FKA twigs directs a skateboarding film for the Olympics
FKA twigs wears hoodie PALACE, rings HANNAH MARTIN and earrings BENTLEY AND SKINNER
In celebration of skateboarding being at the Games for the first time, twigs has teamed up with Facebook to document the art of longboard-dancing.
Culture
Words: Jade Wickes
If FKA twigs has proven anything over the course of her career, it’s that she really can do it all. Alongside singing, producing, songwriting and pole-dancing, she’s been consistently hands-on with her music videos. She’s often credited as the co-director of her jaw-dropping visuals – from breakout tracks like Papi Pacify, to this year’s Headie One collab Don’t Judge Me, which she created with Emmanuel Adjei.
Last week, twigs’ musical collaborator Koreless shared a video twigs had directed for his track White Picket Fence. Now, we have something that could be loosely described as an FKA twigs-directed skate video. Well, sort of.
As skateboarding makes its Olympic debut at the Tokyo games this year, Facebook has launched an Olympics campaign with ad agency Droga5 in recognition of the sport. Its aim is to bring together a selection of directors, who have been given the task of spotlighting how Facebook keeps skateboarding communities connected around the world.
Facebook has enlisted FKA twigs to direct one of the project’s accompanying videos, Longboard Family – a two-minute film which looks beyond longboarding – a sport closely related to skateboarding – as a convenient mode of transport. Instead, it centres around longboard dancing, a technique which sees graceful longboarders balance elegantly on their boards while performing various dance moves.
According to LBBOnline, globally, over 5.7 million people are members of skateboarding groups on Facebook. twigs’ artful mini-film, which follows longboarders in Seoul, Barcelona and Los Angeles, emphasises the social media platform as a crucial meeting point for fellow skaters to share advice, a trick or two, and uplift one another all in the name of good sport.
With the film featuring longboard champions Aboubakry Seck, Giu Alfeo, Marina Correia and Brandon DesJarlais, twigs wrote in an Instagram post that “it was so amazing being immersed into their world and as a movement artist and obsessor myself I felt humbled by the skill levels and beautiful athletes that I shot.”
Hopefully we’ll get to see more of twigs’ directorial chops soon, as she revealed she was working on a martial arts TV show in her conversation with Michaela Coel for THE FACE in February. Hi-yah!
