At Aviva Studios in Manchester this October, Marina Abramović unveils Balkan Erotic Epic, an ambitious new performance that sees the pioneering artist return to the folkloric and spiritual roots of her Balkan heritage. Presented by Factory International as part of its 2025 programme, the work reimagines ancient rituals of eroticism and fertility as immersive contemporary performance. It is a vast, sensorial experience that unfolds across thirteen interconnected scenes featuring more than seventy performers in an environment charged with movement, sound and mythic symbolism.
Abramović’s practice has always sought to test the limits of endurance, intimacy and collective energy. Here, she directs those impulses towards the erotic not as provocation but as sacred life force. The performance draws on oral traditions and ancestral customs from across the Balkans including Serbia, Bosnia, Albania, Macedonia, Kosovo, and Roma and Traveller cultures. Each sequence reveals how sexuality, spirituality and survival are intertwined. Scenes such as Fertility Rite, Massaging the Breast and In Scaring the Gods revisit rituals in which the body served as a conduit between human and divine, reclaiming gestures that were once communal acts of faith, fertility and protection.
Costume plays a vital role in transforming these rituals into living tableau, and for this production Abramović collaborates with fashion designer Roksanda Ilinčić. Known for her architectural silhouettes and sculptural sensitivity to the female form, Roksanda brings a profound understanding of material and emotion to the stage. Her costumes channel both the austerity and sensuality of Balkan tradition—draped fabrics that move like skin and smoke, earthen tones interrupted by flashes of crimson, gold or indigo. They clothe the performers in garments that feel ceremonial yet bodily, amplifying Abramović’s vision of the body as a site of both vulnerability and transcendence.
The result is a powerful meeting of two artists fluent in the language of gesture and form. Abramović’s performance and Roksanda’s design converge to blur the boundaries between fashion, ritual and art, asking what it means to inhabit the erotic as a mode of connection.
Following its successful run in Manchester, Balkan Erotic Epic is set to travel internationally in 2026.
