TRIGGERnometry - Defending Women Cost Me My Business - Rosie Kay

Episode Date: February 16, 2023

Sponsored by: ATHLETIC GREENS. Get a free 1-year supply of Vitamin D and 5 free travel packs with your first purchase. Go to athleticgreens.com/triggernometry Rosie Kay is a British choreographer best known for her show 5 Soldiers, MK ULTRA (produced in collaboration with Adam Curtis) and choreographing the handover in the 2018 Commonwealth Games closing ceremony. In December 2021, Kay resigned from the company she founded citing constructive dismissal and discrimination. Find Rosie at: Twitter: @RosieKayK2CO FB: RosieKayK2CO IG: @RosieKayK2CO K2CO website- https://k-2co.com  K2CLUB Membership- https://k-2co.com/k2club  SEE 5 SOLDIERS LIVE: * Norwich Playhouse Thu 20 – Sat 22 Apr 22 Book now at norwichtheatre.org or call our Box Office on 01603 630 000 * Blackpool Grand 12th May 2023  Book now at blackpoolgrand.co.uk  Or call our Box Office on 01253 290190   * Bath Theatre Royal 14th May 2023  Book now at https://www.theatreroyal.org.uk or call our Box Office on 01225 448844 Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Locals! https://triggernometry.locals.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: https://www.subscribestar.com/triggernometry https://www.patreon.com/triggerpod Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Music by: Xentric | [e-mail] | https://www.xentricapc.com/ | Channel ID: UCo_8zzSxKeL3arKWVuP8wdQ Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/sign-up/ Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How many discounts does USAA auto insurance offer? Too many to say here. Multi-vehicle discount. Safe driver discount? New vehicle discount. Storage discount. How many discounts will you stack up? Tap the banner or visit usaa.com slash auto discounts. Restrictions apply. IP vanish protects every device you own.

Your phone, your laptop, your smart TV. If it connects to the internet, it should be protected. IP vanish encrypts your connection and masks your IP address, helping keep your browsing private at home and on public Wi-Fi. And with no device limits, one account covers everything. Stream with added privacy. Browse securely.

Connect with confidence. Right now, save 83% off the two-year plan. Get started today at IPvanish.com and take control of your privacy with IP Vanish. We had a dinner party, and late into the night, when the alcohol had been taken, the dancers said, who are you casting? And I said, well, I don't know.

It could be a man, could be a woman, were just writing the audition notice. No, that has to be played by a transper. person. And I was well aware of what was going on. Very quickly became aware that I was being ostracized from my own company. And then you have the leaders at the top. And I think they come from the same, probably a little bit older generation than me. They had a great time. They probably feel a bit guilty. They probably did a few things. They wouldn't want remembered or they don't want to become a hashtag. And so they're going to keep quiet, look towards their pension, look towards

hopefully an OBE, and just try and keep their organisation afloat before they move on. So I didn't expect to be cancelled in my own home. I didn't. I knew nothing about intellectual property. I know everything now. I was like, well, I made it. It's mine. No, no, it's more complicated than that. Hello and welcome to Trigonometry. I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constance, And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people. Our fantastic guest today is a dancer who was forced out of her own dance company for having, as usual, the wrong opinions. Rosie Kaye, welcome to Trigonometry. Hello, thank you very much for having me. It's really nice to be here.

It's really great to have you on the show. Tell us who are you? What has been your journey through life? My name is Rosie Kay. I trained from the age of three to be a dancer. I never thought that I could do it as a job. It just seemed. something so far away and spectacular. And I was lucky enough to see some very good dance when I was young and growing up. I saw Nurev live. I saw the German choreographer, Peanut Bouch, live when I was a teenager. And I got into dance school amazingly. I got into London Contemporary Dance School, still thought, I don't think I can do this as a career, performed, toured the world for five or six years and then realized that I wanted to be a choreographer. I wanted to make not just the dance, not just the movements, but the stories. And I was always very inspired by quite political

female choreographers, people like Martha Graham or Mary Vigman, sort of amazing women that made work about the world that they live in. And so I set up my own eponymous company in 2004 in Birmingham. And I've spent the past sort of 20 years building up from very small solo duet trio work into large scale, the biggest theatres and up until 2021 was touring the world with my dance productions. Yeah. And then what happened? And then what happened? I was 10 days away from a big premiere of Romeo and Juliet, which I'd been spending five years researching, working with gangs, gang members, schools in Birmingham, community groups and different artists. I'd put together a contemporary Birmingham-based version of Romeo and Juliet.

And it had got put back and put back and put back because of COVID. And I really wanted to still work and have a show ready and give people jobs because it was a nightmare for artists through COVID. It just stopped. So I'd managed to get through auditions and rehearsals. We were 10 days away from the premiere. And there was just this very strange vibe in the company, very young dancers. Some of them had never performed professionally yet because they were straight out of college.

They hadn't had graduation shows. So I invited them to my house. We had a dinner party. And late into the night, when the alcohol had been taken, I was asked what my next show was. And I was well on the way to preparing a production of Romeo and of Orlando, which is a Virginia Woolf novel about, there's an eponymous. and there's an amazing hero who turns from a man into a woman. It just happens.

Virginia Woolf writes about it very witterly, but also she does 400 years of history and she changes style all the way through. So it's a really clever, funny book. Anyway, the dancer said, Who are you casting? And I said, well, I don't know. It could be a man, could be a woman,

were just writing the audition notice. No, that has to be played by a trans person. And I was well aware of what was going on. I was watching it from a kind of outside, but from a female perspective, as a woman in the arts, going, I can see what some of the dangerous implications are to this movement if we redefine what women are. It could pull women's rights back,

and it could pull back the advancements we've made. So I just pushed back a bit, and then really quickly it turned into an argument. And I was making those points around women's safety, women's dignity, and then also around children and children. how children were being pushed down an affirmation model. And I don't need to explain all this to you because you've amazing guests to explain all this. It was met with utter hostility.

I went back to work. I felt a sort of wall of woke hate. It's a really vulnerable position when you've got a premier coming up and your company has turned against you. I asked... Sorry, so you have this argument with these people who you're trying to give jobs to it.

