In the organizer's words:

The Ruhrtriennale presents Balkan Erotic Epic - an extraordinary four-hour performance by Marina Abramović, the most influential performance artist of our time.

Marina Abramović on the project:

"I was born in the Balkans. As a child, I witnessed numerous spiritual rituals in my grandmother's house, which left a deep, lasting impression and still shape the way I see the world today.

In many ancient cultures, procreation and life itself were accompanied by numerous ceremonies that served to understand our existence. By revisiting this largely forgotten past, I want to open up a new approach and perspective for today's audiences."

Balkan Erotic Epic is an immersive experience that draws on ancient myths from the Balkans while carrying Abramović's distinctively direct, personal and powerful performance language.

The audience moves freely through 13 evolving scenes in which performers, song, movement and moments of ritual form a unity.

Abramović explores eroticism, spirituality and ritual in this work that combines performance, dance and traditional throat singing to explore and enact the eroticism rooted in Balkan mythology.

The performance brings together a feverish ritual in which men writhe on the ground to ask for fertility, women gesticulate over graves to awaken the earth, and others expose themselves to the sky to dispel impending storms. It reveals itself as a threshold experience in which body, myth, culture, memory and eroticism are interwoven, allowing the audience to leave their usual horizon of experience.

Abramović's most ambitious project to date is wild, intimate and ultimately transcendent, aiming to "rediscover the past and our present selves through it".