A Dark Joy

"I wanted to account for something that is demonic but also joyful, and so I came up with the idea of "dark joy" because I think this force is life-giving, and life-enhancing, and yet it's also tied to death. What Lorca means by duende, when he says that a singer has it, or a that a flamenco dancer has it, or that a poet has it, or that a particular performance has it, he means that something else takes over, some kind of haunting or possession. Something lifts off in the process of creating the work that leads an artist to the summit of the work, to somewhere that he or she hasn't been before. And so it's a kind of demonic enthusiasm, a kind of dark force."

Edward Hirsh