RIP Lindsay Kemp

Discussion in 'Visual Arts' started by OobuJoobu, Aug 25, 2018.

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  1. OobuJoobu

    OobuJoobu Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    Yorkshire, UK
    One of the stars of The Wicker Man (1973) - one of my favourite ever films.

    Also the man who taught David Bowie and Kate Bush the art of theatrical dance/mime.

    His death has been announced today.

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  2. Tanx

    Tanx Forum Resident

    Location:
    Washington, DC
    Wow. I'm surprised to see this. From what I'd read, he was still very active. Well, good for him that he could work til the end. Such an interesting life--and Bowie fans owe him a large debt of gratitude.
     
  3. stepeanut

    stepeanut The gloves are off

    Oh, no.

    I met him one time, backstage at a Bowie gig, in Dublin, in 1999. It was great to see the reverence that Bowie still had for him all those years later; like a pupil who had surpassed his teacher, but still looked up to him.

    RIP.
     
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  4. Chris DeVoe

    Chris DeVoe RIP Vickie Mapes Williams (aka Equipoise)

    So sorry to hear this, sadly few people really know of the extent of his influence.
     
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  5. Chris DeVoe

    Chris DeVoe RIP Vickie Mapes Williams (aka Equipoise)

    Kate saw his production Flowers, and it literally changed her life (I don't know whether that was before or after she saw Bowie's final Ziggy Stardust performance.) Lindsay was in Kate's short film The Line, The Cross and The Curve, as well as being Elvis in her video King of the Mountain.
     
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  6. Chris DeVoe

    Chris DeVoe RIP Vickie Mapes Williams (aka Equipoise)

    I wish the title of this thread said something like "RIP Lindsay Kemp - teacher of Bowie and Kate Bush."
     
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  7. Margrave

    Margrave I'll Give It 5

    Location:
    Down by the sea.
  8. CBS 65780

    CBS 65780 "Could I do one more immediately?"

    Location:
    Dublin, Ireland
    He told the story in the BBC Running Up That Hill documentary that after spending time with Kate, he hadn't seen her in some time and he came home one day to find a copy of The Kick Inside LP on his doormat with Moving on it dedicated to him. She said in a 1980 interview, "He opened up my eyes to the meanings of movement. He makes you feel so good. If you've got two left feet he'll say, 'You dance like an angel, darling!'" A real one off. Total legend.
     
  9. LeBon Bush

    LeBon Bush Hound of Love

    Location:
    Austria
    Saw it yesterday night before sleeping - very sad indeed, I always liked the thought of him still being so active and maybe still introducing young artists to the art of movement... he'll surely be missed.
     
  10. Chris DeVoe

    Chris DeVoe RIP Vickie Mapes Williams (aka Equipoise)

    Kate Bush published this about Lindsey:

    The world has lost a truly original and great artist of the stage. 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.
     
  11. Scope J

    Scope J Senior Member

    Location:
    Michigan
  12. Chris DeVoe

    Chris DeVoe RIP Vickie Mapes Williams (aka Equipoise)

    Every one of the 22 performances of Kate Bush's Before the Dawn had its own little group on social networks, both before and after the performance. One of our September 2nd group is Nendie Pinto‑Duschinsky, who is making a documentary called Lindsay Kemp's Last Dance. I'm not sure what the state of the project is.

    http://www.lindsaykempslastdance.com
     
  13. Holy Diver

    Holy Diver Senior Member

    Location:
    USA
  14. Chris DeVoe

    Chris DeVoe RIP Vickie Mapes Williams (aka Equipoise)

    Here's there's a video of Lindsay signing copies of the limited edition version of Guido Harari's absolutely beautiful book The Kate Inside, and shows a number of the pictures that Guido took of Lindsay and Kate working together on The Line The Cross and The Curve.



    Guido and Genesis photographer Armando Gallo were also part of the September 2nd group.
     
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  15. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    I met him in the Salisbury pub in st martins lane ( used for a Marianne Faithfull "Come My Way" album 1964 cover), he had a big grin on his face, was with a group of other people. A Nijinsky for the glam generation. Rest In Peace.
     
    Last edited: Aug 29, 2018
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  16. Jimi Bat

    Jimi Bat Forum Resident

    Location:
    tx usa
  17. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    I seen two of his protégés, Bowie '73, Bush '78.
     
