Daniela Lalita is a New York-based musician. Her work intersects sensory environments, musical composition and tactile craft in setting, sculpture, and costume. Her practice is currently supported by post-graduate research and output within NYU Steinhardt’s Music Technology Department. Her most recent public work produced in 2017 was made under the mentorship of American Electronic Composer and Cal Arts Founding member, Morton Subotnick.

The performance entitled “Madre” utilized a Buchla synthesizer effectively mimicking in sound the process of material sewing connecting the theater of her physical practice to her immaterial one.

Lalita provokes and tests the boundaries between earthen processes of narrative formation and new age technological stimulation. She is most immediately finishing an album where among her collaborators is her own mother; the work is slated for release in 2019.

In the following, she is interviewed by her mother Pilar Secada and her grandmother Doris Martinez:

PS&DM  What are the most recurrent thoughts you have during a normal day?
DL  I mostly anticipate and fear new things

PS&DM  What makes you the saddest?
DL The death of magic, separation, injustice, lack of hope, love taken in vain, lies.

PS&DM  What is your biggest fear?

DL Abandonment and what I cannot control, like time.

PS&DM  What do you consider someone’s greatest virtue?
DL Vulnerability. I’d prefer for them to proudly weep instead of holding onto anger, hiding
beneath a mask.

PS&DM  What is the flaw that bothers you most in a person or in yourself?
DL Hypocrisy and lying. Cowardice behavior, especially when it has to do with feelings. Those three can come from the same world.

PS&DM  What is your favorite hobby?
DL Being with someone I love.

PS&DM  Your favorite color?
DL Pink, sometimes red.

PS&DM  What is your favorite animal?

DL I have a strong connection to giant squids.

PS&DM  What is your idea of happiness?

DL For all my selves to coordinate and integrate so that we can deal with destabilizing external and internal events in a peaceful way.

PS&DM  When have you been absolutely happy?
DL When I went inside the ocean with you Gordis (Grandma)

PS&DM  What would be your greatest misfortune?
DL Losing you guys

PS&DM  What person do you admire and why?
DL You two. For overcoming different forms of injustice that was imposed upon you two, back home, through misogyny; the lack of support and constant demand to restrain from showing emotions while having to push forward.

PS&DM  What could plunge you into the deepest misery?
DL The abandonment of magic. The abandonment of hope, faith, and love.

PS&DM  What is the word or words you use most often?
DL "No entiendo".

PS&DM  What has been your greatest achievement so far?
DL My presentation “Madre” last October.

PS&DM  What personal object is the one that has more value for you?
DL E.Tsito. An E.T doll that we bought in Universal Studios when I was 6. My mom would give it a voice when I was younger. We spoke a lot.

PS&DM  What is your motto?
DL It is more like a thought or reminder. I took that from a self-help book my dad gave me lol, it’s called “Do the Work”. The higher your goals are, the stronger there will be a resistive force that aims to stop your attempts. It is an unconscious but present force, and it will manifest in any way, in any person and try to control any thought if that is what it has to do to stop you.

PS&DM  What is the craziest thing you have done so far in your life?
DL Having more faith in romance than on what is rational.

Daniela Lalita full interview appears in TUNICA Magazine Issue No. 7.  Get yours here.