Yeah. And then how does that become a wall of hate? that you feel? So we'll go back into the studio on the Monday and... With these same people? With these same people? These same people and I could just feel the temperature. Yes. And I was really scared and I thought, you know, the production could fall apart. So, and I, and I felt really shocked and really scared. I'd kind of opened myself up and I'd revealed things about like the near death of my baby and myself through childbirth and, you know, tried to sort of say, listen, you know, as a, as a woman who is old,

than you. These are experiences that only a woman could go through it. And here they are. You know, please take them to understand how much this, how important the body is. We cannot, I feel, as a dancer, as an answer, you can't deny that we have bodies. This is important. Anyway, I felt this wall. So I asked the chair of the board, who was a friend, who I'd worked with, who I trusted, if she would help intervene to just calm it down. I think really the approach should have been you're all adults. It was two in the morning. You were talking about something contentious.

You're allowed to have different opinions. That's it. Get on with the work. Instead, something happened. I don't know what happened. But I very quickly became aware that I was being ostracized from my own company.

I went through one investigation, which I wholeheartedly cooperated with. I was exonerated. What were you being investigated for? I couldn't quite understand. understand. I couldn't kind of, I couldn't get them to define whether there was something around inappropriateness, but there was something about the fact that they were so offended. And I kept saying, well, you do realize that the very definition of what they're offended about,

transphobia, is the fact that I have defined women and men as being biologically real. Like that's, that that's the issue we have here. They're going to get more and more offended, but the fact is there is, there's a problem here. And that's fine. just need to move on. So as investigated, I did make an apology that wasn't enough for one dancer. They walked out and appealed. And so then it went into a really dark second investigation. And by a mistake, they forwarded with me a lawyer's email. So I could see that they were spending a lot of money on outside lawyers to investigate me again. Who is they? The board. The board. Rosie, I know this is probably a really stupid question, but neither I or a lot of others may understand this.

If it's your own company, how are these people in charge of investigating your own stuff? Absolutely. I should have said that. So I set it up. I was the director of it. It was a limited by share company. Around 2017, I stood down as director and I turned it into a charity in order to get the bigger funding. Right. Yeah. And we were. We became a regularly funded Arts Council organisation. but under English charity law, because it had my name and it was my work, I could not be a director. So also, I just had a baby and I'd never had a salary, holiday pay, pension. So I was like, do you know what?

I'd quite like to try being an employee for a little bit. Quite quickly, I realised I didn't like it because I like being the boss. And it doesn't matter if it's got your name on it and it's all your work and all the money coming in is through you. but if you let go of that power, this is what happens. And I should have realized that. I thought, well, hey, let's do this compromise in order to get that funding, in order to get the company to that big level, I'll take that sacrifice inside because it's going to get me where I want it to go.

But that was a mistake. So second investigation? Second investigation. I see that they're lying. They're spending vast amounts of money that I had earned for the, company. They're acting in my view and in legal opinion untoward to the law. Can I put it that way? Even like little things, well, not little things, but I asked for this investigation to be paused because a very close family member had an emergency operation. They refused to pause.

They were acting in such a way that I knew that I would never be able to trust them again or work with them again. And so I resigned citing constructive dismissal and discriminatory. I was building a case to sue them. I would have sued them. But they folded the company. And then despite the being a really decent amount of money in reserves when I left, it went into insolvency. Wow. So that puts it into a completely different legal thing. I've been fighting over the past year. I've bought out the entire assets of that former company, including my name. So I now own that. But again, that was another legal fight that I had to do behind the scene. Isn't it amazing that all this happened over, let's be honest, basically a heated discussion over a few bottles of wine? Yes, it is, it's really shocking. And there's kind of like a few theories about like why, because on the one hand you have the activists who are young and I think have been indoctrinated. I don't think they're very nice.

They certainly don't have empathy. But I also think they're probably victims of this. and then you have this kind of capitulation and cowardice of a board. Now they're called trustees for a reason in that you should trust them. Now the interesting thing I think is actually the artist who this is all meant to serve is actually in the most vulnerable position because you're the one making all the problems. You're the one that's still trying to do your job. It was written into the charitable objects that Rosie Kay tackles controversial and taboo subjects

shining a light on things that are unspoken or unsaid. That was my job. So of course, if there's something controversial going on, I'm right there in it, going, what's going, you know, what's going on? Tell me, you're young. What's your opinion? Well, I don't agree with that, but this is what I think. And I'm used to that back and forth.

You should be able to debate these things, I felt. And do you think this is a culture? Because we talk a lot about the culture in universities, but we don't tend to talk about it. culture in drama schools, in dance schools. Are they, is that very much a culture within those types of institutions? Well, I, I hadn't realized quite so much at the time, but yes, it is, yes, yes. And I've heard from insiders that they're quite hostile environments if you don't agree

with this. Yeah, yeah. Really? Because when I went to drama school and it was tough, it was a tough environment. And actually, people didn't really care about your feelings at all. So it kind of surprises me that it's gone. completely the other way. Yes.

And I mean, I've got a few theories about why that happened. I'm not sure so much about, I mean, there's definitely that's the pipeline feeding in. I think things dramatically changed when it started. I got a grant to go to dance school, which is just incredible. Once people started having to pay for fees, that immediately changed the demographic of who was going to go into those professions and live with that level of debt. when you have a very, very poor work situation to earn money, very poor.

And so a lot of the grassroots of drama, of music, of dance, the grassroots in local communities, that's stopped as well. So the pipeline into the conservatoire has dried up. So the people that are going there are going to be actually, let's say it, they're of a certain class and wealth and privilege to even be there in the first place. So I think it kind of feeds into that whole luxury belief system. And the problem then comes because you talk about what you do. And immediately I listened to what you said about what your dance company did.

And I actually really enjoy dance. I'm thinking, oh, that's what I'm interested in. That's what I love. I love theatre. I want to see Taboos challenge. I want to see interesting work. What does it mean for the arts and culture and society as a whole if we can't even have these conversations or these discussions, particularly in the arts?

IP Vanish protects every device you own, your phone, your laptop, your smart TV. If it connects to the internet, it should be protected. IPVanish encrypts your connection and masks your IP address, helping keep your browsing private at home and on public Wi-Fi. And with no device limits, one account covers everything. Stream with added privacy. Browse securely. Connect with confidence.