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  18. Al Kuenster

    Al Kuenster Senior Member

    Location:
    Las Vegas, NV - US
    Lindsay you had a very interesting life R.I.P.
     
  19. Did Kemp and Bowie really bang a gong, though? It seems that it's urban legend that folks just ran with.
     
  20. alexpop

    alexpop Power pop + other bad habits....

    No that was T.Rex :D
     
  21. johnnyyen

    johnnyyen Senior Member

    Location:
    Scotland
    I think Flowers was 1974. It made a huge impact in theatre circles at the time. He also appeared in a couple of Derek Jarman films, Sebastiane and Jubilee, as well as a bit part in Ken Russell’s Savage Messiah. And of course, who can forget him as the landlord in The Wicker Man? Probably his most widely seen performance.
     
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  22. Chris DeVoe

    Chris DeVoe RIP Vickie Mapes Williams (aka Equipoise)

    In addition to Lindsay playing the Innkeeper, there's another Kate connection. Lucy Irvine wrote the book that became the film Castaway, for which Kate wrote the song Be Kind To My Mistakes. Lucy's Irvine's parents ran the inn on Summerisle, literally the innkeeper's daughter. Nicolas Roeg apparently asked Kate if she wanted to try out for the role.

     
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  23. Chris DeVoe

    Chris DeVoe RIP Vickie Mapes Williams (aka Equipoise)

    The final Ziggy Stardust performance was July 3, 1973 at the Hammersmith Odeon, with a very young Kate Bush in the audience. She didn't see Flowers until 1975.

    Bush went to see the show when it played at the Collegiate Theatre in Bloomsbury in 1975 and again during its later, long run at the Roundhouse in Chalk Farm, north London. This was no teenage girl trotting off dutifully to Covent Garden to gaze at Swan Lake, and even for an adolescent as accustomed to the avant garde as Bush, Flowers felt thrilling and even slightly illicit. And tremendously powerful. The visceral impact of her first viewing directly inspired her to leave school and follow her burgeoning love of physical movement. “I couldn’t believe how strongly Lindsay communicates with people even without opening his mouth,” she said. “It was incredible, he had the whole audience in his control … I’d never seen anything like it, I really had not. 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.” She had already realised that “there was something missing from the expression” in her music, that just sitting down and playing her songs at the piano wasn’t going to be enough. She was influenced in this regard by Gurdjieff’s ‘Fourth Way’, the idea that mind and body are not separate creative entities and that the key to personal and creative breakthrough lies in learning how to fuse the two, using the one to feed off the other. Seeing Lindsay Kemp in action vindicated the notion of using movement as “as an extension of my music” and, crucially, gave her practical instruction as to how it could actually be achieved. After leaving school she had tried to enroll at dance school, but without any formal qualifications nobody would admit her. Instead, in 1976 she began taking mime lessons at Kemp’s drop-in classes, 50p per session, each one lasting as long as three hours at a time. Kemp was no stranger to the music world. A 38-year-old former enfant terrible whose previous highlights included studying with Marcel Marceau, starting his own dance company and making a splash at the 1968 Edinburgh festival, he was a teacher, choreographer, dancer and actor whose style – a unique and seductive blend of Butoh, mime, burlesque, drag and music hall – was highly personal and often confrontational. His teachings had already had a profound influence on another of his students, David Bowie. “I taught him to exaggerate with his body as well as his voice, and the importance of looking as well as sounding beautiful,” said Kemp in 1974. “Ever since working with me he’s practiced that, and in each performance he does his movements are more exquisite.” ​
     
  24. Chris DeVoe

    Chris DeVoe RIP Vickie Mapes Williams (aka Equipoise)

    From Kate's website:

    Flowers For Lindsay

    I have been asked by those closest to Lindsay Kemp to send out this message :

    Lindsay will be laid to rest on Wednesday, 5th September, 2pm at The Acatollica Piramide Cemetery in Rome. Everyone is very welcome. It would be lovely if flowers could be sent in his honour as he loved flowers so much or, wherever you are in the world, to light a candle and think of him at that time.

    I'll be lighting a candle to wish him a safe journey and to thank him for having been such a beautiful presence in so many lives.
    Best wishes,
    Kate



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