MAMI

MAMI revolves around a word that means more than just a person. Mother—for Mario Banushi, this is both origin and absence, care and imposition, closeness and loss.

In his new work, the director and performer—born in Albania and raised in Greece—condenses personal memories into a poetic exploration of the relationships that give rise to and shape lives. MAMI is a tribute to the women who raised us—and to the ambivalences associated with this legacy.

Drawing on his own experiences, Banushi creates a visual theater of memory: the stage becomes a space of remembrance, at once familiar and uncanny. Through quiet, intensely focused images, a chronicle of growing up unfolds—from early childhood impressions through first experiences of love to the discovery of one’s own desire. Tenderness and hurt, birth and transience, attachment and detachment exist in a constant state of tension. Time seems stretched out, suspended, as if following the inner logic of memories rather than a linear narrative.

A hallmark of Banushi’s work is the absence of spoken word. Bodies, gestures, music, light, and color carry the narrative. His productions emerge from an intense visual process and function like immaterial books that are meant to be experienced rather than read. His stage spaces feel like otherworldly realms where reality and symbolism imperceptibly merge. Rituals, offerings, and everyday materials combine to form a poetics of the real, in which bodies, in their raw, unguarded presence, become images of great emotional clarity. The music, strongly influenced by Balkan traditions, reinforces the ritualistic character of the performance and lends it an archaic yet contemporary quality.

Mario Banushi has made a name for himself internationally with his wordless, visually powerful theater works; in 2026, he was awarded the Silver Lion at the Venice Biennale for his work. With his debut *Ragada* and the subsequent works *Goodbye*, *Lindita*—which was presented as part of *Performing Exiles* at the 2025 Berliner Festspiele—and *Taverna Miresia – Mario Bella Anastasia*, he developed a distinctive form of visual theater in which personal experience, ritual, and collective memory intertwine.

With *MAMI*, he continues this signature style and, after pieces about farewell and grief, turns his attention to life itself: birth, transmission, the question of who carries whom—and at what cost.