Twenty musicians and dancers from cultures spanning four continents talk about their lives and art.  Each conversation – recorded, transcribed and sympathetically reworked by Monica Connell – is accompanied by a colour photograph of the artist performing. Together photograph and ‘story’ create an intimate portrait of artists ranging from a Sierra Leonean percussionist to a Portuguese fado singer. 
A Universal Passion gives an insight into how international musicians and dancers – all now based in the South West of England and Wales – share their art through performance and teaching.  Music is a ‘language’ by which musicians, dancers and audiences from radically different backgrounds come together and communicate.  New traditions bring vitality to, influence and merge with existing ones in a wave of vibrancy, exuberance and joie de vivre. 

Monica Connell is a writer and photographer.  Her previous work includes Against a Peacock Sky (Viking, 1991), an account of two years as an anthropologist in the Jumla region of North Western Nepal.  She lives in Bristol.