Right now, save 83% off the two-year plan. Get started today at IPVanish.com slash audio and take control of your privacy with IPVANN. Gosh, well, I mean, I'm still thinking about like, like, like, like, how did this happen? How did these activists get in and sort of pollute and poison and change the entire environment that means that actually speaking out is such a dangerous thing to do? And that, that's so serious. I remember, like, in 2021, I put together a series of talks with military people, academics and artists.

and there was a guy from the Secret Service and I was asking him, like why do they pick on the artists? You know, it's either political activists that get sort of the knock in the night or it's artists. And he said, well, absolutely, you lot are the difficult ones.

You should be at there asking questions, challenging society, tend to be very independent thinkers. He said, we're used to watching this in Secret Service kind of organisations. We see it happening in, you know, normally countries with already authoritarian regimes, and it comes from the top down,

we're just not used to seeing it in the West, and we're not used to seeing it coming. It feels like it's bottom up, but I think it's so long term that it's kind of all crunched around us all at once. And do you feel a chilling effect? Is this what people are talking about in the world of dance? So they feel that they can't talk about a particular issue?

Or if they can talk about it, you can only talk about it in a certain way? I think what's happened is it's quite complicated. I think you have the activist coming in who probably don't have skills. So we've sort of recently heard that they're coming out of drama school, unable to do Shakespeare. I'd say they're coming out of dance school. What I would say, noodling. They're noodling around.

Sorry, they're coming out of drama school unable to do Shakespeare. Yeah, I think there was an article in The Times this week about actors going to the globe and unable to speak or learn or get that. minds and mouths around Shakespeare and that's a science. So we're deskilling that workforce. And through that skill, it's really important because people go,

oh, who cares about Shakespeare, whatever. But unless you have that really deep rigor and discipline and practice, like daily practice, you don't have anything to build on, then you really are into arti-farty territory. So with dance, it's like the rigor of ballet, the rigor of technique, with acting, it's the voice.

It's the language. It's the meaning of those plays. You need that depth to then be able to turn that to everything else. If it's just surface level, then what are we left with? We're left with their identities. And they're coming to the workplace where their identities are the most important thing, not the art. So you have that.

Also, they can make their name. Young people without the discipline, the stamina, the resilience, can make their names by creating a huge hoo-ha, by making a mass-level complaint, getting their names out there. You then have a system of management or administrative kind of like control. We have now such like huge controls on funding. That's created an entirely new class of arts bureaucrats.

I'd call them the poisoned administrators. Often frustrated artists themselves, but very clearly saw that if they want a salary, a position and power, that's where they need to go. and then they kind of astro-turf the whole thing. So they create the programs, the you apply funding criteria that fits that program, they put the festivals on.

So they become the power brokers within this world. And then you have the leaders at the top. And I think they come from the same, probably a little bit older generation than me. They had a great time. They probably feel a bit guilty. They probably did a few things. They wouldn't want remembered or they don't want to become a hashtag.

You know? And so they're going to keep quiet. Look towards their pension, look towards hopefully an OBE, and just try and keep their organisation afloat before they move on. And there aren't the people in leadership positions that are justifying their salaries. They're not standing up for the arts. They're being bullied by the activists, by the Twitter attackers,

and sometimes by their own staff. So what you're really talking about is it's the culture eating itself because at the very core of this, Well, people always, when I'm upset, I want to be an actor-acting train, and why do you need three years? I always said to them, there is a reason why British actors are the best actors in the world. Yeah. It's because of the rigorous training that we receive in this country in Shakespeare, learning how to perform, learning to train your body, to train your voice.

If we don't have that, we literally have nothing. Well, and it's really, it's just really weird in the studio when you're trying to make a work. I've put together something called the Charter of Creation that's asking people if they're going to work with me to sign to say that we're free to speak, we're free to disagree, that the most important thing is the art form. And in the art form, we should be looking at the depths and heights of humanity and we should be free to do that.

And also, I think you're only ever going to be really challenging these ideas. If you feel free, you can play, you can make mistakes, you can argue. And really, I'd much prefer if people left, their identities at the door. You know, it used to be sort of leave your problems at the door. Now you've got to leave your performative self at the door in order to make art. And I just find astonishing that that needs to be said. But I just, I don't think there's been a really good argument about what the purpose of the arts are for

and why they're so important for humanity, for culture, for civilisation, for society. But they are, they're vitally important. And when they're dead and gone, it's going to be dark, very dark. Hey, Constantine, do you like being healthy? Of course, in my country we judge man's health by his ability to wrestle bear. Turns out in London, Russell Bear has very different meaning. We've all had a night that's got out of hand. We will speak no more of this.

This secret will be buried with my ancestors. Well, if you want to stay healthy and not feel like you need to be buried with Constantine's ancestors, then you need to try AG1. AG1 is simple and easy way to get all nutrients you need. Each serving contains 75 high-quality vitamins, minerals and whole food source ingredients. One scoop and you feel like real men. We used it on our America tour where we were constantly on the move, living out of a bag and working every day. AG1 meant we felt great, looked great, and we avoided getting sick.

One scoop a day meant we knew we had all the vitamins and minerals needed for the day. We had hugely successful trip. It is very economical and I felt strong enough to wrestle American bear, which we all know is grotesely weak compared to great Russian bear. If you're looking for a simpler and cost-effective supplement routine, AG1 is giving you a free one-year supply of vitamin D and five travel packs with your first purchase. Go to athletic greens.com slash trigonometry. That's athletic greens.com slash trigonometry. Check it out and become real men like me.

It's interesting the point you made. I mean, obviously, you know, you've got the people at the top, as you say, who want to die before they get hashtagged. And then, you know, they want to be hashtag post-humored. I think I'm going to be honest with you. They want to be hashtag posthumously. But it's the bit in the middle, which I think actually you're spot on about, because someone sent me a Mark Twain quote and I'm going to butcher,

but it was something like when you can't compete on merit, you start competing on victimhood. And identity has become this overwhelming wedge that people have clung to in order to advance careers, in order to get attention, in order to be, quote unquote, successful. And it seems to me, based on what you're saying and what I've been thinking about, that there's a fundamental contradiction between the focus and identity and creativity. Yes. I think interestingly, maybe it's through the sort of Instagram generation, but that you yourself have become the product and you are selling yourself in multiple ways. So at first that was a kind of love islandy type vibe and we all kind of went, oh, they're crass. But that then flipped into that identitarian victimhood.

