FEATURE:
Moving in So Many Ways
IN THIS PHOTO: Lindsay Kemp and Kate Bush during the filming of 1993’s The Line, the Cross and the Curve/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
The Influence of the Late Lindsay Kemp on Kate Bush
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BACK in 2018…
many Kate Bush fans had to process the news that Lindsay Kemp died at the age of eighty. I am going to bring in some articles because, not only did Kemp transform Bush’s career and how she incorporated movement and theatre into her work, but he also made an impression on musicians like David Bowie. Kate Bush News reflected on the legacy and impact of Kemp on Bush’s music after his death in 2018:
“He taught me that you can express with your body – and when your body is awake so is your mind. He’d put you into emotional situations, some of them very heavy. Like he’d say, “right, you’re all going to become sailors drowning and there are waves curling up around you.” And everyone would just start screaming. Or maybe he’d turn you into a little piece of flame… (Kate Bush, 1978)
We were very sad to hear today of the passing of the great dancer, actor, teacher, mime artist, and choreographer, Lindsay Kemp. He was 80 years old and had been at his home in Livorno, Italy preparing for upcoming performances and writing his memoirs.
IN THIS PHOTO: Lindsay Kemp and Kate Bush during the filming of 1993’s The Line, the Cross and the Curve/PHOTO CREDIT: Guido Harari
When Kate reissued her album, The Red Shoes, in 2011 with a warm analogue remaster, she made sure to include a prominent new dedication on the sleeve-notes: “Special thanks to Lindsay Kemp, the most original artist ever, for being such an inspiration”. It was accompanied by a Guido Harari photograph of Lindsay in costume from the set of Kate’s film The Line, The Cross and The Curve, dancing manically on burning bones and grinning broadly, lost in the joy of the dance. For Kate Bush fans, Lindsay was one of those iconic reference points in Kate’s early story, like Gilmour, or East Wickham Farm or the KT Bush Band – her decision to attend his classes and learn how to extend her musical expression into movement and dance utterly changed the shape her career would take.
When Kate left school she had already mulled over the idea of dance but she couldn’t get accepted into a full-time ballet course as she didn’t have the qualifications. Famously, it was seeing Lindsay’s performance of ‘Flowers’ that convinced Kate to join his classes in 1976 at The Dance Centre in Covent Garden. Lindsay’s own website describes the celebrated show: “Kemp’s extremely free interpretation of Genet’s novel “Our Lady of the Flowers”, with himself playing the central role of Divine, a transvestite transcending gender in a world of criminals, whores and angels: prisons and sexual fantasies, Genet’s verbal violence and poetry transformed into music and gesture, silence and stillness. A dreamlike journey to destruction, through seduction, shock, laughter, poetry and total emotion.”
In recent interviews Lindsay humorously and affectionately recalled the teenage Kate Bush showing up at his classes.
“Kate turned up dressed very properly in her ballet tights and things and her hair scraped back looking very, very professional indeed, looking like a serious student, but as timid as hell! And of course she took a place at the back of the class. You know, I had to coax her forward, I mean she was extremely shy, extremely timid and the first thing I had to do was bring her out of herself, give her courage. I have to say, that once Kate actually started dancing, she was a WILD thing, I mean she was wild!”
Kate dedicated the opening song from her debut album, The Kick Inside, to Lindsay, much to his surprise and delight. The lyrics of ‘Moving’ describe the devastating effect Kate felt on seeing him in performance”.
Although he appeared in Kate Bush’s 1993 film, The Line, the Cross and the Curve, he did not feature too heavily elsewhere. I think his influence is enormous, mind. It is hard to think where Kate Bush’s career and videos would have headed were it not for Lindsay Kemp and the way he opened Kate Bush’s eyes and mind to a new world. I definitely think that he brought confidence from her at a time when she would have been very shy and timid! The teenage Bush was hungry and eager to learn, but compare that to the artist we see in videos like Wuthering Heights, Babooshka, and Wow, and I think that Kemp’s teachings were very much responsible for the way Bush progressed and put this physicality into her videos! I want to bring in an article from the Kate Bush Encyclopaedia, where Bush talked about Lindsay Kemp:
“I couldn't believe how strongly Lindsay communicates with people without even opening his mouth. It was incredible, he had the whole audience in his control, just with his little finger. And it was amazing. I'd never seen anything like it, I really hadn't. And I felt if it was possible to combine that strength of movement with the voice, then maybe it would work, and that's what I've tried to do. (Woman's Hour, BBC Radio 4 (UK), 21 February 1979)
Once I'd left school I tried to get into a dance school full-time, but no one would accept me as I had no qualifications in ballet. I had almost given up the idea of using dance as an extension of my music, until I met Lindsay Kemp, and that really did change so many of my ideas. He was the first person to actually give me some lessons in movement. I realized there was so much potential with using movement in songs, and I wanted to get a basic technique in order to be able to express myself fully. Lindsay has his own style - it's more like mime - and although he studied in many ballet schools and is technically qualified as a dancer, his classes and style are much more to do with letting go what's inside and expressing that. It doesn't matter if you haven't perfect technique. (Electronics & Music Maker, 1982)
To call him a mime artist is like calling Mozart a pianist. He was very brave, very funny and above all, astonishingly inspirational. There was no-one quite like Lindsay. I was incredibly lucky to study with him, work with him and spend time with him. I loved him very much and will miss him dearly. Thank you, dear Lindsay. (Lindsay Kemp, performer and Bowie mentor, dies at 80. BBC News, 25 August 2018)”.
I think dance and Bush’s physical expression is so much a part of her songwriting, live performances and videos. Whilst other choreographers helped mould her, Lindsay Kemp, to me, remains the most important. Listen to the song, Moving, on The Kick Inside, where we get a debut-album Bush paying tribute in 1978 to someone who, even at that early stage, transformed her life immeasurably. Almost two years after his death, I have been thinking how that initial thread of Bush seeing Kemp’s performance of Flowers and attending his dance classes in London unravelled and have resonated right to this day. Many might not know about Lindsay Kemp in relation to Kate Bush but, when you think about it, his influence and importance…
IS huge and seismic.