Toronto Sun, December 14, 1993

[aj796@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Tippi Chai)]

Here's the interview from the Toronto Sun.  The Sun is almost a tabloid, and
Les tells me he's got a copy with a picture of Kate next to the page 3
scantily-clad Sunshine Girl.  This interview is the feature of the Showbiz
section, with the interview printed on a full-page photo of Kate, (10"x15")
in a fruit-print dress as worn in the _Eat the Music_ video.  (If anyone is
interested in a colour xerox, email me.  The cost would be around $2.  Les
and I will probably scan it and post it somewhere.)
 
 
Kate Bush weaves a fairy tale - by John Sakamoto
 
The best fairy tales rarely conform to the "once upon a time/happily ever 
after" format.
 
Take Hans Christian Andersen's 19th-century "bedtime" story, _The Red Shoes_.
A young girl receives a pair of magical shoes that transform her into a
magnificent dancer.  Unfortunately, they won't let her *stop* dancing.
They literally become a part of her body, resisting all attempts at being
removed.  Eventually, the girl becomes so desperate, she has her feet chopped 
off.  Then she dies.  The end.
 
Which brings us to the new Kate Bush album, also titled _The Red Shoes_. 
The initial attraction to the charming story above, Bush is telling a handful 
of reporters during a rare in-person interview yesterday, "was the image of 
dance, because it is something I've really enjoyed being involved in.  But it's
an image you can take to almost any form of art, the idea of being possessed
by one's art.  Sometimes *it* controls you rather than *you* controlling it."
 
"I think that's probably true of every album I make, really," she says, 
laughing.  "At some point I feel like I'm just being dragged behind it -
though so far I haven't had to actually cut off my feet."
 
What she did have to do was spend the better part of four years hunkered down
in her home recording studio, which is especially ironic since the idea was, 
according to longtime producer Del Palmer, to make the album quickly and 
bring out a  "live feel" to the music.  A number of factors conspired against 
that,  including a major retooling of the studio, the death of Bush's mother,
and a long-distance "musical penpal" collaboration with Prince that took
two years to wrap up.
 
While admitting that the idea of doing some shows after the album was
finished "was something I'd been playing with," the 35-year old Bush says,
"I'd never really written the songs in view of playing them on stage."
Does that mean there will, once again, be no tour?  "I don't think I'd
ever tour again," she says, flatly.  "Though I enjoy travelling, I don't
travel always very *well*.  I loved doing the tour we did before (in 1979),
I loved the performances and working with the band and the dancers ... 
but I didn't really enjoy the travelling.  I do really like the idea of
doing some shows at some point," she adds, emphasizing those last 3 words.
"but when we finished the album I got the idea of doing the short film,
and all my energies went into that."
 
"The short film" is _The Line, The Cross and the Curve_, Bush's directorial
debut, which received an invite-only screening last night at the Royal
Ontario Museum, its first showing outside of the London Film Festival
last month.  (It will likely be released as a home video in the new year.)
 
Incorporating a series of videos for _The Red Shoes_, the 50-minute,
$1 million production features Miranda Richardson and mime artist Lindsey Kemp.
Bush sums up the plot this way.  "it's the idea of working in a rehearsal
room with a band, and suddenly this woman appears in the room and tricks me 
out of my soul, which is represented by three symbols, and puts me under 
a spell which involves the red shows.  And for the rest of the film, I have
to try to  win back my soul.
 
"It is," she smiles sweetly, "kind of a fairy tale."
 
(Side Box) The Red Shoes: A running account
* 19th century: A short fairy tale about vanity and retribution, written by
	Hans Christian Andersen in the mid-1800s.
* 1948: A powerful film, adapted from the fairy tale, by Michael Powell and
	Emeric Pressburger.  (Available on video, and essential viewing for
	Kate Bush fans.)  Bush met director Powell a few months before his
	1990 death.  She writes about the experience in _Moments of Pleasure_
	from the new album.
* 1993: A much-delayed Broadway musical set to open this month.  So far,
	the original director, the male lead and the lyricist have all been
	replaced.
* 1993: An album by Kate Bush.
-- 
Tippi Chai, Toronto, ON, Canada             aj796@freenet.carleton.ca
"It's really happenin' to ya!" Kate Bush    "My past is warpaint" Happy Rhodes