Meredith Monk & Collin Walcott

One of the first and best "performance artists," Meredith Monk's work is some of the least contrived and most convincing in that amorphously defined genre. Though largely and perhaps primarily a musician, Monk combines sound with choreography, image, and object, creating an art that defies category. Her unconventional treatment of the voice as a musical instrument unto itself is arguably her greatest innovation; no other Western artist has done more to extend the art of the wordless vocal. Born in Peru of American parents, Monk was raised in New York and Connecticut. She studi...