Between Two Lights

Is there an in-between space - a moment in which we are no longer who we were, but do not yet know who we will become? Between Two Lights is a staged sensory listening experience between narrative music theatre and classical concert. A journey to the edge of existence - and back again.

Chinese-American composer Huang Ruo found the roots of this composition in the Heart Sutra, a Buddhist text in which emptiness and form flow into one another. Not abstract mysticism, but a guide through what touches us all: the elusive moment between farewell and beginning. During the pandemic, Huang Ruo lost his mother. He returned to his birthplace and participated in a traditional seven-day mourning ritual, followed by six weeks of bardo - a time of transition. Of silence. Of searching. From that personal loss, the first notes of this composition emerged. Between Two Lights is built upon musical mantras: patterns that are not only heard but also physically felt. Sound as a carrier of rhythm, breath, and memory. Sixteen singers of the Nederlands Kamerkoor, performer Grace Ellen Barkey, and Huang Ruo move through the space. Under the direction of Aïda Gabriëls and Tido Visser, the audience is not merely a spectator but a participant. Not guided toward an answer, but toward an experience. We move from the external to the internal, from the personal to the universal - and back to what that means for each of us, here and now. Can we dare to look at the moment when everything falls silent? At not-knowing. At emptiness. At what binds us all, yet is seldom spoken of.