Aurora at Wembley Arena
Like Alice peering through the looking glass, Aurora emerges from a beam of light on-screen. With her arms draped in front of her, swaying to the music, her eyes wander in search of an escape. Silencing the whispering voices fluttering around her, she stares into the audience and asks, “Are you awake?”
With a jolting scream, the Norwegian singer bursts on stage in a flowing white gown, the matching ribbons tied to her arms completing her whimsical gothic aura. Opening with Churchyard, Aurora creates her own wonderland, with a touch of impending danger. As she has established with her lyrics, she is unafraid to confront the balance of light and dark that haunts her, and her What Happened to the Earth? tour becomes a further glimpse into the artist’s mind.
She greets us with, “Hello, beautiful people of flesh and bone,” before acknowledging the maggots that have somehow found their way on stage. Explaining her childhood love of insects, she apologises to them in advance for causing a disturbance. “You are loved!” she shouts, pointing to one that rests near her foot. It is a bizarre tangent, but a welcome one. After all, Aurora is unpredictable, a visionary talent that frees herself in her imagination while rooting us all in humanity.
Throughout her performance, there is a common thread of being “watched”. Birds circle ahead for the entire show, and The River introduces her band, who mimic the birds that surround her and lend their harmonies. A crescent moon with roaming eyeballs glares at the audience during the bewitching All Is Soft Inside. Clones of herself appear frequently on-screen, most notably during When the Dark Dresses Lightly where her two selves are at war with each other, each wielding a dagger and dodging the other’s strikes. Aurora curates a surrealist dreamscape, elevating her craft to lure each audience member into her world.
She prances across the stage, a woman possessed as she fully loses herself in the cascading club beats and wistful folk guitars that complete her set; she admirably refuses to be defined by genre. Her stage presence is a perfect blend of Florence Welch and Björk, as she wields their mystique with every twirl across the stage and reveals her quirky personality. As she jests with the audience by mimicking their screams and poignantly addresses the need for human connection and empathy, she has a charm that is irresistible.
For her encore, she promises, “We will all get cradled into the abyss, together.” With her final bow, she kneels to the ground and picks up the last maggot standing, holding out her palm for applause. A beguiling departure from Aurora and her strange, beautiful fantasy.
Paulina Subia
Photos: Gonzalo Lopez
For further information and future events visit Aurora’s website here.
Watch the video for the single The Weight of Missing here:
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