Mai’yah Kau, also known as Maima, The Water Spirit, is an emerging queer Liberian diasporic interdisciplinary artist with roots in Staten Island, NY. Their work weaves together identity, heritage, and spirituality, blending traditional West African dance with contemporary queer performance to create ceremonial rituals and embodied storytelling. Mai’yah is a full-spectrum doula and birth worker as well as a burgeoning burlesque performer, these varied practices contribute to Mai’yah’s ability to work across and beyond performance genres. Their work has been shown at Bronx Academy of Art & Dance, Movement Research @ Judson and the Snug Harbor Dance Festival. Mai’yah is also a recipient of the Mertz Gilmore Dance Research Award, fellow of the Divine Fellowship with Public Assistants and Eureka! Press as well as 2024 artist in residence with Dancing Futures Residency with Pepatian in collaboration with BAAD. Through movement and multidisciplinary art, Kau searches for ancestral narratives—both personal and collective—as a way to honor heritage while imagining new futures. Their practice is an ongoing exploration of transformation, resilience, and the fluidity of cultural memory.

Instagram: @mai.yah