Kemp grew up in a poor one-parent family in South Shields on Tyneside, and transformed himself, via early performances in working men’s clubs, into an influential avant garde creative force working across Europe.
The process began when he studied art with painter David Hockney – at Bradford College of Art – who took him to see his first ballet at Sadler’s Wells in London. He went on to study dance with Hilde Holger and mime with Marcel Marceau and founded his own dance company in the 1960s.
In 1974 Kemp took a show called Flowers to the Edinburgh festival. Based on Jean Genet’s Notre Dame des Fleurs, it was the start of his worldwide fame. He went on to choreograph and perform with Bowie at the singer’s Ziggy Stardust concerts in 1972. He had met the 19-year-old singer in 1966 when Bowie attended Kemp’s classes in Covent Garden. The pair had a brief relationship but continued to work together.
Kemp also acted, appearing on stage and in several films, including Derek Jarman’s Sebastiane and Jubilee and Anthony Shaffer’s The Wicker Man. He also produced and designed operas in Italy.
“You need to liberate an audience, put them under a spell – it makes the heart surgery less painful,” Kemp told The Observer in 2016. “And that kind of mesmerism or hypnotism, I acquired at a very early age in order to stave off the bully’s blows or the mocking of the crowd. I made them laugh; I put them under my spell.”
He died in Livorno in western Tuscany on Saturday morning.
