Inside the Illuminati with Rosie Kay and Adam CurtisRosie Kay has trained with the army and delved into tribal rituals for her bold dance shows. In her latest, MK Ultra, she’s investigating the secret society believed to be brainwashing Beyoncé and Bieber
Judith Mackrell Judith Mackrell
Monday 13 March 2017 13.49 EDT Last modified on Tuesday 14 March 2017 07.35 EDT
“I’ve fallen down the rabbit hole,” admits Rosie Kay with a slightly wild giggle, as she describes the world of conspiracies, cults and celebrities that she has been exploring for her latest work. The choreographer has long been known for her brave and sometimes surprising choices, and for the depth of research she undertakes. She and her dancers spent weeks in training with the British army for 5 Soldiers, while for Sluts of Possession she worked with the School of Anthropology at Oxford, investigating tribal and spiritual ritual. None of her projects, though, have taken her into such alien territory as MK Ultra.
Named after the experiments in mind control that the CIA developed during the last century, Kay’s new show explores the phenomenon of the Illuminati, a shadowy cult believed to be on an elaborate mission of global domination, spreading its agenda through the brainwashing of prominent individuals in politics and the media.
Belief in the cult is particularly strong among young people, and when Kay first began hearing about it from the teenagers who came to her dance workshops, she discovered that pop stars are considered to be the Illuminati’s most targeted “recruits”. Groomed from a young age, singers like Britney Spears, Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber, Lindsay Lohan and Kanye West have supposedly been made agents of the Illuminati’s New World Order, their songs and videos carrying messages designed to subtly alter the public’s consciousness. According to Kay, “the under-25s now have a whole system for decoding the imagery of music videos, looking for symbols like thrones, butterflies, checkered floors and bird cages, to see if they’re carrying the cult’s message and to see which celebrities have been programmed”.
Kay is bemused by the bizarre extravagance of this conspiracy theory. “There’s no actual evidence for any of it,” she says briskly. “A cult called the Illuminati did exist in Bavaria in the 17th century, but no one really knows why so many young people believe they’re around today.” What fascinates her are the reasons why belief in the Illuminati has taken so powerful a hold today. She attributes it partly to the unfettered scope of celebrity culture, and the levels of fantasy it has disseminated, and partly to the paranoia and uncertainty that has been generated by our current era of fake news: “So much doubt is now being cast on mainstream media, so many people are taking their information from alternative sources, and it’s having such a dangerous effect on politics.” As one of Kay’s teenage sources said to her: “We used to be told what was real by our leaders, but since recent events we’ve been let down. Now we fend for ourselves.”
Conspiracy theories aren’t easy subjects to choreograph around, but Kay developed an idea for a piece that would tell the story of a group of would-be celebrities who have been suckered into the cult of the Illuminati and are struggling to maintain their individuality and their grasp on the real world. Initially, she envisaged the piece as a pure dance narrative, choreographed, designed and staged in the style of a pop video. But as part of her research she began talking to the film-maker Adam Curtis, who persuaded her that she had to layer more documentary-style material into the work to make its context and significance clear. “As Adam pointed out, most people under 25 will have heard of the Illuminati, but a lot of my contemporary dance audience won’t. He said, ‘You have to give them some way in, otherwise they’ll be scratching their heads and thinking, Rosie has really gone mad this time.’”
‘Once I’ve decided on an idea, nothing’s going to stop me’ … Rosie Kay.
There have certainly been moments during the making of MK Ultra when Kay has felt overwhelmed by the “bonkers” nature of the world she’s entered. Its dangerous levels of credulity and fantasy have also been underlined for her by the fact that, during this same period, she and her company have been touring 5 Soldiers and have been dealing with issues that are far starker. 5 Soldiers is a subtle and humane portrait of army life in which Kay tells the stories of five men and women who have experienced different forms of trauma while serving on the front line. The work has proved a revelation to its civilian audiences, but in the last 18 months it has also toured to several army bases, and in the process it has brought Kay into movingly intimate contact with individual soldiers. “Often they’ve come into the hall looking press-ganged and anxious. They’ve obviously been told they had to come and see the show. But afterwards we haven’t been able to get them out – they’ve wanted to tell us so many stories about their own experiences. One soldier who lost both of his legs in Afghanistan has become a good friend and a big supporter of the piece.”
Touring 5 Soldiers has also put Kay into unexpectedly close contact with top-level military personnel. When she first began to research the work, the army gave her only “grudging” access, but once they recognised the cathartic effect that it was having on the soldiers who saw it, as well as the valuable insights it offered to civilian audiences, they were very keen to offer funding and support. As Kay says: “Nick Carter, the head of the British army, has been pushing to make it more representative. He’s been pushing for more women and BAME [recruits], and he sees the arts as a good way to present a more complex portrait of the army to the wider community.” So great an impact has 5 Soldiers made that Carter has just appointed a top-ranking lieutenant colonel to act as the army’s first arts engagement officer, and Kay is justly proud of the fact that the latter’s first official act was to meet with her and ask for advice about future projects.
Tour de force … Kay’s 5 Soldiers. Photograph: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian
Kay’s addicted to the process of researching a new subject, and says: “Once I’ve decided on an idea for a work, nothing’s going to stop me.” But she also believes that dance can be a force for change, and is very concerned that the artform isn’t nurturing more radical and political voices. “Sometimes I think we’ve all swallowed the marketing-speak book. We’re under so much pressure to be successful and accessible, we’re so worried about pulling in the numbers, that we’re in danger of losing our bite.”
MK Ultra is at Birmingham Rep, 17-18 March. Then touring the UK until 18 May.
https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/ ... e-mk-ultra 
