Performance Art: Dali Meets Kylie on “Kiss Me Once” Tour

Kylie Minogue’s whimsically surreal Kiss Me Once tour featured “Les Sex” as the opening number, with Kylie ascending on a lift, draped over a softly glowing lip-shaped couch—an homage to the artist, Salvador Dali and his piece, “Mae West Lips Sofa.” Other noteworthy Dali references include the male dancers donning the signature Dali moustache; the female dancers sporting a pair of lobsters on their bustiers—a nod to the Dali piece, “Lobster Telephone.”

The original video-screen footage playing over the second song in the set, “In My Arms,” continues to honor the work of the legendary Spanish surrealist: Kylie sitting on a pedestal (“Leda Atomica”); creatures with exaggerated limbs walking across a deserted plain, while on stage, the male dancers (similarly) continue to hold onto their tall support-crutches (“The Elephants”).

The third song in the set, Kylie’s 2012 “Timebomb” shows the presence of (melting) clocks in the video-screen footage, a theme prevalent in Dali’s work, for example in “The Persistence of Memory.” Also on stage during “Timebomb,” the female dancers don skintight outfits with spikes running down the spines, similar to an element featured in Dali’s “The Burning Giraffe.”

Although surrounded by surreal imagery, leave it to Kylie to be the light amid the dark: