Maverick who tutored Bowie and Bush
KNOWN for his flamboyant style and high-energy productions, Lindsay Kemp inspired some of Britain’s most iconic artists, mentoring David Bowie and teaching Kate Bush the theatrical dance moves which helped make her famous.
“I led them up the path of craziness,” the dance choreographer would say, credited as the mastermind behind Bowie’s iconic Ziggy Stardust alter ego.
Born in Wirral, Merseyside, Kemp was brought up in South Shields, Tyneside. His father, Norman, was a merchant seaman who died when he was two.
A young Kemp “realised I wanted to dance when I first realised anything at all” and was sent to boarding school by his mother Marie who disapproved of his dancing on the kitchen table in a full face of make-up.
He studied at Bearwood College before moving to Yorkshire where he enrolled for night classes at Bradford College of Art and was classmates with David Hockney.
After seeing the dance company Ballet Rambert perform when he was 17, the determined Kemp hitchhiked to London to audition. He was awarded a scholarship but first had to complete his military service with the RAF in 1950.
“I had a fairly tough time because I didn’t march… I danced,” Kemp recalled. Once demobbed, he studied under the expressionist dancer Hilde Holger and French mime artist Marcel Marceau, before founding the Lindsay Kemp company in 1962.
Four years later he befriended Bowie after seeing him perform in Covent Garden. “It was love at first sight,” and the pair had a brief love affair which turned into a deeper creative friendship.
Kemp choreographed the Ziggy Stardust concert at London’s Rainbow Theatre in 1972 and starred in Bowie’s video for John, I’m Only Dancing which was banned by Top Of The Pops for being too risqué.
In 1974 Kemp took his show Flowers to the Edinburgh Festival, propelling him to theatrical fame and after seeing it Kate Bush signed up for dance lessons with him.
Kemp spent his twilight years in Livorno, Italy. Before his death he was the subject of a documentary by Nendie Pinto-Duschinsky.