In “Naino,” a courtyard within a scholar’s garden in the city of Suzhou, China inspires a narrative exploration of a poem by Kabir, a 15th-century Indian mystic claimed by both Hindu and Islamic traditions. The poem is worldly and spiritual as it employs intimate, erotic speech that is typical to both the Sufi way of Islam and the Bhakti tradition of Hinduism. The speaker invites the beloved into their eyes, and from there into their inner landscape. The ideal here is to become one with the divine by taking in its magnificent vision.

MetLiveArts 2021–22 Artist in Residence Bijayini Satpathy’s performance is set against Sam Gilliam’s chromatically striking and texturally dynamic drape painting Carousel State (1968).

Join Andrew Bolton, the Wendy Yu Curator in Charge of The Costume Institute, on a tour of the exhibition "Karl Lagerfeld: A Line of Beauty."

Go behind the scenes with artist Lauren Halsey, who discusses the inspiration and making of The Met’s 2023 Roof Garden Commission.

“Taru” is Sanskrit for tree. Inspired by non-figurative ornamentation and the interlacing of simple geometrical patterns in Islamic art, this performance is an abstract exploration of the body as it creates and becomes design in space. The piece is set to a tarana—a musical pattern from the north Indian Hindustani style of music that is highly influenced by Persian music traditions.

An exploration of the body in prayer, “The Prayer” was created especially for the Chapter House at The Met Cloisters, and is inspired by the site’s meditative architecture. The music evokes a haunting stream of prayers, resonating calls, and chants drawn from Hindu, Islamic, Buddhist, and Gregorian traditions.

Listen to Matthew Evan Taylor’s “Life Returns”, a monumental work that encompasses bite-sized pieces of music, which explore African-American, South Asian, and Western European musical practices.