So actually, like, who you are and what you're coming with and how you label those victim status sort of markers, those are the most important things. So you're selling your victimhood. It isn't just victimhood. You're selling that as a product, actually. And it sort of goes against my sense of having to work so thoroughly and solidly through the self

that you then become a vehicle for the art. You can do anything. You might be better at some things than others, but I wouldn't turn down what a role asks of me or what a choreographer would ask for me. And I would do the same, and I'd do the same in my own work to myself and then ask that of others,

that we all here, it sounds a bit silly, but we're all here to serve the purpose of the art. The other thing that comes with this identity stuff is this full judgment value system. So even at 23, if you have these protected characteristics that are not legal, by the way, some of these are made up,

they can then come in and judge, for example, me, and all I've got is white middle-aged women, you know, it's like kind of lowest of the low now, I think. There's the straight white man, the apex predator. Yeah, but you don't get cold carins, you know?

I'm not even white particularly, but it's Francis we're looking at. Yeah, the gammon. But that's it. We all come up, you know, I'm Polish heritage. You know, it's not going into, it's too crass to go into that. I know who I am. I've made one autobiographical work that I made through lockdown

because I could only work with myself for a whole year, which was fabulous. But that's it. I put it on stage and you can see it. So they come with this judgment, it's judgment to like, oh, you know, you're the boss, you're the director, you're the choreographer. And of course, you then have the weight of oppression

because you're actually asking these people to do a job, you know, money and they're judging the work that they're making in the studio at the same time and so there's this it's not it's not just your own internal sense of self-censorship you're being judged in the studio and i think that's that's that's that's lousy and it totally takes away who the audience is and i feel like you should make you up 100% into it and let the audience decide let the public decide let the critics decide if it's good or bad you just have to put the most into making it as good as you can make it. Yeah, and it's like, you know, when I was reading about

that the Globe did this version of Joan of Arc and she's non-binary. And I just, I'm going to swear, why don't you just fucking tell the story of Joan of Arc? I think that's interesting enough, instead of making her non-binary. But this is, it's like the whole thing feeds itself because you've got this like powerful kind of bureaucratic people that are putting the criteria on. I don't think you can blame the artists for trying to

fulfill that criteria to get the money. Yes. And it is, it's a sort of a self-fulfilling, perpetuating circle. And then I've heard recently that they're sort of speaking out and saying, oh, but we're so worried that these poor actors are getting attacked by all these awful people making criticism of this production. It's like, well, we're not criticizing, well, A, it didn't look very good, but we're criticising it because you're sort of transing a female incredible heroin.

And some of us object to that, that there are so few women of stature and fame across the centuries that some of us feel a bit objectable to the fact that now they're no longer female or no longer identify as a woman. Or is this something that I often ask people, particularly women that we have on the show, to talk about this, because I do see a bit of a tension there between, on the one hand, rejecting identity, but on the other hand, you talked about how you were inspired by strong female choreographers and so on. Is it possible that this is kind of that same mindset going out of control, or do you see them as different?

Yeah, I think that's really interesting. And I remember writing a proposal for a piece I wanted to do, which was about looking at my own Polish identity and following that through. So, I mean, literally, I think till about five minutes ago, I probably would have been woke, to be honest. Getting canceled, we'll do that too. Because, you know, as the liberal left, I mean, it's always these things that you see that, that kind of nugget of truth around like racism or sexism. And you go, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hang on, where is this going? Hang on, no. But that's that's the kind of cleverness of it, of it, or the griftiness of it, that has pushed it to this place where, you. you're no longer able to say, whoa, stop, that's enough.

That's enough now. I think we've lost focus. So I think that's why the arts, that's why there's so few artists have spoken out about it. I think they've kind of been pushed down through this, this kind of sausage factory with it. And you mentioned, before we started, actually, we were talking about JK Rowling.

And you mentioned that at one point you tweeted, she tweeted something and you replied, say, agreeing with her. It was a fascinating story about how people think about these things. Well, so I decided that I was like, okay, identity politics, let's go for, I'll make this solo. But I'll do it my way and I'll say all these things, these fun things about myself as well as the kind of tough things that have happened to me. And I was really, it sort of brought a lot of stuff up about my own personal history. And then J.K. Rowling wrote that incredible letter. And it said so much of like what I've been feeling and thinking.

about and working on my own in the studio, about where we're coming from as women, and sometimes it's only when you're older that you're able to articulate actually what it's like being a woman growing up in the world from teenage years or childhood, actually. What is it like? Well, I just remember being like a very curious,

very quiet, dancing child and just fascinated by the world, completely amazed. And then there's a point that happens around the age of 12, where suddenly you stop being an agent in the world and suddenly you become the object. It happens when men just start commenting constantly on your appearance, when they kind of beep at you,

you're wandering around the world in your school uniform and you're innocent, and you suddenly realise it's actually a really scary world. At which point I also sort of looked up and looked around and realized that all these great artists that I admired, they were all men, all the kind of theatre directors, all the playwrights, most of the choreographers, they were all men, all the statues,

around me, they're all men. The books I was reading, the heroes that I liked were Tintin or Cowboy films, they're all men. And if a woman came in, they had like, you know, a fabulous dress on and came in for a minute and then disappeared. They didn't have their own characters.

