femme-presenting dancer climbed and contorted on poles and used chains like aerial silks.
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Addressing the audience halfway between the set, twigs called the show a collaborative effort between her and the dancers, and this collaboration was obvious. Some of the dancers even played instruments and sang, and while FKA twigs was the name on the marquee, everybody on the stage played a critical role in making the show more than a live playlist.
Twigs also called “EUSEXUA” a collaboration between her and her fans, and spoke emphatically about how much the crowd meant to her. She noted that she had worked for nearly two decades to find the community that she saw in the crowd that night: people who were different and unafraid of expressing themselves.
The audience was young, queer, and largely Black, reminiscent of Atlanta’s own underground queer nightlife scene. (It was unsurprising, therefore, to find that some of Atlanta’s coolest queer DJs were hosting an “Xsexua” afterparty.)
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“Body High” is a queer phantasmagoria that is sure to leave everyone a bigger fan of FKA twigs than they already were. It’s sexy and sweaty and fun, and it’s surreal and freaky and breathtaking – much like twigs herself. The tour will travel throughout the U.S., Canada, Mexico, and Europe now through June. Tickets can be purchased on Ticketmaster.