The Kate Bush Factor

(2022)

A collaboration by Elle Hong, Madison Palffy, and a.r. havel

Concept & Performance: Elle Hong, Madison Palffy
Scenic Design & Videography: a.r. havel
Original Score & Sound Design: Elle Hong, Madison Palffy, Slipper Grass

The Kate Bush Factor was supported through a B2 Center for Media, Arts and Performance Residency (Hong/Palffy),
an Art Gym Denver Create Award Residency (Hong), and the University of Colorado Boulder Department of Theatre & Dance.

Premiered at ATLAS - B2 Center for Media, Arts & Performance (Boulder, CO), June 2022.




The Kate Bush Factor centers performers Elle Hong and Madison Palffy in their journey towards distilling the magic of what makes UK pop star, Kate Bush, so compelling. Recontextualizing experimental film and mockumentary as structured dance-improvisation, the two tap into Bush’s excess, indulgence, drag performance, wistfulness, and longing as embodied strategies for fugitivity and queer worldbuilding. Hong and Palffy become subsumed in their quest for embodying the spirit of Kate Bush; the result is a feature-length identity crisis, or perhaps, identity revelation into the parts of oneself found through attempting to become someone/something else. With additional set design and filmography by a.r. havel, The Kate Bush Factor is a fantastical exploration into the possibilities that unfold through leaning into, as Bush puts so eloquently, the “mm…yes!”






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Stream/purchase “Heaven Is the Key of C” on Bandcamp.