MAGIC MAIDS

In the organizer's words:

by Eisa Jocson and Venuri Perera

Magic Maids interweaves ritual performance, pageantry and obsession. A wild incantation that demystifies the connection between the history of European witch-hunts and the ongoing exploitation of female labor in today's global chain of migrant care work. Both female figures, "the witch" and "the maid", are part of the same matrix - powerful and powerless, feared and revered, used, blamed and discarded. The tropes are not just rumors 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 the work, the household cleaning appliance and the witch's means of transportation - the broom - become an extension of her body, an axis that transforms oppression into monstrous feminist resistance. The broom duo dances to re-wild the domesticated feminine, performing a ritual of disobedience that dismantles the dominant narrative in which we live.

CONCEPT/DEVELOPMENT/DRAMATURGY/PERFORMANCE: Eisa Jocson, Venuri Perera

SOUND DESIGN: Soraya Bonaventure

LIGHT DESIGN: Ariana Battaglia

ARTISTIC CONSULTING: Rasa Alksnyte, Tang Fu Kuen

TEXT CONSULTING: Ruhanie Perera

SPIRITUAL CONSULTING: Nenet Ocson Babaylan-Vaigaland

CREATIVE SUPPORT: Arco Renz

DRAMATURGICAL SUPPORT: Anna Wagner, Alexandra Hennig

PRODUCTION CONSULTING: Sandro Lunin

PRODUCERS: Katja Armknecht, Anne Kleiner

PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT: Greta Katharina Klein

TECHNICAL PRODUCTION & TOURNEE: Yap Seok Hui

"Magic Maids" by Eisa Jocson and Venuri Perera is a production of Künstler*innenhaus Mousonturm in co-production with Frascati Producties (supported by Ammodo), Tanzquartier Wien, HAU Hebbel am Ufer, 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 as part of the Alliance of International Production Houses by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media and the Hessian Ministry of Science and Research, Art and Culture.
This project was supported by residencies at Kaserne Basel, Puón Institute Philippines, Goethe-Institut Sri Lanka, Dance Nucleus in collaboration with Studio Plesungan as part of the ARTEFACT Creative Residency and the Colomboscope Contemporary Art Festival 2024.