Von Sonne zu Sonne

In the myths and legends of all peoples and religions, the godly act of creation is connected with the coming of light. In fact it is a daily event. The sun goes down, the visible world is covered in darkness, and day moves into night. This continuously alternating shift from light to darkness and back again has, since the beginning of human history, produced separate worlds of day and night, waking and sleep, light and dark, good and evil.

Until a century ago, the common experience of night was of a pitch-black darkness. Today most of us have to actively seek out neglected or undiscovered places far from civilisation in order to experience such complete and utter darkness. Those who seek the trail of the night will not be surprised by the concept of ‘inner night’, which has driven artists from across many eras to explore their own inner darkness, calling on dreams and fantasies from the subconscious. Governed by dark passages of the night and the twilight of underground abysses, these literary texts explore the primal origin of the world, in which the dark night gives birth to the act of creation.

The extraordinary actress, Edith Clever, conjures a night full of sunrises, reading from a variety of creation myths from a broad spectrum of cultures and epochs.

A Ruhrtriennale production. A co-production with Suhrkamp Verlag.