Productions

Interweaving ritual performance, pageantry, and possession, "Magic Maids" is an encounter with two brooming figures engaged in the act of sweeping. The broom, a domestic cleaning tool and the vehicle of the witch, becomes an instrument for sweeping out into the open the patriarchal wounding of the feminine during the European witch-hunts and its complex deep entanglements with enduring extraction and exploitation of women’s labour in today’s global chain of migrant care and domestic work. The broom extends their bodies, an axis that transforms oppression into monstrous feminist resistance.

Eisa Jocson and Venuri Perera are from the Philippines and Sri Lanka, countries known for their significant export of domestic workers. Their collaboration began in 2022 when they noticed the absence of women at Basel Museum of Pharmaceutical History in Switzerland. This observation sparked a deep dive into the historical persecution of witches in Europe and discovered that the last woman to be executed for witchcraft in 1782 Europe, was a Swiss housemaid named Anna Göldi.  

Both female figures, "the witch" and "the maid", are part of the same matrix – 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. Jocson and Perera have heard, read and listened to horror stories of migrant domestic workers from the so-called Global South, the echoes of which now haunt their bodies.

Within "Magic Maids", sweeping transforms into a profound act of bodily inquiry, into questions of representation, political subjecthood, gendered labour, and histories of violence. Jocson and Perera channel practices of incantation and intention, using their brooming bodies to traverse interconnected territories—physical, conceptual, emotional, and transnational.The artist's ongoing practice of creating together seeks to sweep out and unsettle oppressive power structures.

"Magic Maids" invites audiences to reflect on the in/visibility of working bodies, the resilience of female solidarity, and the enduring scars of historical injustices that shape contemporary labour practices. The brooming duo dances to rewild the domesticated feminine, performing a ritual of disobedience that dismantles the dominant narrative we live in.

Duration: 1 h 30 min, without interval
Language: English
Subtitles: Estonian

Eisa Jocson is an interdisciplinary artist based in La Union, Philippines. Trained as a visual artist with a background in ballet, she came to contemporary dance through pole dancing. In her works, she explores body politics in the service and entertainment industry as seen through the socioeconomic lens of the Philippines. She studies how the body moves and what conditions make it move – be it social mobility or movement out of the Philippines through migrant work. In her creations, from ‘Death of the Pole Dancer’ to ‘Macho Dancer’ to ‘Host’ to ‘Princess’ to ‘Superwoman Band’ and ‘Manila Zoo’ – capital is the driving force of movement pushing the indentured body into ‘developed’ geographies. She regularly presents her pieces at renowned theatres and international festivals in Asia and Europe, such as Tanz im August, TPAM Yokohama, Zürcher Theaterspektakel and Frankfurter Positionen. She is a recipient of the 2018 Cultural Centre of the Philippines 13 Artists Award, the Hugo Boss Asia Art Award 2019, the SeMa-HANA Award 2021 and the Tabori Award International 2023.

Venuri Perera is a choreographer, performance artist, curator and educator from Colombo, Sri Lanka. Exploring the power dynamics of visibility and opacity, she attempts to destabilise how we perceive the ‘other.’ Her solo and collaborative creations deal with violent nationalism, patriarchy, immigration, colonial heritage and class and were invited to festivals/biennales/symposia across Europe, South and East Asia, Middle East and Africa since 2008. She has closely collaborated with choreographers Geumhyung Jeong (SK) (Theatre Spektakel / Monsoon Australia), Natsuko Tezuka (JP) (Kyoto Experiment / SIFA Singapore). Venuri conceived and curated the projects of the Colombo Dance Platform (2015-2020, Goethe-Institut) and is committed to continue creating support networks for the independent dance scene in Sri Lanka. A graduate of DAS Theatre, she is currently based in Amsterdam.