Maiden / Mother / Whore

In collaboration with The University of Edinburgh, Queen Margaret University and Dancebase, Theiya Arts will bring an experiential arts-academia symposium to the city this October, followed by three November performances of new intersectional feminist performance work in Edinburgh and Glasgow

Dance Base, Edinburgh – 7th October 2024, 1- 4pm

Assembly Roxy, Edinburgh – 1st November 2024, 12 – 5.30pm

Southside Community Centre, Edinburgh – 9th November, 1 – 4pm

Venue TBC, ‘Focus on South Asian Arts’ event collab. The Work Room – 15th November (AM – time tbc)

Civic House, Glasgow – 15th November, 5.30 – 7pm


Theiyā Arts Dance Collective in collaboration with The Centre for Biomedicine, Self and Society at The University of Edinburgh present a new interdisciplinary mixed media performance – Maiden | Mother | Whore – exploring the complex relationships between women, social structures, health and social policies, and institutions. 

Maiden | Mother | Whore will be performed for the public in November: first in Edinburgh, at the Assembly Roxy (1 November) and the Southside Community Centre  (9 November), before a final performance at Civic House in Glasgow (15 November).

Prior to the November performances, on Monday 7th October there will be an experiential symposium in collaboration with The Centre for Biomedicine, Self and Society at The University of Edinburgh, Centre for Applied Social Sciences at the Queen Margaret University, and Dancebase, Edinburgh. 

This symposium aims to offer a unique space for multi-disciplinary critical discourse, knowledge exchange, and relational introspections of arts and academia.

Drawing on women’s embodied experiences and narratives, Maiden | Mother | Whore is a thought-provoking mixed-media performance that delves into the tensions between individuals and collectives, agency and power, and patterns of oppression and resistance.

The work seeks to investigate the polarised roles and positioning of women and their impact on subjectivities, both collective and individual, through the lens of Transnational Intersectional Feminism. 

The audience are invited to become part of the creation of the performance, contributing to and furthering the dialogue between academic and artistic communities, as the performance evolves in response to their engagement with the piece.

An interactive, multi-media show using projection, live music, spoken word, and South Asian classical-contemporary dance, Maiden | Mother | Whore urges all to consider the relationship between self and society and what it means to exist in a gendered body today.

Maiden | Mother | Whore emerged as a result of a creative partnership between Theiyā Arts Dance Collective and academics from the Centre for Biomedicine, Self and Society and is supported by Creative Scotland and Dance Base, Edinburgh.