They didn't seem to be real living, well-rounded human beings. So women were sort of vectors or something else. And so, you know, realising that at 12, kind of profoundly influenced me. And I don't think it's, it wasn't like, oh wow, I realized I was a feminist. It was just like, how do I navigate this? And you go through a difficult time,

particularly your teens, and particularly I've had my 20s, difficult, being a dancer, in tight, your body, you know, I'm modelled, I didn't like that, I much prefer dancing because you're doing something, relationships, taking risks. I mean, I've ended up in ridiculous situations,

abducted in a taxi, kind of hanging out with mafia and Russia, like being re-hypnailed in a bar, and survived all of these things. And I would rather have dangerous things happen to me and be free than to never go out there and live life, you know? And then it's only when, you know, I'm more settled, more secure,

especially having a child, you look back and go, bloody hell, that was like a warfare out. there. Thank God I lived, you know. I'm so glad my parents didn't know what I was up to. And you want to say to younger women, I know you think this way now, but this is this is what older women have to tell you. You know, read to Germain Greer. You might not like all of it, but you need to, you need to be aware, life is long and women's life's are long. Rosie, do you think that's part of the problem as well with the arts? If you look at, you know,

it's been blown up recently with Romeo and Julia, Zeparelli, where the actors complained of Zeparelli's behaviour. And obviously he's no longer around to answer those charges. You look at one of the greatest cinematic directors of all time, Roman Polanski, with awful, awful rape case in that he's never faced justice for it. Was there a culture and an attitude in the arts, and a predatory, especially from men being predatory towards women?

Yes, yes, there was. And like going back to what I was saying earlier, there's sort of this element of truth to some of this stuff. Yes, I think certain people abuse their positions of power. You learnt quite quickly. Other women, older women would support you, give you a nod. Just watch out for this person. There were certainly people that took advantage.

Dances full of young, beautiful, new bar people. You know, it does attract a certain rich or personal or personal power is attracted to that. And you used to have to navigate your way through. it, I swore to myself, I would not continue that. The kind of buck stops here. And I would say most people in my generation, you know, even my teaching would be quite harsh, almost abusive. I'd say. And it's like, well, I don't ever want to just carry that on, want to sort of treat people really well. And then here we are. I'm the big baddie. Well, you know what? There is a troll in me or maybe not a troll or a contrarian or whatever.

But a part of me is starting to go, is that maybe why the kids are like this? Because we are all so nice. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Is that work? It's like a vulnerability there or, I mean. I just mean that, you know, I know exactly what we're talking about because in my education, there would have been people who would have been, I don't know, abusive, but, but tough, right?

And you knew, you knew not to fuck about. I mean, when you described to me the scene that you, you know, you were, you, you know, you seen at your dinner party. I cannot imagine myself is that 20 year old and a person who is employing me giving me a part in a thing

is invited me for a dinner party at their house. I'm 20, they're 40 or whatever they are. And I am there going, you know what, I think you're wrong and in fact, I'm going to come in to work tomorrow and give you the stinker. Like, I can't imagine

doing that. I literally physically cannot imagine. And, you know, Francis used to run a comedy night where I was helping him run it as well. And the sort of, like, the next generation coming in, the sort of things they would say about, like, they would be like, I think the night should be like this. Yeah. And you're kind of going, who the fuck are you? Yeah, yeah. Do you know what I mean? But I was so like that when I was young as well. I was such a little rebel and, you know, disagreed with this and disagreed with that. But I still knew just went to show. shut up sometimes and to work hard. And, well, if you want to be on your own, get out on your own and figure it out.

Earn some stripes, you know? Don't just, yeah. So I think we have been overindulgent. And I think there's been certain messages that the kids have been right on up until now around like homosexuality or, you know, climate change. And I grew up in that generation sort of arguing my parents at the dinner table. Whereas now it's gone too far And there's probably a lot better people than me To sit here and say what's happened to parenting

And to children and to farming out child care Or farming out as civic local responsibilities So that we're not involved in community forums anymore We're not involved as school governors You know, there's a level that we as parents and as adults need to be engaged in all levels of society, not just our careers. Well, I have a terrifying thought for you that I've been thinking about. Is it possible that when you were arguing with your parents around the dinner table,

you've become that parent now? I'm asking myself that every day. I mean my husband, like, have this conversation, like, almost every day, that are we just the grumpy ones? I certainly think at the beginning there was that element where you're questioning, you're going, are we just really out of touch? But no, I mean, when you look at these big movements that are pushing through the EDI, Equality, diversity, inclusion, the whole kind of white fragility, white privilege.

When you look at the core, like the idea of white privilege comes from this amazing woman called Peggy McIntosh. And she talks about, you know, the invisible backpack of what she doesn't have to go through because she's white. And it's a brilliant essay. It's fantastic. And it also comes with this fantastic. guide as to how not to alienate people and make people feel defensive. So when like this came up in a some sort of EDI thing and I asked this sort of the person running it, had they heard of Peggy McIntosh, no. I said, well, have you heard of like, you sort of the way that she would bring this in? No.

Some of these ideas are just being pushed without a level of nuance and debates that I think we should be having. Other aspects with that point, I think in previous generations, we'd have been in more positions of power. I think we're kind of quite a little sandwich generation that grew up in the 90s, had good freedoms, worked her way up, expected to get somewhere and get into positions. And when you look at like the national theatre,

I think Peter Hall was like 36 when he got the job of director. It's unthinkable really that you, you know, and so the whole group of us in our 30s and 40s haven't got quite to where we wanted to. Other people have stayed on, I'd say probably possibly too long. and we're just getting leapfrogged. The younger generation are just coming in above us. So I think we probably need to really speak out

and take control a little bit actually. Rosie, why is it that the arts in particular are so vulnerable to these type of ideologies? Because on the one hand, we're talking about diversity. And on the other hand, like I said, I've always been passionate about the theatre. Some of my favourite actors were, you know, people in the 60s who came,

from working class backgrounds. Peter O'Toole, I mean, he actually said he was from the criminal classes, but there were Albert Finney. Same thing, man. Yeah, exactly. Michael Kane. I'm going to get cancelled for that joke. And so you should, you know, Michael Cain.

Richard Burton, you know, all these, you know, powerhouse British actors, you know, from working class backgrounds. And you look at the actors now predominantly, I mean, there's very good people like Damien Lewis, went to Eaton, a lot of them did. So on the one hand, the arts has become ever more the preserve of the wealthy and the upper classes. Yet at the same time, it's about diversity. And you're like... Right. So I think you need to sort of trace a little bit like what's happened, particularly...

