Reflections on Balkan Erotic Epic

A few days ago, I went to see Balkan Erotic Epic, a new show by performance artist Marina Abramović. I went with a dear friend and we arrived not really knowing what to expect, and what unfolded was quite an experience.

The show lasted four hours and explored themes of eros, death, ritual, and politics across thirteen scenes with more than seventy performers. It began with a short introduction from Marina herself, who said this was her largest-scale performance so far.

As we entered the space, a woman dressed in black sat on a throne, a giant screen behind her showing women in black scarves beating their chests in mourning. She was the widow of Tito, the Yugoslavian president who ruled for thirty-five years. It was a striking opening showing grief as ceremony.

We moved from one scene to another, each with its own world. We were free to go wherever we felt to. Some scenes were static, slow, almost meditative. Others were bold and physical, filled with singing, dancing, and nudity.

One set that stayed with me showed a pregnant woman dressed in a red latex dress being poured with milk as she danced, her movements were mesmerising, I felt almost hypnotised by her. She was next to another scene of a bride being prepared with careful makeup, and close to them, a funeral dance. Three stages: birth, union, and death, all happening side by side, like a reminder that these passages belong to one continuous cycle.

Other moments were raw and ancient. Naked men humping the earth in fertility rituals and opposite a group of women lifting their skirts and showing their yonis to the sky to stop the rain. Perhaps this is why Marina chose Manchester for the performance, it rains often enough here to need some divine intervention.

The most moving scene for me was of naked women in a graveyard, massaging their breasts and dancing with skeletons. It was tender, the breasts as symbols of the heart, of love and nourishment, offered to the dead. It felt like a dance of mourning, but also of devotion.

Some themes that stood out to me were the power of sexual energy in both men and women, the innocence of eros, death as passage, and love as something that glues everything together.

Marina spoke at the beginning about sexual energy being the most powerful energy we have, and about how we choose to use it, for creation or destruction, for love or control. I thought about that a lot. Eros today is often linked with porn, stripped of its sacredness and depth. Marina’s work feels like an attempt to reclaim that, to remind us that erotic energy is pure and powerful. This is something I deeply resonate with and that I try to express through my own work, and in my soon-coming book.

Another message that touched me was about death as a continuation, a part of our soul’s journey, a passage back home. And that grief is a way we express our love for lost ones.

Some of the images stayed etched in my mind and I still see them now.  In a way, they felt like moving paintings, slow, hypnotic, alive. I found myself mesmerised by the performers’ presence. Their ability to hold a posture, a movement, or an emotion for hours felt almost beyond human. Some stood completely still, others repeated gestures again and again, never breaking their focus. There was a sacred discipline in it, it felt surreal, like watching superhumans channelling something larger than themselves.

Until the very last moment, I was waiting for a finale that never came, for a climax, perhaps the birth of the baby, or the bride rising to dance, or something that tied all the threads together. But it never happened. Maybe that’s the point, life, death, love: they repeat, circle, dissolve, and begin again. Like the four hours of this performance, where not much seemed to happen, yet something deep was moving beneath the surface all along. Maybe the message was in the dance, in the slowness, in the journey. It asked for patience, for paying attention, something our fast-paced world rarely allows.

And what moved me most was not only the performance, but the quiet connection shared in the audience, holding hands, exchanging smiles, feeling human together. It reminded me that eros, in its purest form, is not only about desire, but about connection and the beauty of being with another.

(the picture is with the bride from the show who was being prepared for her wedding)

Love,

Rosie x