The award-winning choreographer who fell foul of the mob

Ebullient, articulate and eminently sensible, Rosie Kay never wanted to be a martyr to the culture wars. A modern dance choreographer with an impressive track record – including 5 Soldiers, an award-winning exploration of army life, contributions to the closing ceremony of the 2012 Olympics and a fellowship at Oxford – she would rather be getting on with the business of creating new work for her small dance company. But she’s been given no choice – and all because of a party she held in August 2021 at her home in Birmingham.

Half-way through rehearsals for a new production of Romeo and Juliet, Kay felt that the dancers were struggling with morale after lockdown and that it would be nice to socialise. Things got well-lubricated after midnight, ‘and we were all on edge, tired and vulnerable’. ‘My husband wanted to kick everyone out, but my manager at the time thought we should keep the cast there to stop them going clubbing and risk contracting Covid,’ she said.

When Kay was asked, that night, about her plans to stage a dance version of Orlando – Virginia Woolf’s journey through gender and history – non-binary members of the cast told her that only a trans performer should play the title role. Kay disagreed, asserting her belief in biological sex differences and the right to single-sex safe spaces. ‘Looking back, perhaps that was naive. I could feel the atmosphere getting passive-aggressive. But I hadn’t started the discussion, my views were open and well-known, and I thought it was a free country.’

She returned to work thinking that the ensuing argy-bargy would blow over. Instead, the dancers went to the company’s board with accusations that she had used the words ‘penis and vagina’ in ways that were found to be offensive and complaints that she had been intimidating and ‘marginalising’, ‘abusing her position of power’ and ‘causing a hostile work environment’.