Theatre and the Threshold of Death Lectures on the Dying Arts

<p>On the eve of a global pandemic, Kathleen Gough, a theatre professor, becomes immersed in the lives of five artist-mystics, each of whom is a pioneer in her field: <b>Hildegard of Bingen</b> (1098-1179), the first known musical composer; <b>Eleanora Duse</b> (1858-1924), the first modern actor in the Western world; <b>Simone Weil</b> (1909-1943), philosopher, activist, and mystic, whom Albert Camus called “the only great spirit of our time”; <b>Marina Abramovic </b>(b. 1946), “the grandmother of performance art”; and <b>Hilma af Klint</b> (1862-1944), the first known (and belatedly acknowledged) abstract painter. Each time Gough crosses a threshold into their world, she is compelled to attend courses, seminars and workshops that are simultaneously about dying and healing.<br>Curious to learn more about the relationships between art practice, dying, and healing, Gough imagines the five artists as wisdom teachers in a mystery school. In a series of eight lectures, she turns to performance theory to provide a framework for engaging with the unknown world. In <i>Theatre and the Threshold of Death</i>, Gough makes a persuasive argument for the world-making power of relational thinking in our increasingly polarized age.</p>