Art Taaalkssss: Rada Leu

For the performance trio Acid Amazonians, of which Rada Leu is part of, queering is a strategy that transverses every aspect of the creation of sound. Going against the grain of the assumed, known, or habitual, Acid Amazonians have adopted rehearsal practices that allow their improvised music to take shape within predefined parameters. The performance project has undergone multiple shifts in form and identity but has solidified specific ways of “finding the vibe together,” which are constantly renegotiated and re-affirmed. What does recording, repeating, rehearsing, and releasing music look like in this constellation? 
 
For this Art Taaalkssss, Acid Amazonians’ Rada Leu will focus on practices of rehearsing that she has established within the collective and connect this to wider personal strategies of hacking and subverting forms. She will speak about the malleability of given performance contexts, explore unexpected rooms for agency, and reflect on the translation process from rehearsal to the stage. 
 
Born in Bulgaria, Rada Leu is a PhD candidate in the research project Contemporary Art, Popular Culture and Peacebuilding in Eastern Europe at the University of Zurich and the Zurich University of the Arts. She is an artist and musician, founding member of the queer noise pop band Acid Amazonians and co-founder of the Swiss-Kazakh exchange project QWAS. Leu is also an on/off member of the political theatre collective Neue Dringlichkeit and co-founder of the off-space MATERIAL in Zurich. She works and lives online.