The British dancer, choreographer and mime artist Lindsay Kemp, who was known for tutoring singers David Bowie and Kate Bush, has died at the age of 80.
Kemp died suddenly after a “perfect” day rehearsing with his students, according to director Nendi Pinto-Duschunsky, who is making a documentary called Lindsay Kemp’s Last Dance.
She wrote on the film’s Facebook page to say: “I’m so sorry to tell you Lindsay passed away last night ... he was very happy and it was very sudden.” She said he was about to work on his memoirs and go on tour.
The Italian news agency ANSA reported that Kemp died during the night at his home in Livorno, Tuscany.
He had left Britain in 1979 to live in Spain before moving to Italy.
Kemp, who regularly performed in stark-white face makeup and dramatic costumes, was born in Cheshire in 1938 and formed his dance company in the 1960s after studying under expressionist dancer Hilde Holger and French mime Marcel Marceau.
He is credited with helping Bowie create his Ziggy Stardust persona and teaching Bush to dance.
He choreographed and performed during Bowie’s celebrated Ziggy Stardust concerts at London’s Rainbow Theatre in 1972, and also made cameo appearances as a pub landlord in 1973 horror film The Wicker Man and a pantomime dame in 1998’s Velvet Goldmine.
His many state productions included Mr Punch’s Pantomime and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Kemp directed a dance course at Livorno’s Goldoni Theater, and was until recently working on a social theatre project that he had hoped would be put on in Como, Italy, in September.
Stars from the world of theatre, music and TV have paid tribute to Kemp, among them Soft Cell singer Marc Almond and the actor and Bowie expert Nicholas Pegg, who shared a photo of themselves on stage with Kemp at an event in 2016.
Pegg wrote: “Lindsay Kemp was one of life’s originals. An artist to the tips of his fingers, a mentor and inspiration for titans like David Bowie and Kate Bush, a prodigiously talented performer, and a truly delightful man.”
The comedian Julian Clary wrote on Twitter: “Rest in Peace Lindsay.”
“His [performance] was pure poetry in motion that was able to astonish for its uniqueness and originality,” said Dario Nardella, mayor of Florence.
He added that while Kemp had worked with some of the world’s greatest stars, he always helped train new generations to whom “he always tried to transmit, with generosity and humanity, his art” which was never “banal, never taken for granted”.
