32 Quotes by Meredith Monk

(There is) art that states the problems of society and wakes people up to make changes in their lives or in their communities,...art that offers an alternative, that demonstrates human behavior that can become a model for creativity, cooperation, freedom and playfulness, and...art that in itself provides glimpses of a larger consciousness or reflects upon the inexplicable.

Curiosity is a great antidote to fear.

I work in between the cracks, where the voice starts dancing, where the body starts singing, where theater becomes cinema.

A group called Rosetta Life, that sends artists out to hospices in England, came to talk to me in February 2003. I lost my partner of 22 years in November 2002, so I was really in my grieving process - I still am - but I was thinking of nothing but impermanence then.

I think about that “empty” space a lot. That emptiness is what allows for something to actually evolve in a natural way. I’ve had to learn that over the years – because one of the traps of being an artist is to always want to be creating, always wanting to produce.

When you start worrying about form, then you’re not in the moment.

Yes, the more I go through life I realize that there’s really no separation between practice and art at all. The two things more and more become one rather than two different aspects of my life.

My music is very, very precise. It’s very rigorous. The forms are much more intricate than you would imagine.

I somehow sensed when I was a teenager that I wanted to do my own work. I was quite clear that I didn’t want to be an interpretative kind of artist. I had an intuition about wanting to create my own form, in one way or another, whatever that would be.