'The power of a vagina': how Marina Abramović plans to keep Manchester rain free

Marina Abramović
Photo: Marco Anelli © 2022
Marina Abramović is once again making headlines—this time by announcing plans to stop rain falling on the UK via a rather unconventional method.
The grande dame of performance art told the Sunday Telegraph that she hopes to stage her Balkan Erotic Epic (2005) next year in Manchester in a “huge factory space”. We’re assuming this will be Aviva Studios-Factory International (the Manchester International Festival, a showcase for new works, takes place again next year).
The epic piece is inspired by folkloric rituals, during which women in an ancient village aged “from 15 to old women in their 80s”, would run to the fields, lift their skirts and “show the vagina” to scare the gods into stopping the rain, halting catastrophic floods.
Abramović says she will act out this ritual in Manchester with 24 dancers. “This is incredible, the idea of the power of a vagina to stop the rain,” says the artist with typical candour. Bring on the sunshine Marina.

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