So the funding system in this country is very strong for the arts. But it's also always, since John M. Alcane's set it up, it's always had a political edge to it, always. If you go back to the 80s and Thatcherism, the arts were being... very lowly funded and they had a kind of, do you remember instrumentalism? So the arts were being used to solve like, you know, social woes, quite low level. But it meant that artists were quite free. They could kind of like do what they like. You also could claim dull. So you could be an artist and you could get like, you know, at least enough to cover your rent and eat. So it was a more genuinely equal sort of starting point. And you were left alone. And I think that's probably around

the point that the arts became lefty as they saw it as a movement against Thatcher. Out of that grew some really interesting rebellious movements, such as the YBAs and the sensation exhibition. Sorry to interrupt, I know what were the YBA. Just explain to people. Young British artists, Damien Hearst, Tracey A Means, the kind of really rebellious art stuff. You had the kind of Mark Ravenhill shopping and fucking, the really amazing movement that was

going on in British theatre. you had these things that had like a punk edge, it was rebellious. It also did have quite a capitalistic edge. They wanted to make money. And that was really kind of quite a clever move. Then you've got Blair coming in. And the whole different thing about Blair and the arts was it was being used for regeneration.

So the arts had managed to make the business case. So like, okay, we go and build a massive art centre in Gateshead. That will then revitalise the area. That'll bring in. And they literally crunched the numbers to say that we can use arts to change cities. There was loads of money. It was a great time. There was all these performing art schools.

You get like big fees for workshops. You've got the Olympics. You've got these big, big, big stuff going on. Yeah, brilliant. I'll do this. I'll do that. I'm making massive works. But slowly slowly, I also realized that that criteria started to get stronger and stronger.

And the artists had less and less say, you were service. quite a big bureaucratic arts business. Because it was social engineering, really, to some extent, right? Yeah, so I think now that instrumentalism has kind of gone full circle. So we're captured by the business stuff. We have to justify every single penny. When I was a regularly funded organisation, I needed to employ someone to just do the data, to just collect the data.

Tiny, one person's sort of dance company, but we had to produce mountains of data to justify the money that I get. And then you've got the kind of, it's a ripe, it's just a ripe house for mould. That's what it is. And this stuff has come through and it's wet mould and it's dry mould and it's just covered the house. Because it's rotten inside and out. And we sidetracked you because you were talking about J.K. Rowling. That was about three years ago.

That was about three years ago. But tell us more about that story because it was fascinating. So I think it was her letter and I liked it, not on my company account, Twitter account, but on my personal one. I liked it and retweeted it, put my phone down, went, put a kettle on, came back, picked up my phone. Already there was like, you know, I don't know what's called there, this massive kind of trail of messages of people from the arts world saying, is this the, is Rosie Kay a turf? Is Rosie Kay transphobic? is this official policy of Ray's Kedon's company? I was absolutely shocked.

I was overwhelmed because I was kind of like, that's a brilliant letter. No one's going to argue with that. Come on. We were all so naive ones, weren't we? It just takes someone to stand up and take a stand, and then everyone will go, yeah. Somebody is obviously not right wing.

Somebody's obviously on the movie. All they have to do is just stand up and beautifully articulate the point, And then everyone will get it. Everyone will get it. Yeah. And I was like, oh my God. And my husband's like, just delete it, just delete it.

So I just deleted it. And then I felt, I felt a bit dirty. I felt a bit bad. And I thought, oh, so I'm making work about exactly this. That's going to go on big stages. Okay. All right. Let's do it.

But let's do it through the art. Let's do it through the art. So I got this solo out there. It was called Adult Female Dancer. I wanted to be called adult human female, and I was convinced by my management just to turn it down a little bit. Again, a bit annoyed. Human is very offensive, you are right? It's hugely offensive being female.

It's hugely offensive and being, yeah, adult. That's, yeah, yeah. So I did this solo show back in 21, big venues, really big, like Edinburgh Festival Theatre, you know, Burmian rep. And I got these amazing reviews, Observer, the Guardian. And in this solo, adult female dancer, there is a point where I say being a woman is not in my head. head. I thought someone would pick it up and out me. No, I just got like four or five star reviews.

So I was like, I'm out. Fine. Let's just keep going. This is like the little line. It's dangerous, but I'll play it. So I didn't expect to be cancelled in my own home. I didn't expect that one. But then I also, a bit like saying about the house had gone mouldy, my board were not there for

the art either. I don't know why they were there. I think there's a much bigger, important question about governance in the arts. And I'd like to do some work on that with lawyers to look at how we can protect. I mean, I knew nothing about intellectual property. I know everything now. I was like, well, I made it. It's mine.

No, no, it's more complicated than that. So I think we've got to kind of upskill ourselves a little bit as artists. was a movement and I want to be part of that. Go, well, actually, maybe we need a little bit of governance, a little bit of legal advice. We need to start going out and making everybody's lives as difficult as they've made ours. You made a point about how the art got into bed with the corporates.

And I remember, like, because I was very lefty when I was younger, as we all were, right? And I think that stage is very important, if I'm being honest. I think you should be at that age. But I remember always feeling uncomfortable whenever I saw the National Theatre sponsored by Deloitte or whatever else. And I can never articulate why. But if you're receiving your money from corporates,

then how can you be truly rebellious as an artist? Because art became a brand. I mean, I made this show called MK. Ultra that was looking at conspiracy theory. And I was sort of stunned. I was going to all the big theatres and dance events. And I was kind of like, kind of like doing the same thing over and over again. They've got like a brand, a look, a vibe, a feel, audience is the same. And then I was looking at pop videos and like some of it's completely bonkers. And I was like, well,

that's going quite avant-garde. Why have arts stopped being avant-garde and yet mainstream pop, mainstream media? We are talking like 10 years ago now, is more experimental. And I thought there was something really failing already going on there. Yeah, art is a brand. You're selling a product. They don't want you to do a different work every time. They want the same work recycled so that they know what they're selling. I think theatres are in a difficult state. I mean, they're in a really bad state at the moment with the cost of living crisis and heating. And there are some of them, not all,

there are some brilliant chief execs and directors out there. And programmers really brave, really get it, really see the future, are impresarios. But some people are just scared and are going to just not. rock the boat. They're the captain of the of the bounty. You know, they don't want a mutiny on their hands. So, because we've talked about a lot about what is wrong with the arts, how do we save the arts? Because the arts need saving. Because it is truly transformational. I used to teach drama and, you know, rough secondary schools up and down the country. I literally saw kids who couldn't access any type of education. The moment you put them on a stage, they flew. And you,

They developed, it wasn't just about performing. It wasn't just about the fact that they loved drama and then they loved expressing themselves. It gave them a dignity because they thought, I can do this. So how do we save the arts then? Okay, for first of all, just a little caveat is I think that learning departments

within organisations need to have a good look at because that's a lot where this kind of, whether it be critical race theory or queer theory is coming through, because the art sits still sometimes over there but it's the learning and participatory departments that have just been allowed to kind of not learn their trade properly, not go out there with like a really pure, clear message about the arts.

