Can Art Exist Without Free Expression? | Peter Boghossian and Rosie Kay

In the spring of 2021, award-winning dancer and choreographer Rosie Kay performed a solo show to wide acclaim. The show included three pieces addressing women’s experiences in life and dance, with the final piece, “Adult Female Dancer,” serving as Rosie’s memoir. Just a few months later, she resigned from her own dance company following accusations of transphobia. In the fall of 2021, Rosie invited dancers from her production of “Romeo + Juliet” to her home for a dinner party. A late-night conversation about an upcoming production of Virginia Woolf’s “Orlando” revealed Rosie’s support for women-only spaces and her acknowledgment that biological sex is real. A handful of her dancers reported this “transphobia” to the Rosie Kay Dance Company board of directors, initiating investigations. The board wanted Rosie to be “re-educated.” Rosie resigned from the company she ran for nearly 20 years and launched a new company, K2CO. She only employs dancers who are committed to freedom of speech and artistic expression. Rosie Kay graduated from the London Contemporary Dance School in 1998. She performed internationally and founded The Rosie Kay Dance Company in 2004. She was the Leverhulme Artist in Residence at the University of Oxford, the choreographer for the 2018 Commonwealth Games, and received Special Commendation from the Royal Society of Public Health. Awards from Stuttgart’s International Solo Dance Festival, The Queen, and Bonnie Bird are among her many accolades. Her work has been featured on stage and in film. Rosie Kay on Unherd: “My body will never be erased”  Watch this episode on YouTube.