NEW YORK (NYTimes) - The Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, one of the most generous arts honours in the United States, has been awarded to multi-disciplinary artist Meredith Monk.
Her wordless vocal pirouettes and otherworldly theatre compositions have reverberated in New York and internationally for five decades.
The Gish Prize, established in 1994, includes US$250,000 (S$340,000) in cash and is granted each year to an artist said to have "pushed the boundaries of an art form, contributed to social change and paved the way for the next generation", according to an announcement.
Previous recipients include Elizabeth LeCompte, Maya Lin, Spike Lee, Chinua Achebe, Robert Redford and Arthur Miller.
Monk came to prominence in the 1970s as a composer who used her own voice as a canvas, and who saw opera, film and choreography as complimentary vessels for her varied artistic visions.
In 1995, she was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, and in 2015 President Barack Obama presented her with the National Medal of Arts.
