ABSTRACT
The Ministry of Health and Social Welfare had invited them to perform for the August 2013 launching of the new rotavirus vaccine program, which aimed to reduce cases of diarrheal disease, a leading cause of death for children under five. The sky was overcast and the ground was still muddy from the last night’s rain. Women’s health performances can be transformative on an individual level when they enable the integration of mind and body, emotion and intellect. Although the extent to which a given performance can inspire sustained transformation may be limited, attending to momentary freedoms in song provides view of the complexity of women’s experiences and reveals cracks in the notion of all-encompassing hierarchy and marginalisation. Women’s performances illustrate a process of negotiating seemingly disparate ideologies of health and value in creative ways. Moreover, rather than viewing performers as simply voices to disseminate predetermined information, successful collaborations consider performers and health workers as partners in the health promotion effort.
