Lindsay Kemp

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Lindsay Kemp, photographed by Allan Warren in 1969

Lindsay Keith Kemp (born May 3, 1938 in South Shields , England - † August 25, 2018 in Livorno ) was a British dancer , mime artist , actor and director . In his provocatively erotic, transgressive productions, he combined influences from Japanese theater ( Kabuki and ) with ballet and Commedia dell'arte . His collaboration with David Bowie (with whom he was also temporarily in a relationship ) and with Kate Bush as well as some film roles made him known to a wider audience away from the theater stage from the 1970s.

life and work

Kemp was born in South Shields (then in County Durham ) on the English North Sea coast in 1938. Two years earlier, his sister had died of meningitis at the age of five . In 1940 his father, an officer in the British merchant navy , was killed in a German submarine attack. These two deaths - and the consequent strict upbringing of the mother - had a lasting impact on Kemp's self-image.

Early in his childhood, which he according to sources either in South Shields or in Birkenhead ( Cheshire spent) came his interest in dance and theater to light. In the 1950s he was drafted by the Royal Air Force as a paramedic to the National Service , where he was soon dismissed as unfit after appearing to roll call in makeup and wearing sandals.

Kemp met David Bowie in 1966. He soon took dance lessons from him, from which a love affair developed. The following year, Kemp and Bowie toured their joint show Pierrot in Turquoise . However, the relationship ended abruptly when Kemp Bowie red-handedly surprised the play's costume designer and then attempted suicide. In 1972 he worked again with Bowie on his concept album The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars , designed costumes for the accompanying tour and choreographed Bowie's stage appearances as the eponymous rock star Ziggy Stardust.

In 1973, Kemp played the role of pub owner Alder MacGreagor in the horror film The Wicker Man on the side of Christopher Lee . Despite a few other engagements by Derek Jarman and Ken Russell , film roles remained the exception in his career, as he did not consider himself an actor.

Kemp made his West End debut in 1974 in the play Flowers, an adaptation of Jean Genet's novel Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs, which a few years earlier had been the subject of several prohibition proceedings, including one in Germany . The play, adapted by Kemp himself, in which he also played the leading role of Our Lady , was largely criticized by the press, but enjoyed great popularity in London's gay scene.

In 1977 Kate Bush designed the costumes for Kemp's adaptation of Richard Strauss ' opera Salome . The entire cast was male; Kemp himself played the title role with sequined pasties . In return, he choreographed Bush's short film The Line, the Cross and the Curve in 1993 , in which he also played a role.

In 2017 the Magic Flute was performed under his direction at the Teatro Giuseppe Verdi in Pisa .

reception

Kemp 1979

The reviews of Kemp's work varied. While British critics in particular accused him of technical weaknesses, the Artefact Magazine of the London College of Communication called him “arguably the most significant living figure in modern dance” (“probably the most important contemporary personality in modern dance ”). The Guardian also wrote : "Into the serious world of 1960s and 1970s British theater, he injected a huge dose of camp, with productions drenched in blood and glitter, full of pansexual orgies and naked young men." ("He injected a huge dose of camp into the serious British theater world of the 1960s and 1970s through stagings full of pansexual orgies and naked young men bursting with blood and glitter .")

In Spain and Italy, Kemp's style was received more positively from the start than in his home country, which is why he and his ensemble were based in Barcelona from 1979 , later in Rome and Umbria . Kemp last lived in Livorno, where he died in August 2018 at the age of 80; he was still performing regularly.

Filmography (excerpt)

documentation

literature

  • Kieron Devlin: Kemp, Lindsay. In: Claude J. Summers (Ed.): The Queer Encyclopedia of Music, Dance & Musical Theater. Cleis Press, San Francisco 2004, ISBN 978-1-57344-198-8 , pp. 148-150.

Web links

Commons : Lindsay Kemp  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Lindsay Kemp, choreographer and Bowie mentor, dies at 80 . BBC.com, August 25, 2018, accessed August 25, 2018.
  2. ^ A b Michael Church: The fabulous, fabulous world of Kemp . Independent website , August 31, 1996. Retrieved May 27, 2016.
  3. ^ A b Nora Asad: Lindsay Kemp: 60 Years at the Cutting Edge . In: Artefact Magazine, February 16, 2016. Retrieved May 27, 2016.
  4. a b c Rupert Smith: 'I first danced Salome in school, naked but for some toilet paper' . Guardian website , January 30, 2002. Retrieved May 27, 2016.
  5. a b c d e Tim Lewis: Lindsay Kemp: 'I was destined for stardom ... I'm still waiting for it' . Website of the Observer , April 24, 2016. Accessed May 27, 2016th
  6. Mick Brown: Lindsay Kemp: The Man Who Taught Bowie His Moves. In: Crawdaddy !, September 1974. Digital transcript at www.bowiewonderworld.com. Retrieved May 27, 2016.
  7. The Line, the Cross and the Curve in the Internet Movie Database (English)
  8. "I gave the rock 'n' roll glitter" . In: Zeitmagazin , March 8, 2017. Retrieved March 16, 2017.