Spielzeit 26.08. - 09.10.

The Art of the Final Moment

From the Death Poems of Japanese Zen Masters to European Contemporary Poetry

Reading

For me, departing, And for you, remaining, There are two autumns. / Yosa Buson

What is death? An end, followed by nothing? A transition? The beginning of true life? Even if God is dead, death remains. But how can we talk about it, understand it? In secular western post-industrial society questioning these fundamentals has disappeared from the public arena. It has retreated into the niches where religious and spiritual themes now have their place. Death seems to have become a personal matter. Material for self-help books and personal memoirs.

Perhaps it is only in the arts that those with contrasting views meet in order to deal with the ultimate questions in their full philosophical dimension. Amid these changing times, poetry, the art of lyricism, has remained a refuge beyond a variety of cultural borders for shaping and exchanging experiences, observations and insights in words, which open up death and its meaning for life to universal thought.

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