Latinx queer artist, performer, DJ, witch, sound alchemist, and esoteric creative director MAAY conjures rituals of resistance, infusing their craft with the dark beauty of horror and using it as a tool to forge powerful, politically resonant art.
Through their current projects – Curandera Queer Ceremonial Rave, MAAY SPACE, and Truth Spell – MAAY conjures alternative realities, e normative in the vibrant Berlin queer scene. Recently celebrated by the FLINTA community, they have made history as the first FLINTA DJ to perform at the legendary sex party LABORATORY at Berghain.
Their artistic reach expanded across Europe, captivating audiences in cities like Paris, Lithuania, Spain, Portugal, and London, among others. MAAY has released music on labels such as Soul Feeder, Burenhinder, TRRUENO, HYPERLINK, and Martirio, blending elements of their Latin music heritage with experimental electronic music, hardcore, perreo, pop, and more, connecting heaven and earth through their work.
➜ MAAY will be a part of the Halloween Fullhouse (3-stage party in Fuchs2 and Bike Jesus, Prague on November 1st). Don’t miss her performance! You can buy tickets via Resident Advisor here.
„HALLOWEEN“: What does this word mean for you? What images and emotions evoke, when you hear this word?
„I have always been fascinated by the idea that spirits can cross over into the world of the living and that the line is blurred for that day. I wish it would be like that every day since death is still such a big taboo, which many people don’t know how to deal with in Western culture especially. As a good ascendant in Scorpio, I am interested in exploring those issues that cross me, and bringing them to this reality, enabling that connection with the unknown, looking for ways to transit the deaths, finding beauty in all that, where life is also celebrated, which is not the end if that channel is still enabled. Let’s play that we are all together, alive, and dead, let’s make it a constant dialogue!! I love to smoke weed and dance with my dead friend <3
Although capitalism empties everything of sense and turns it into consumption, I love that on that day everything gore is allowed and the dark aesthetic is everywhere. It’s a total fantasy and I kind of have fun feeling like everyone looks like me every day lol. But I also love that people can dress up as whatever they want, as it seems to me the best plan ever.“
SANGRE horror fashion show. Foto: @shotbykyri
With your art, you work with „a dark beauty of horror“. Also with the themes of mysticism and witchcraft. Do you know when was the point in your life, when you said to yourself: „This is what I’m going to do with my art“?
„I’d say that rather than a specific moment in my life when I decided to do it, it was a long process of exploration and materialization. Although from the moment I came out of my mother’s womb 3 months earlier than expected and on a Tuesday the 13th (in popular culture it is said to be an unlucky day) mysticism never left me. The birth was very risky for my mother and me, but in the end, it went well. The first days in the incubator machine she left me a little music box so I could get used to the party that was in the street because there were the neighborhood “murgas” in the middle of the summer carnival.
So my first contact with this world was esoteric, then the witchcraft came from the hand of the healers of the neighborhood and the formation in catholic school that also formed me artistically. My art is all these kinds of memories from this life or others materialized.“
Badtothebone Paris / Foto: @romain.guede
Do you feel the modern spike in popularity of this gothic/dark aesthetics? With the enormous popularity of movies like Wednesday with Jenna Ortega, Beetlejuice, and so on?
„Mmmm I can say that it’s okay on one hand, because I also received things through mainstream popular culture, and there are some good inputs there, reclaiming stigmatized roles of women, the figure of the witch, etc. But it’s still mainstream, and everything comes through super diluted, sometimes very inaccurately, turning it into a trend or something superficial, without much exploration and with a big loss of knowledge. There’s nothing we can do about it – real witches are in the underground.“
Michael Keaton in new adaptation of cult classic „Beetlejuice“ and Jenna Ortega in „Wednesday“
What about the goth music movements and punk bands from the UK like Siouxsie & the Banshees, Cure, and Bauhaus… do you find inspiration in their presentation and music or not at all?
„OK, if you mention The Cure I have to take my hat off because obviously it was a deep love story. Ofc is on my list of biggest inspirations, and list of my best live shows ever. It was in Buenos Aires in 2013, and it was a miracle because they just came in 1987 but they canceled the show because there were riots and fights among the public. So it was almost a miracle they decided to come back after a decade. One of my best trips on acid ever <3 so thanks to one of the only friends I still have from school Melisa (a lesbian icon I love) to introduce me to that.
MAAY at LAB Berghain / Foto: @thesirenface
When you are preparing for the new performance, what’s your creative process, are you researching a lot?
„I work with the available energy, connecting it to my processes and spiritual path. My body is a channel for so many things that, trusting in that, I try to follow a more intuitive path – listening to what I feel like doing and sharing, but also staying open to what the universe has to offer in that line of research I’m following. So I’d say I’m in constant exploration, drawn to what fascinates me and open to letting experiences impact me deeply, watching the right anime, following the astrological climate, and connecting everything with everything else, like an infinite web of threads ever-expanding, so alive.“
When did you move to Berlin, and what do you say about the current underground art/music scene? How is it compared to Buenos Aires?
„I moved at the end of 2018, and things changed a lot. Many people moved here after COVID-19, people from Asia, from Ukraine, escaping the war, as well as a large number of exiles from South America. So the art music scene is in a good time now. I have to say that different cultures are here joining forces to create spaces of support, inspiration, and fun, doing fundraiser parties, solo events, and interesting proposals. I see that there is more intervention in the spaces than before, which makes me very happy because I did not understand all the distance between the institution of the club, etc., and more.
Buenos Aires I can’t compare it, sorry</3 there, everything is about creative force, community, doing things on a small budget, hard work, and always with the best ideas and talent. Despite the worst crisis in history that we are currently in, artists from there are able to come on tour to bless us.“
You are working with powerful political topics as well as rituals of resistance. What artists or people inspired you in their philosophies or art practice?
„Well, many researchers, astrologers, witches, political scientists, South American poets, Estela, my teacher and spiritual guide, Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, the grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo in Argentina (who fought for their children and grandchildren of those who disappeared during the military dictatorship), the horror writer Mariana Enriquez, and colleagues around the world, especially queer people who are speaking out at a time when many are silent like Cru and Odete from Portugal. And especially my friend Jovendelaperla.“
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✽ You can follow MAAY via Instagram or SoundCloud ✽
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