I can’t imagine a better example of this idiom. You know what “leaving it all out there” means? It means you’re a human being, so you’ve got some shit to work through in your life. But you’re also a performer. So in order to give 100% you work through your most powerful shit on stage, because that stuff is the most high-power fuel we got. And when you’re done, it’s spent. If you did it right you left it there.

This talented woman, this Inuit from the northern Canadian province on Nunavut, Tanya Tagaq, leaves it out there.

I love that she’s barefoot. I love that she howls like a wolf then wails like a grieving mother. Parts remind me of Diamanda Galás, if Galás were lucky enough to grow up in the Arctic instead of San Diego. When she gets down on the floor and messes up her hair, then starts growling, then starts devouring something, you can’t help but believe she’s gone somewhere deep and dark and hungry.

I’ve heard there’s a documentary called “A String Quartet In Her Throat” (great name) but haven’t been able to find it. It’s her collaboration with Kronos Quartet — which in itself is pretty exciting. Alas, that album cannot be found either.

Here she is explaining some of her technique, which is a kind of single-person Inuit throat-singing: