Patti Smith collapsed during a performance in Brazil after experiencing a severe migraine for several days. Smith, 78, was performing with the Berlin group Soundwalk Collective, in which she recites her writing to a musical backing.

Associated Press reported that the newspaper Folha de S Paulo said that Smith passed out about 30 minutes into the event while reading a piece about the climate crisis. After falling, she was taken backstage in a wheelchair.

Smith returned to the stage to apologise for having to cut the performance short. “Unfortunately, I got sick, and the doctor said I can’t finish,” she told the crowd from the wheelchair. “So we will have to figure something out. And I feel very badly.”

The crowd responded: “Don’t be, we love you.”

Posting on Instagram, the collective said that despite her migraine, Smith “still wanted to be there for all of us and you and perform today” – Wednesday, the final date of a run of South American tour dates.

“She is now being cared for by the best doctors in the most loving way and will be back on stage tomorrow night [Thursday],” the collective said.

Smith also signed the statement, which continued: “Patti says that she is tremendously grateful for your patience and forgiveness and she sends her love to all who attended.”

In March, artists including Michael Stipe, Kim Gordon, Karen O of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Chrissie Hynde and Susanna Hoffs of the Bangles will perform at a tribute concert marking 50 years of Smith’s canonical punk album Horses.

They asked fans to “refrain from posing [footage] at this sensitive moment”. Nevertheless, videos posted online showed Smith lying on the ground at the Cultura Artística theatre.

Patti Smith and Soundwalk Collective have collaborated on several albums since 2016, the most recent of which, The Perfect Vision: Reworkings, was released in 2022. Smith’s last solo album was Banga, released in 2012. In the meantime, she has written several acclaimed books, including M Train and Year of the Monkey.

In December 2023, she was briefly hospitalised in Italy for a “sudden illness”. In 2020, she told the Guardian that she had struggled during the pandemic owing to a lifelong bronchial condition that kept her indoors. “To be in limbo almost 10 months, for a person like me who doesn’t like sitting in the same place, it’s been very challenging,” she said. “I feel like I’m part-wolf, roaming from room to room.”