Born to national heroes in a country that no longer exists (Yugoslavia), Marina Abramović has carved the path for performance artists with forty years of groundbreaking work. “The Artist is Present,” a 2010 survey of her career at the Museum of Modern Art, included Abramović’s most intense duration performance, in which she silently sat during museum hours in the atrium across a table from visitors, one at a time, for three months. The Life and Death of Marina Abramović, a biographical theatre piece created with Robert Wilson which includes original music by Antony and co-stars Willem Dafoe, premieres July 9 at the Manchester International Festival and will travel around the world over the next few years.