They're there for other reasons to push through ideology. What do I think we need to do in the art? I think we need to speak. We need to do. We need to be it. We need to be it. and make, like, just keep making stuff. I do speak, I do want to speak out,

but that only takes it so far. I've got to keep practicing my art form and get it out there. And it's the only way to also stay real, still stay sane, stay embedded, grounded in that discipline, in that practice. And yeah, I want to do some works that might be seen as political this year,

but I also want to go back to maybe some pure dance and have that freedom to do that. So I think we need to do, we need to speak and we need to be, we need to live it, you know, we need to walk the walk. That's absolutely true. You know, this is, I've stopped doing stand-up since the pandemic, but we're working on some interesting things comedically and whatever. And I think that's, you know, when you were talking before about

we have to stand up and talk to the, you know, and advocate for our generation and, you know, the point you're making. I was just thinking, I think the solution to this really is to prove that what we are doing and the content that, whatever that content is, whether it's dance or comedy or online stuff or whatever, is more popular. That's what you have to do. You have to get past the gatekeepers. That's really the problem in that.

It's the gatekeepers. Yes, exactly. Because you've got people making decisions who are not making them purely on the basis of what the public want. Absolutely. They're making them on basis based on ideology. And we saw this with comedy where you get people being promoted because they are trans or because they are this or because they're that.

And that is actually, if you can structurally find a way to get past that, very then easy to prove that that isn't what the people want. Because the shows that do that on TV, comedy-wise, they're all cancelled now. Yeah. Because no one watches them. Yeah. So if you create stuff that people, do watch, I think that's the answer.

But you know what? I think it's even more existential in the arts. I think there is an attack on live arts and live performance. Not necessarily a direct, but it's audiences aren't returning, those big buildings. I think, you know, and if you're putting on work that is ideologically steeped, I mean, I honestly think audiences hate it, but I also don't think they're necessarily striving to run out and see great new, challenging avant-garde work either. And so that worries me.

And I do agree that, you know, it should be meritocratic. It may be that we have to kind of accept that those institutions are too far gone and set up our own ways to do it, whether that be institutions or in new ways, holding on to her values. But I, yeah, I worry just that we're now moving to a non-live world. And yet I also, you know, I believe sitting in that auditorium when it goes dark and something live is about to happen in front of me.

You know, it's the best, most incredible experience in the world. I love it. And I think there's nothing, and I love being in the audience and I love performing, there's nothing else like it to communicate. deep humanity. The Greeks were great at it. You know, there's a reason why we need to be and see and think about difficult subject matters portrayed by people in real time. It does something to us. It's so important. I remember my dad, bless him, who's been, had a tough life, he's been through his struggles. And it was in the early noughties. I took him to see

Death of a Salesman, the Arthur Miller play. Yeah. And it was, I can't remember the name who the guy played Willie Lohman. He, but he, Brian Dennery. And I remember watching it, and I was thinking, this is brilliant. And I looked over at my dad, who's never really gone to the theatre a lot. He doesn't really come from that world. He comes from a working class background. And because I was worried, I was like, his dad enjoying it.

And he was literally on his head of his seat like this. And it was, because it's just such a powerful, I mean, Miller's my favorite playwright. Yeah. And in particular when you look at things like The Crucible, which is more relevant than ever. And it's so important. Because it's primal. It's primal.

It's about all of us being together around a metaphorical campfire telling a story and we need that and we can't forget it. I mean, I studied the crucible at school and I never thought I'd be living through, you know, an equivalent of the witch hunts. It's just unbelievable.

And I think that's, you know, something that really needs to be talked about more like the bullying, the bullying, that this is just allowed the bullies to get into positions of power and to leverage it. And it's hard to stand up to bullies. I get it. I get why people are scared.

But the only way to stop bullies is to say that's it. That's it. And Rosie, one of the things I want to ask you is why you decided to do that. And I know that it ties into some of the work you've made, actually. So talk to us about that. So I'm just about to bring five soldiers back and going on tour from April. What is Five Soldiers?

So Five Soldiers, and the subtitle to it is the body is the front line. I was struck by how the body, the physical body, the human body is still essential to warfare in the 21st century, no matter how the technological changes have changed warfare, it is the human body. And it's the human body that's trained to fight. So quite a long time ago, I was doing a show in London, and I suffered a really bad injury. And I was told I'd never dance again. It would take me about a year to recover. And following the operation of my leg,

I think the anaesthetic did something quite profound to my brain. I dreamt I was lying on a desert battlefield and my leg had been blown off. And I could see my leg over there. And my first thought, there was sort of bombs going off and flames and things. I first thought was those shit. But then my second thought was quite weird.

My second thought was like, well, is my body my soul? like where does my soul reside? Like I've trained since I was three years I said to be a dancer but like you could chop my arms and legs off and I'd still want to dance. I would and so I went downstairs and it was the Iraq war at the time

I put the telly on and I saw the faces of young men killed in Iraq and I just thought I wonder I wonder how they train I wonder how you train not just to risk injury like I do in dance but to risk your life and maybe it's not like the movies maybe they're not brainwashed

Maybe they really, really love their jobs. And that allows them to take such risks that they're willing to risk their lives. And what is that process? And I thought, well, there's all poets, war artists, there's all photographers. But the medium of their job is their bodies. Maybe I as a choreographer could go in. I've never seen a work of dance that captured the realness of it. So it took me years, it took me ages, but I got an attachment to an infantry battalion.

and I spent time with them, not realising a bit of an idiot, 10% females in the army, oh, it'll be 10% female, no, it's an all-male infantry battalion, Routy, it's all-male. So I end up on Dartmoor straight away, three days and nights and a big exercise. And I started off absolutely terrified, literally hiding behind people. I had like full Bergen, helmet, body armour. And then I got it. I just started watching and realizing, oh, I can see what's going on here.

