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Interview with Lena K Shanghai’s Leading Techno DJ

2018-03-08 Claire L. Squire ShanghaiWOWeng

CLS: Hey Lina, can you tell me about yourself? Where are you from?

Lina: Well, I’m called Lina, obviously and I'm 30 and from Moldova.


CLS: Moldova?! Woah, that’s unusual. How did you end up in Shanghai?

Lina: I’m actually a professional dancer and I got a dance contract to come to China. That’s how I originally ended up here.


CLS: So how did you go from a dancer to being a techno DJ?

Lina: So it started with my love of techno. The first time I heard proper techno during my Djing class with DJ Roo James Lealand. I was like, ‘what is that?’ He told me ‘it’s techno’ and I immediately fell in love with the sound. It went from there really.

 


CLS: But how did you go from loving techno to techno being your career?

Lina:  I've been in electronic music since I was 11 years old I went to KaZantip for the first time when I was 16 which is pretty young for KaZantip.


Editors Note: When Lina said this, I just nodded like I knew what she meant because I wanted to look cool. I obviously had no idea and googled it at home. This is what Wikipedia says: “KaZantip, also known simply as "Z", is an electronic dance music festival that took place every year from 1992 to 2013 on the Crimean Peninsula; from 2002 to 2013, it was held in the village of Popovka, near Myrnyi. The entrance ticket is called a "viZa". It takes place for 2–3 weeks in August, and about 100,000 "paradiZers" visit each year. There is a cult of orange-coloured fashion and yellow suitcases associated with the festival.”


Lina: Well back home because I’m from small country no one actually wanted to teach me and to be honest… Moldova is not the place where your dreams come true. People focus more on making money not on learning something that you can’t use there.


So yeah, in Shanghai it was easier, I had a secondary job to earn money and then I spent the rest of my time focusing on DJing and music. And just one night in club I talked with Leo Chiodaroli about some classes and he was giving and he basically said ‘yes’. So he was my first teacher, but not the last.

 


CLS: You’ve had a lot of teachers?

Lina: [laughs] I’ve had many. My second teacher was Emil Chang. My third teacher was the one who inspired me the most, Theoman. And then there was Florian Bo who is a proper techno DJ from germany. From all of them I learnt something different. Then I started going gigs and it grew from there.


CLS: Was it hard for you to break into such a male dominated scene?

Lina: Mmm it's a hard question to be honest. I would actually say in China it’s easier to get gigs if you’re a women.  But if we are talking about the underground culture, I think no matter if you’re a boy or girl you just need to be good at what you’re doing. At the end of the day, gender shouldn’t matter.


CLS: Do you find that more women or men come to techno nights?

Lina: I think it's equal. But I would say that I find girls more open to new experiences, and techno is new in China. So I find women get it more. But there are some nights where there are more men on the dance floor. You just never know.

 


CLS: In a lot of your press releases for events you talk about techno being for women, or techno being a women.. why?

Lina: I think it was created for women by men. [laughs] That’s often the way the world works, and techno is no exception.


Techno isn’t only or women, or only for men. It’s for everyone. People shouldn’t be scared of the word underground or darkness or techno. Often people just don’t know how much they love it. Techno can change your life in a single night. It happened to a friend of mine who moved to Germany specifically to be closer to techno culture.

 


CLS: So, Lina, what big things do you have coming up this year?

Lina: March 24th I’m teaming up with toxic entertainment, that’s a Beijing crew, to bring an awesome artist from Canada, D-Unity, Suara, Intec and Unity Records to Arkham.  


CLS: Where can we find you regularly if we want to dip our toes into the murky waters of techno?

Lina: I am a resident DJ of Celia after hours. You can catch me there every Thursday plus some weekends. And I’m doing a techno train event every month but not at the same venue. Normally it’s Celia or Mansion, but we have done it in Dada too.

 

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