Keynote SpeakerPresence Over Performance
What might the animal kingdom help us remember about being human?
Machines can now write, speak and perform for us. What they can't do is be present with another living being, or trust an instinct. My work explores what the animal kingdom can reveal about the parts of being human we've quietly forgotten, and what changes when we remember them.
For more than 25 years, my world has been voice, performance and expression. Yet some of the most profound things I've learned about presence, instinct and connection have come from encounters where nobody said a word.
Watch Kate
Animal Frequency, in 90 seconds.
A glimpse into Kate's world of wildlife, storytelling and presence, and the conversation at the heart of Animal Frequency.
Hear The Maiden Flight
Put your headphones on. I want to take you somewhere.
An exclusive five-minute excerpt from The Maiden Flight, the story at the heart of my keynote.
Five minutes, one remote island, a cliff edge, and a question about what happens when we stop waiting to feel completely ready.
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The Keynote
Presence Over Performance
What the animal kingdom reveals about being human in an artificial age.
At its heart is The Maiden Flight, a story from the cliffs of Española in the Galápagos, where young albatrosses take their first flight long before anyone could call them ready.
The keynote was born from a lifetime spent working with voice and performance, and the gradual transformation I experienced through years of encounters with the animal kingdom.
It explores three ideas that feel increasingly important in the world we're creating:
Presence over Performance
Instinct & Uncertainty
Aliveness & Connection
Through story, humour and extraordinary encounters, I invite audiences to consider what we might rediscover when we stop trying quite so hard to perform being human.
Animal Frequency
I don't think these two parts of my life were ever separate.
For decades I've worked instinctively with voice, expression and resonance. Alongside that has been a lifelong fascination with animals, one that has taken me into wild places, rescue centres and encounters that have affected me more deeply than I ever expected.
Animal Frequency is where those worlds finally meet.
It's an exploration of animal communication and intelligence, resonance, our relationship with other species and the extraordinary things that can happen when we become completely absorbed in another life.
There is science here. There are things we're only beginning to understand. And there are experiences that still leave me with far more questions than answers.
I like that.
Work With Kate
Beyond the keynote.
If a group wants to go further, Human in the Room follows the keynote with a smaller, more intimate session where we turn presence into practice: listening and responding when things don't go to plan, and speaking so that people actually feel spoken to.
For anyone who'd like to go further one to one, The Unperformed Day is a day out in nature with me.
And I collaborate with conservation organisations and on experiences in wilder places. If you're creating something along those lines, I'd love to hear about it.
Most often booked as a keynote followed by a half-day Human in the Room session.
About
Voice actor. Performer. Speaker. Animal obsessive.
I've spent more than 25 years behind microphones, in studios and in front of cameras, working with organisations including Google, Emirates and the United Nations.
I've also spent a fairly unreasonable amount of my life arranging travel around where the animals are.
Eventually those two worlds collided.
Now, through my speaking and Animal Frequency, I'm bringing together a lifetime of voice, performance and expression with the thing that has always mattered most to me.
Shall we
Shall we create something?
Whether you're considering the keynote for your stage, creating an experience somewhere extraordinary, or you've simply got an idea you think I need to hear, I'd love to know about it.