“EXCEPTIONAL”
– Alan Cranston, Three Weeks Edinburgh
“PERFORMANCE AGILITY OF THE HIGHEST DEGREE”
– Georgia Stone, Binge Fringe
“MAHARJAN EST INOUBLIABLE”
– JAcqueline van de geer, arts et cultur
“FANTASTICALLY TALENTED”
– YANIK COMEAU, THÉÂTRALITÉS
Lior Maharjan is an award-winning interdisciplinary artist based in Canada and working internationally. Her interests include experimental performance, comfort TV and community advocacy. Collaboration is at the centre of Lior’s practice and she’s surrounded by inspiring community, including mentors as well as emerging artists that she has mentored at programs like Artista and Playbright. Lior’s the recipient of the CAEA’s 2024 Emerging Artist Award. She is past-president of the Quebec Drama Federation’s board of directors.
On screen, Lior stars in the first instalment of George Mihalka’s new anthology horror series, Ominous, and she appears in J Stevens’ debut feature, Really Happy Someday, which premiered at the 2024 Toronto International Film Festival. Lior’s solo stage performance of Wajdi Mouawad’s Alphonse at the 2022 Edinburgh Fringe Festival received rave reviews. Other stage credits include Landscape Grindr, All I Want for Christmas, Don’t Read the Comments, and La Somnambule. Lior also enjoys voicing dubs and animations.
Lior’s theatrical adaptation of Kai Cheng Thom’s From the Stars in the Sky to the Fish in the Sea, commissioned by Geordie Theatre, received eight Montreal English Theatre Award nominations including Outstanding New Text and Production. Her writing spans into indie video games, TV development and short films, and she works as an editor and dramaturg. Some published works include Our Tree, a playlet commissioned for Boca del Lupo and Centaur’s Plays2Perform@Home series, and an essay recently published by Playwrights Canada Press in This is Beyond: A Time Capsule of Queer Experience.
Lior is a co-founder of bigT, a performance collective centering trans/GNC narratives, where she has directed and written experimental broadcasts and plays. bigT was in residence at Buddies in Bad Times as part of the 2020 Emerging Creators Unit, co-produced with b current performing arts, where the collective created E-TRANSFERS. bigT has been developing an XR project focused on gender euphoria while in residence at Theatre Passe-Muraille.
