‘Sia: Nostalgic for the Present’ Review: A Concert Performance Film from 2016, but It Channels Sia’s Mystery and Power
(When you heard that she was really Stefani Germanotta from New York City, you would think: Really, who is that?) Sia, born in Australia 10 years before...
Key points
- (When you heard that she was really Stefani Germanotta from New York City, you would think: Really, who is that?) Sia, born in Australia 10 years before Lady Gaga, had a career that predated hers as well.
- “Sia: Nostalgic for the Present,” which opens tomorrow and is showing in select theaters for a limited run, is a performance film that was originally created for Sia’s 2016 Nostalgic for the Present tour, and in the entire movie you never once see Sia’s face.
- “Sia: Nostalgic for the Present” is basically a 75-minute-long series of dance videos that were designed to be projected onstage during the tour, with live performers mirroring the movements in the videos.
- The featured star is, of course, Maddie Ziegler, the whirling dervish of a child dancer who pranced and flung and gyrated her way through three celebrated Sia music videos; she was 14 when the Nostalgic for the Present tour unfolded.
What happened
(When you heard that she was really Stefani Germanotta from New York City, you would think: Really, who is that?) Sia, born in Australia 10 years before Lady Gaga, had a career that predated hers as well. “Sia: Nostalgic for the Present,” which opens tomorrow and is showing in select theaters for a limited run, is a performance film that was originally created for Sia’s 2016 Nostalgic for the Present tour, and in the entire movie you never once see Sia’s face. “Sia: Nostalgic for the Present” is basically a 75-minute-long series of dance videos that were designed to be projected onstage during the tour, with live performers mirroring the movements in the videos. The featured star is, of course, Maddie Ziegler, the whirling dervish of a child dancer who pranced and flung and gyrated her way through three celebrated Sia music videos; she was 14 when the Nostalgic for the Present tour unfolded. This weekend, if you go to “Sia: Nostalgic for the Present,” what you’re seeing is a 10-year-old movie (and a promotional one at that), so it’s severely lacking in the shock of the new. I retain a special adoration for “Chandelier,” a song of hedonistic assertion and underlying ambivalence...
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