‘Sia: Nostalgic for the Present’ Review: A Concert Performance Film from 2016, but It Channels Sia’s Mystery and Power
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- Sia performs throughout the 2016 concert film 'Nostalgic for the Present' without ever showing her face, wearing a half-blonde, half-black wig with bangs that obscure her features, reinforcing her identity as a concealed, abstract vessel for emotional power.
- Maddie Ziegler dances prominently in the film at age 14, delivering intense, contorted physical performances that mirror the emotional ferocity of Sia’s music, continuing her role from earlier Sia music videos.
- Kristen Wiig, Paul Dano, Ben Mendelsohn, and Gaby Hoffman each appear in individual dance segments within the film, all wearing variations of the same two-tone wig, creating a unified, ritualistic visual motif across performers.
- Sia: Nostalgic for the Present was originally created for her 2016 tour and consists of 75 minutes of projected dance videos, now re-released in theaters as a standalone performance film over a decade later.
- Sia’s music, including hits like 'Chandelier,' 'Titanium,' 'Unstoppable,' and 'The Greatest,' is featured in the film as anthems of strength and feminine resilience, with her vocal style compared to Amy Winehouse produced by Giorgio Moroder.
- The film’s aesthetic centers on a recurring two-tone wig worn by dancers, crew, and performers, resembling a 'New York black-and-white cookie' transformed into a symbolic emblem of duality and talismanic power.
Why it matters: The re-release revives attention on Sia’s deliberate retreat from personal visibility at the peak of her fame, highlighting how her artistic power was tied not to celebrity exposure but to abstraction and performance ritual—offering a countermodel to the typical pop-star persona. This framing gains relevance amid renewed comparisons to Lady Gaga’s more visible reinventions.
