Performance
Marina Abramović: Balkan Erotic Epic. The Stage Version
German premiere
World premiere of the immersive hangar version: 9 October 2025, Factory International, Manchester
World premiere of the stage version: 24 January 2026, Gran Teatre del Liceu, Barcelona
Balkan Erotic Epic © Berliner Festspiele
With Balkan Erotic Epic, performance icon Marina Abramović returns to her roots – transforming Balkan myths into a rapturous ritual of body, shame and life force. An intense invocation of the erotic as a source of energy, insight and community.
With Balkan Erotic Epic, Marina Abramović presents one of the most radical and at the same time sensuous works of her career. The great pioneer of performance art returns to her roots – unleashing a new, collective energy out of it. Inspired by the erotic rituals and folk myths of the Balkans, her homeland, the artist creates a polyphonic hymn to life force: raw, archaic, overwhelming.
Balkan Erotic Epic is more than a performance – it is a conjuring. Building on her 2005 video work of the same name, Abramović unfolds a powerful new work exploring female energy, shame, desire, and the relationship between body and history. Premiered as an immersive performance in Manchester in October 2025, the Performing Arts Season will present the stage version of Balkan Erotic Epic in 2026 for the first time in Germany.
Singers, dancers and musicians bring to life a sequence of scenes oscillating between celebration, prayer and liberation. Bodies enact a feverish ritual, writhing on the ground in a desperate call for fertility. Women massage their bare breasts to awaken the earth, or bare themselves under the open sky to ward off storms. Here, eroticism appears not as allure but as primal force, a language beyond shame, morality and control.
As in earlier key works – the physically extreme cleansing ritual Balkan Baroque (1997) or the silent encounter The Artist is Present (2010) – Abramović probes the boundaries between body, consciousness and audience. But where she once confronted her audience with a quiet, singular presence, here she unfolds a collective physical experience of a new dimension and complexity.
Balkan Erotic Epic connects to the spiritual and political power of Abramović’s oeuvre while ushering it into a new phase: more communal, sensuous and ritualistic. She returns to the myths and tensions of her homeland, where eroticism, pain and belief intersect. It is a return to origins – and simultaneously a departure toward a future in which the erotic becomes a source of insight, healing and power.
Born in Belgrade in 1946, Marina Abramović is a central figure in performance art. Since the 1970s, she has rigorously explored the limits of body, pain, endurance and presence. In her early works, she put her own life and body at risk (Rhythm 0, 1974). Together with the artist Ulay, she developed intense duo performances exploring intimacy, connection and separation. One of her most recognised works worldwide is The Artist is Present, in which she sat silently across from visitors at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) for hours – an iconic moment of still encounter and radical presence.
Artistic Team
Balkan Erotic Epic created by Marina Abramović
Marina Abramović – Artist, Director, Concept, Design
Georgine Maria-Magdalena Balk – Associate Director
Blenard Azizaj – Choreographer
Billy Zhao – Durational Performance Director
Nabil Elderkin – Film Director
Marko Nikodijević – Composer
Luka Kozlovački – Composer / Sound Designer
Urs Schönebaum – Lighting Designer
Anna Schöttl – Set Designer
Roksanda Ilinčić – Costume Designer
Sonia Alcón, Fredrik Nordbeck – Animation
Marco Anelli – Photography
Svetlana Spajić – Creative Consultant / Singer
Aleksandar Timotić – Creative Consultant / Singer
Dragana Jovanović – Creative Consultant / Singer / Band Leader
Elke Luyten – Performance Artist / Co-Creator of the Role
Maria Stamenković Herranz – Performance Artist / Co-Creator of the Role
Rowan Schratzberger – Assistant Choreographer
Helene Schönebaum – Assistant Set Designer
Tigger Blaize – Intimacy Coordinator
Shanti Freed – Costume Collaboration and Supervisor
Rafi Gokay Wol – Creative Consultant / Executive Producer for Marina Abramović
Yasemin Kandemiroğlu – Creative Consultant / Producer for Marina Abramović
Cast
Dragana Jovanović, Svetlana Spajić, Aleksandar Timotić – Singers
Elke Luyten, Maria Stamenković Herranz (MSH) – Performance Artists
George Adams, Blenard Azizaj, Louis Baxter, Jem Bentham, Maria Vittoria Bortolotti, Kennady Brim, Kibrea Carmichael, Elena Cattardico, Molly Crabtree, Daisy Dancer, Chiara Duccini, Ayesha Fazal, Myrto Georgiadi, Isaac Glenister, Silas Grocott-Cain, Lucy Harries, JP Hon, Joshua Hubbard, Esme Jobey, Spike King, Mak Korda, Gabriella Lemma, Ting Li, Andrea Louca, Margherita Mattia, Sara Maurizi, Nicole Nevitt, Zara Phillips, Vilim Poljanec, Ella Posti, Emma Poyer, Dominic Rocca, Clara Selberg, Marianna Sfyridi, Sophie Thomas, Jack Trotter, Stylianos Tsatsos, Yue Ying Ho – Dancers
Ruby Abbas, Lily Antonia, Anton Apicella, Chris Brown, James Cale, Porcelain Delaney, Rowena Gander, Owen Gaynor, Vanda Hagan, Tom Halls, Tora Hed, Lewys Holt, Neil Jacob, Maisha Kungu, Ali Matthews, Lizzy Owen, Saskia Roy, Ian Sharpe, Yuma Sylla – Performers
Natalia Leniartek – Performer, Make-up Artist
Musicians
Valerie Barr – Accordion
Chris Barron, Maxim Kemp – Tuba
Will Bird – Trumpet
Grace Harman, Robbie Richardson – Flugelhorn
Georgina MacDonell Finlayson – Violin
Sam Milton, Emilio Yañez Ruiz – Percussion
James Seabrook – Sousaphone
Musician programming support provided by the Royal Northern College of Music.
Tito’s Funeral Film Performers
Fahmida Afzal, Alexandra Alexandre, Maxine Blake, Christina Boden, Lin Bosomworth, Belinda Cunningham, Geraldine Curry, Joan Dewhurst, Rose Dewhurst, Jane Disley, Susan Elliott-Lyall, Ann England, Elaine Fell, Clara Fernandez Pakter, Cheryl Finnigan, Nicola Fitzgerald, Sue Frumin, Teresa Ghorbani, Karen Greenwood, Sharon Hall, Venus Hudnott, Kate Jobling, Anne Jones, Diane Kay, Maria Kay, Ping Kelly, Amanda Maugham, Christine McAlister, Helen Orme, Wendi O’Toner, Rosemary Phiri, Anne Preston, Rachel Puddick, Charlotte Quinn, Hilary Richards, Rio Roberts, Siobhan Roscoe, Denise Sides, Susan Skarratts, Alison Smeltzer, Sharon Sutherberry, Liliane Taylor, Caroline Thompson, Mimi Walder, June Weights – Performers
Marina Abramović about Balkan Erotic Epic
Marina Abramović about Balkan Erotic Epic
© Factory International, Manchester
Commissioned by Berliner Festspiele; Factory International, Manchester; Gran Teatre del Liceu; Park Avenue Armory; Ruhrtriennale; Les Théâtres de la Ville de Luxembourg; and WestK Performing Arts, Hong Kong
Produced by Factory International, Manchester