I grew up as a dancer. I did tap, classical ballet, all of that. I did Indian dancing, or Bharata Natyam, classic temple dancing from Madras, originally. My mother always had the great idea that I should learn it.

As far as I'm concerned, the 20th century was performance-driven, but for some reason, the critics and historians didn't know how to integrate that.

Performance art is really about the sociology of the artist, where ideas come from, and the confluence of those ideas.

From day one, my idea was always to use the gallery as this animated place to discover culture in a much bigger way.

I started as a tap dancer in Durban, which is on the coast. That was an important part of growing up, turning on the radio in the morning and hearing Zulu singing or the news in Zulu.

There's a moment when you say, "Okay, I'm not going to become a dancer. I'm not going to become a painter." So in a sense, I ended up writing about those big conflicts that I felt.

My father was a doctor. He was just a great guy, a gentle humanist, and an old-fashioned GP. He'd get up at three in the morning to see patients in different areas if they needed him.