Blog
Nataasha Van Kampen, Rest in Peace
Written by Jimmy
You have most likely seen the news that Nataasha Van Kampen, daughter to the famoua Mark Rylance (of recent Jerusalem fame) died of natural (how can death at that age be natural?) causes. What you might not know is that we were blessed to have Nataasha in our lives briefly a couple years ago as the writer, director, producer of our first ever video, The Knife Will Come, staring our lead singer on the song, Louise Calf. First, here’s the video, which we loved:
I met Nataasha several times during the video shoot, including a great lunch with her and Louise at the Cafe de Cuba on St Martin’s Lane. The one ever-lasting impression: Energy! We talked about all the things that we wanted to do with Abubilla Music and Singing Wells and she wanted to play a major role in all of it. She had a love for Africa and wanted to be part of all our trips. She loved some of our music and wanted to do a dozen videos. She loved our Discovery Artist idea and wanted to be part of it. We all walked away so energised by Nataasha and excited that she wanted to be part of our lives.
Later she had to call and say that she had 8-9 things going on, each as exciting as Abubilla and she needed to prioritise down to a few or she’d start letting people down. Sadly for us, we didn’t make the short list. But it is testimony that if I felt that energy from being in the bottom quartile of her world of art and film, I can only imagine what it would be like to hit that priority list. My guess is, for the top quartile, she filled their worlds with light and love, film and fun. Our sympathies to those that were in that world and now must feel a big beautiful light has gone out.
For us, we’ll cherish our little moment in her big world.
Jimmy