Like, that needs a formation now. I started to understand the sort of physical tactics off it. Got quite into it. So over several weeks, I went from being a terrified pacifist, I thought bystander. So I had my own rifle. I was invited to join a battle against a rival battalion. And I was leaping out of windows, chucking grenades.

And you really rehearse war and they try and make it as realistic as possible. So there's like smoke and sounds and like they hate each other these different battalions. It's really full on. And I got it. I got that experience. I was like, okay, I just jumped out of a window. Never mind my poor left leg. I just did it.

I did that thing. I was like, yes, sir. Boom. Oh my God. I'm flying out of a window. I then spent time at Hadley Court, which is the Rehabilitation Centre. And by then the guys I was with training with,

they'd gone out to Afghanistan. And it was like one of those worst years. really bad years. And the Taliban changed tactics from firefighter improvised explosive devices, IEDs. So the guys that I was training with, they were now coming back with these complex traumas

and getting their legs blown off, basically. But no final point on it. And then some of the people, I actually knew people that had become friends, were injured. So I went to Selioch, very near where I live in Birmingham, and I visited a friend

who had lost both legs in Afghanistan as well, multiple other injuries. But I went into Selly Oak and it was like ward after ward after ward of young people with now disabling injuries. And yet, you know, there's still that army banter going on

and that vibe. And the government were not releasing the injury figures. They're putting a delay on it, but we weren't getting the casualty figures. So there was like, remember Wooten Bassett. So there's this outpouring of grief for the dead. But there's going to be that hundreds of people

that are going to be living lives. for decades that the British public are not going to be aware of. This before help for heroes and all these kind of charities, they were starting up around the same time. Anyway, long story short, I made a show about it. It's a one-hour show. It did okay, but when I brought it back in 2015, it just went, in the arts world, massive.

Not amazing, but massive, like five-star awards, globally touring. I was touring it right up until COVID-struck. I was touring the US with this. show and it's like a one hour you sit there you think oh god dance and military how crap is this going to be but we've had like serving soldiers a guy that just come back from afghanistan he sort of said my god that show he said it's like doing a six-month tour and one hour and then he came back the next night with his wife and teenage kids and i said i want to show them because i can't

explain how intense it is but this show does so we're bringing it back and I'd love to see that. I think it's good to have a show that's about fighting because I need to remember that discipline. I think it's relevant. The Afghanistan evacuation last year brought everything back for anyone of whether they're still serving or they're a veteran.

It was a shock. All that sacrifice that people had made for beliefs and values they believed in. They believed in all of it. They believed in the values of, you know, helping particularly women in Afghanistan. understand, you know, what's going on there. And then we've got Ukraine. And this idea, you know, the lefties, when I did five soldiers like, oh, you're a bit right wing looking at the military.

And I was like, but it's happening. It's really happening. We have a professional military that are at war. I think Ukraine has made people think, ah, you know, that's on Europe. That's on our land. And I think people are looking at, well, how do you defend your borders in a different way? So yeah, I think Five Soldiers is still, sadly, very relevant. And it sounds like brilliant art because it can express the things sometimes. Even a person who's been through that experience can't express for themselves. So I really look forward to seeing. Thank you.

And it's about this contradictions. And that's what I love about dance is that, you know, one second you read one thing and the next minute you read another. And whether that's be around the body or emotions or like the role of soul. It's lovely. And I don't try and have a political message with it. I try and be as authentic to those stories and experiences that I had. Fantastic. Well, I look forward to seeing. I'll make sure to do that. Sounds great. Rosie, Kay, before we let you go, we always ask our final question. But before we ask that, and of course questions for our locals, only supporters. Tell everybody where to find you. So I have a website called k-2co.com. I'm on Twitter, Rosie Kay, K2Co.

I'm on Instagram and I'm on Facebook and yeah, just find me and reach out. And go and see Five Soldiers. So what is the one thing we're not talking about as a society that we really should be? I think we're not talking about joy enough. joy, pleasure, fun. I think talking about ideas about real joy, like joy that lights the soul, that lifts us up, that elevates us,

beauty, like not a superficial level of beauty, but a real, like, gorgeousness of the world. These are deeply unfashionable things right now. And I think that does relate to this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, this, we're in, like being able to really have fun. If you can't let go and you're worried about, you know, censorship or fear or whatever,

you can't have fun. Can't because it takes away all spontaneity. So I'm really interested in like how do we elicit like feelings of joy? How do artists help that? I think it relates to your world like joy and humor and beauty. Not a lot of beauty and comedy, trust me. And that's maybe not talking about these things. things, but then that's why I'm in dance and not in politics, I suppose.

It's like, because these are things that are felt, these are things that are lived, these are things that are in our bodies. And we can't just keep like, you know, what is it? There's this ape in a meat sack, you know, we can't keep this discardian kind of like separation in the mind and the body. We need to get into our bodies, we need to have fun and we need to have pleasure. That be eating or dancing or all those other experiences of binding. like fulfillment in ourselves.

And that's up to us. You know, we have to do that. I completely agree. And sometimes fun can be naughty as well, which is why I think the fun police come along because they're like, no, this must be fun and set parameters. And you're like, that's not fun. Exactly.

You just killed it. Yeah. Perfect. It's been such a pleasure. Thank you so much for coming on the show. And for everybody watching, we put out interviews on Wednesday and Sunday, 7pm UK times and Rawls always go out at 7pm UK time as well and for those of you who like

your trigonometry on the go it's also available as a podcast take care and see you soon guys we'll see you on locals for the bonus questions that you've already submitted for us take care what are the hopes for art as intended to create beauty to entertain and to console to transport and transcend