Part of the transdisciplinary focus work-free-time.

A visually arresting performance, Magic Maids interconnects the figures of the witch and the maid, transforming the broom from a cleaning tool into a symbol of resistance. Filled with dances and spells, it amplifies the untold stories of migrant domestic workers and invites the audience to reflect on the everlasting chain of migrant labour, the exploitation of women’s work and the female body.

Magic Maids interweaves ritual performance, pageantry, and possession. Created and performed by two internationally known artists, Eisa Jocson and Venuri Perera, it is a primal incantation that demystifies the connection between the history of European witch hunts and the ongoing extraction and exploitation of women’s labor in today’s global migrant care work. Both female figures—the witch and the maid—are part of the same misogynistic matrix: powerful and powerless, feared and revered, used, accused, and discarded. These are not mere hearsay and history, but deeply rooted in today’s psyche.

Eisa Jocson and Venuri Perera have absorbed the horror stories of migrant domestic workers from the so-called Global South, stories that now echo through their bodies. In their performance, the broom, the domestic cleaning tool, and the vehicle of the witch—become extensions of their bodies, a pivot point where oppression transforms into monstrous, feminist resistance. The brooming duo dances to rewild the domesticated feminine, performing a ritual of disobedience that dismantles the dominant narrative we live in.