AEF2026: Angelica Liddell: Seppuku. The Funeral of Mishima or the Pleasure of Dying.

This summer, Athens Epidaurus Festival's main city venue, the former industrial complex in Pireos 260,  celebrates 20 years as one of the city’s most vital cultural meeting points. Under the artistic direction of Michail Marmarinos, this year’s landmark programme unfolds across two months of theatre, dance, music, performance, and multidisciplinary works, bringing together more than 50 events by acclaimed international artists alongside some of the most exciting voices from Greece’s contemporary scene. Pireos 260 will live through the Athenian summer as a dynamic space where emerging creators, established names, and curious audiences come together to explore what contemporary performance can be today. New collaborations, technology-driven works, and immersive experiences sit alongside bold theatrical productions, live music, and cutting-edge choreography.

Amongst these bold theatrical productions is the return of Angelica Liddell, one of the most radical and uncompromising voices in contemporary European performance. Seven years after her last appearance at the venue, Liddell brings Seppuku, a raw and boundary-pushing piece inspired by the ritual suicide of legendary Japanese author Yukio Mishima in 1970. The production functions as a theatrical funeral hymn exploring Mishima's concept of an inseparable trinity: eroticism, beauty, and death. Staged on a traditional Noh theatre set, the performance blends Liddell’s personal memories with fragments of Mishima’s texts, live traditional Japanese flute music, and a multinational cast. It builds a complex visual and sonic architecture where the sublime meets the grotesque, challenging the audience's endurance and offering a profound meditation on existential choice and absolute freedom.