Jam session Rezidența 21: Paul Dunca/Paula Dunker, Alex Bălă, Chlorys, +SHE+, Suce Fraga, Sofia Zadar

Rezidența21 is a platform for independent music and experimentation. The program encourages mobility and the intersection of artists through artistic residencies, the commoning of local resources and training programmes in different areas of music and sound for beginners. Rezidența21 is a MATKA initiative started in 2020, curated and produced by Mihaela Cîrjan.

The MMXX-II edition was dedicated to the local queer scene, gathering artists working with different genres and practices in an artistic residency based on collaboration. The residency had two phases of collaborative work: a first one in April 2022 in a studio in Bucharest working together with 3 artists from Ukraine who had answered our open-call, and a second one, in September, in Letea Village in the Danube Delta. In Letea, some of the resident artists answered the provocation of ”Artists Play with Time ”and experimented with the sound installation composed of analogue clocks in several jam sessions.

PAUL DUNCA/PAULA DUNKER promises that her (artistic) work is based on the analysis of systems of representation, production and creation. Born in 2016, Paula Dunker is the musical alter ego and latest discovered identity in the body of performer, choreographer and playwright Paul Dunca. Paula works most often with the body. She is the daughter of Romanian contemporary dance, the sister of local political theatre, the mother of the queer clubbing scene in Bucharest and, together with Alex Bălă, initiated the techno-faggothique musical genre. She confronts existing patterns, helps to build possible new worlds and heal it. Paul Dunca/ Paula Dunker - a physical queer activist - was born in Bucharest where s/he still lives and works today. That’s why his/her work is very eclectic and includes a very large diversity of expression: from collaborating with different theater directors to creating his/her own dance pieces, from waiting tables to his/her own MTV show, from community art to performing at the Venice Biennale in the frame of the Romanian Pavilion, from articles in magazines and roles in local movies awarded internationally and performing his/her work at the National Centre of Dance in Bucharest and showing it in the Judson Church, New York or HAU2, Berlin and to live concerts with his/her queer act, #FLUID. All in all s/he’s happy whenever s/he can be useful, move and move the world.

ALEX BĂLĂ is a music composer, instrumentalist & producer born in Craiova, who lives and works in Bucharest. Alex Bălă is an extremely versatile musician, who throughout his career has worked and continues to work in various group formats or as a producer of music for theatre and film. In 2013 he started together with artists Cristian Fierbințeanu and Gabriela Fierbințeanu (Fierbințeanu) the electronic music project Plurabelle, in which he worked as producer and instrumentalist. In 2016 he composed and performed music for the ”The Sung History of Romanian Dance”, supported by the National Dance Centre Bucharest @cndb.ro. Since 2011, Alex Bălă has been composing music for theatre plays and films in Romania and abroad, including ”If I Think Out Loud” (d. Radu Afrim, 2017), ”All the Peace in the World” (d. Radu Apostol, 2019) and ”Amortals” (d. Bogdan Georgescu, 2022), which recently premiered at the Marin Sorescu National Theatre in Craiova.

SUCE FRAGA • outernational pseudo-ghetto sensitivity, fragile neo-femme power and genre cannibalism. Fraga could be regarded as a synthetic self-thought producer. Traversing with ease different breeds of electronica while being immersed in trap, hip-hop, and no-step grooves. Jumping off the grid with unparalleled elegance, her voice keeps all surrounding sounds together rendering in the end a very personal, strangely coherent universe. Born and raised in Bucharest, Andreea Baciu aka Suce Fraga comes from a family of engineers and sales people who have always been supportive of her creativity. She joined the Romanian Radio Broadcasting Choir of Bucharest at the age of 9. This is the moment when her mindset switches from audiophile to music playing. Psychology University graduate, she followed her interest in the study of human behaviour and went for a master’s degree in psychoanalysis. In the meantime her love for music shifted into a craving to produce audio material of her own, she started to play in a band and study bass, drums and eventually, made it into the world of digital audio workstations. compositions. Thematically, Sofia Zada’s music explores the spaces between the emotional and the social, all from a queer and feminist perspective. In 2020 Sofia Zadar released her first EP • Sunday Blue • and on 22 August 2021 she released her 2nd one • Lyra • an ecofeminist meditation on communities and collective transformation. The EP was produced at Cirkular studio • @cirkular.ro • in Cluj and has been characterized, among other things, as ”a handful of tracks that excel lyrically and sonically alike, rising above entire albums of unassuming aesthetics” (Cezar Popa, Echinox Magazine).

CHLORYS is a musical & visual entity, part of the Queer Night family, a Shape Platform artist (2017 edition) and a founding member of the Corp. platform, with a main focus on the representation & promotion of queer identities (trans, non-binary, etc.). She has been a resident of Noods Radio for two years, where she is in charge of the ”Alien Flora”; show, and from 2021, together with Corp., takes care of the Corpcast radio show on the local radio station Black Rhino Radio.

+SHE+ (Corina Sucarov) started experimenting with music in various bands, doing backing vocals and performance. In 2017, she started shy and unannounced concerts at festivals to test how she feels when she shows her child. In 2018, experimenting with new sounds, she gave birth to the first songs on her first album, and in 2019 Corina launched the project +SHE + in Control Club in Bucharest and then followed concerts around the country and abroad. In May 2022, +SHE+ launched her 2nd album, „Katerina Molotov”, and started performing with her own band. +SHE+ is an amalgam of intense emotions as the artist is in everyday life. The project has a synth-pop & dark-electro taste, and with each bite another flavor is added in your body.