Lindsay Kemp

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Lindsay Kemp is a British dancer, actor, teacher, mime artist and choreographer.

Born in South Shields on May 3, 1938, Kemp was raised in Yorkshire and attended Bradford Art College before studying dance with the Ballet Rambert under Marcel Marceau.

Kemp formed his own dance company in the early sixties and first attracted attention with an appearance at the Edinburgh Festival in 1968. Despite a host of stage, film and television appearances Kemp is ironically best known through the success of some of his former dance pupils, most notably Kate Bush and David Bowie. Indeed, it is rumoured that Kemp had a brief but volatile affair with Bowie in the late sixties, culminating in a failed suicide attempt.

Kemp’s style of dance, a bizarre mix of Japanese Kabuki, mime and British music hall, has at different times been described as fascinating, colourful and self-indulgent but rarely fails to attract attention. His many stage performances include Flowers (1968) and the Rambert Dance Company’s Cruel Garden (1977). Kemp’s film roles include a dancer and cabaret performer in Derek Jarman’s Sebastiane (1976) and Jubilee (1977) respectively, a pantomime dame in Todd Haynes’ Velvet Goldmine (1998) and the wonderfully camp pub landlord Alder MacGregor in Anthony Shaffer's The Wicker Man (1973).

During the early 70's, Kemp was a popular and inspirational teacher of dance/mime with a regular two and a half hour session at the Dance Centre in Floral Street, Covent Garden. This was in the days before the Dance Centre became an up-market private club, and anyone could and did drop in. Classes were sometimes taken by Lindsay's unsighted friend Jack Birkett (or "Orlando") whose flamboyance and mastery was such that uninitiated newcomers could go through a whole session without realising that they were being taught (and corrected) by a blind teacher. It was said that Lindsay had "saved" Birkett from despair by re-training him after he lost his sight.

Lindsay Kemp now lives near Rome, Italy.

[edit] Filmography

• The Vampire Lovers (1970), as Jester

• Savage Messiah (1972), as Angus Corky

• The Wicker Man (1973), as Alder MacGregor

• The Stud (1974), as Topstar

• Sebastiane (1976), as Dancer

• Jubilee (1977), as Cabaret performer

• Valentino (1977)

• A Midsummer Night's Dream for TV (1985), as Puck

• Cartoline italiane (Italian Postcards) (1987)

• The Line, the Cross & the Curve (1993), as guide

• Velvet Goldmine (1998), as Pantomime Dame

• Guest appearances in Spanish TV show La Mandrágora in 2005 and 2006

[edit] External links and References

• Lindsay Kemp at the Internet Movie Database
• Lindsay Kemp at the Internet Broadway Database
• Guardian Unlimited interview by Rupert Smith from 2002
• Review 2007
• Informational site run by Yukihiko Yoshida, with a list of works