U>N>I>T>E>D is the latest work in the canon of Chunky Move Artistic Director Antony Hamilton’s ‘speculative future’ performances, following recent innovative dance experiences created by the company such as Token Armies (2019) and Yung Lung (2022).
Exploring ‘machine mysticism’ and the persistence of spirituality in a post-industrial digital age, the work is a major international collaboration with leaders in the Javanese experimental scene, Gabber Modus Operandi Bali-based streetwear label Future Loundry, Australian global leaders in animatronic design, Creature Technology Co., and a stellar line up of six dancers.
Drawing from its artists’ individual artistic and cultural practices, U>N>I>T>E>D will be an exhilarating melding of sophisticated movement, infectious music and science fiction-inspired design, that honours technologies both ancient and contemporary; inner and collective.
September 20th – 22nd, 2024 HAU Hebbel am Ufer, Berlin October 4th – 6th, 2024 Esplanade, Singapore October 11th – 12th, 2024 Tanzquartier Wien, Vienna March 7th – 9th, 2025 Kampnagel, Hamburg March 14th – 16th, 2025 Arsenic, Lausanne March 20th – 21st, 2025 Maillon, Strasbourg March 25th – 26th, 2025 Points Communs, Cergy March 29th, 2025 La Briqueterie, Vitry-sur-Seine May 3rd – 4th, 2025 Festival DDD, Porto May 22nd – 23rd, 2025 Spring Performing Arts Festival, Utrecht June 21st – 22nd, 2025 Festival Theaterformen, Hannover June 29th, 2025 Belluard Bollwerk Festival, Fribourg July 4th – 6th, 2025 National Arts Festival, Makhanda July 12th – 13th, 2025 Santarcangelo Festival, Santarcangelo di Romagna 80 minutes
Interweaving ritual, pageantry, performance and possession, Magic Maids presents an encounter with two figures engaged in the ritual act of sweeping. The broom, a domestic tool for cleaning and the vehicle of the witch, becomes a symbol of both oppression and resistance. It is an extension of the body and a portal for metamorphosis. The art workers and their brooms exist in a continuous state of becoming.
Eisa Jocson and Venuri Perera are from the Philippines and Sri Lanka respectively, two 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 their investigation of the historical persecution of witches; in Europe and its implications for the exploitation of female labour in colonised regions. They discovered that the accusation of witchcraft continues to be a tool for persecuting migrant workers from the Global South.
Magic Maids is a bodily response to their grappling with these complex entanglements. They call upon practices of incantation and intention, using their bodies to traverse multiple territories: physical, conceptual, transnational, emotional, and gendered. The labour in performance enables an embodied inquiry into questions of representation, political subjecthood and histories of oppression. Having individually presented solo work across international festivals and platforms that follows this line of inquiry, Jocson and Perera come together for the first time to sweep out and unsettle oppressive power structures. Rewilding the domestic, they aim to release, reclaim, rejoice, and reconnect with the primal energies.
Magic Maids is an invitation to witness and reflect on the visibility of the working body, the power of female solidarity, and the enduring impact of historical injustices on modern labour practices.
