Meredith Monk does not like to use the term 'shamanistic' to describe her music-theatre piece Volcano Songs, but admits it is a useful way to explain what she is trying to achieve.
'I hate those words but I do see this piece as a kind of healing process,' said the ground-breaking avant-garde performance artist from New York, who is appearing at the Hong Kong Arts Festival this week. Volcano Songs, a one-woman piece first performed two years ago, was inspired by a trip she made to Bali in 1992.
'What impressed me most was how theatre, music and dance were so much a part of daily life. It wasn't just that everyone comes to be entertained and then they go and have a cup of coffee and go home,' said Monk, who has steered clear of that style of performance since her first shows in the 1960s.
She sees traditional Balinese performance as not only reflecting nature, but affecting it as well. 'You could feel that something was actually happening while they were performing.' She hopes to create on stage 'a sense of sacred space, of performing as a kind of healing'.
It is like a theatrical poem, she said of the piece, which is based on the idea that although volcanoes are dangerous, they also provide some of the world's most fertile soil.
Although those living in the shadows of volcanoes are risking their lives, they do benefit from its energy.
