Eisa Jocson & Venuri Perera (Philippines & Sri Lanka)

Magic Maids interweaves performance, pageantry and possession. This feral incantation connects the European witch hunts to the exploitation of migrant women’s labour today.

The female figures of the witch and the maid are powerful and powerless, feared and revered, used, accused and discarded. The tropes are not mere hearsay and history but deeply rooted in today’s psyche.

International artists Eisa Jocson and Venuri Perera have collected stories of migrant domestic workers from the so-called Global South, the echoes of which now haunt their bodies. In Magic Maids – the broom – a domestic cleaning tool, as well as the vehicle of the witch – becomes an extension of their body, that transforms oppression into feminist resistance.

The duo dance a ritual of disobedience.

Part of Transform 25 international performance festival: transformfestival.org

Performances at Transform 25 co-presented by Transform and Leeds School of Arts and supported by the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in the UK.

Produced by Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm. Co-produced by HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Frascati Producties (unterstützt durch Ammodo), Tanzquartier Wien, SPRING Performing Arts Festival, Festival Theaterformen, DDD – Festival Dias da Dança, Kampnagel, Arsenic – Centre d’art scénique contemporain, La briqueterie CDCN du Val-de-Marne, Points Communs – nouvelle scène nationale Cergy-Pontoise / Val d’Oise, Maillon, Théâtre de Strasbourg – Scène européenne and Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay. Funded within the framework of the Alliance of International Production